looked random enough to them so they went with it...
But it wasn't. It doesn't matter if a number looks random or not if you're sure that it wasn't generated in a predictable way. In this case, the number might seem random, but all of us can verify that it was the hash of a non-random number. Anyway, I'm still not sure how's this incident related with the discussion. The bitcoin may have been deposited and withdrawn by the same person who were testing the ecosystem back then. It's highly likely that there are bots that scan for this known keys, in case someone sends money, though.
flaws in random number generator algorithms i think i heard about how someone exploited that to hack some private keys once. the algo was using the time as a seed or something.
Would you like to share a link?