OK, but do we actually have any web apps handling significant btc amounts developed by such competent people? Things like MPOE or satoshidice don't count, they are not full featured web apps. I am under impression that nothing (at least, nothing legit) related to btc is so profitable that 20yr-experience-professional can maintain living off it. Not even considering that he won't be working alone, there must be customer support, etc...

Yep, there is only a handful of bitcoin companies that are making enough money to fund the development and on-going support/security research/so on. I don't know how much btc-e guys were making money, but I doubt that they made enough to pay for security professionals, audits etc.

You are being childish. People are allowed to do what they like. The users are responsible for where they place their money.

Competence is relative and isn't achieved the same way. Conferences and seminars (like qualifications!) are cash cows, I'm glad that you feel you have benefitted from them, personally I believe that they form part of the academic "belief" system that one is not wise unless he has a piece of paper, club tie or other affiliation to say so.

This is the crux of the matter. Currently, users want a cheap, fast, easy to use, highly secure service. But such service levels require sufficient funding, which isn't available to many of the startups. As the BTC market grows, so will the opportunity for decent services. (That said, many of these hacks have been down to gross incompetence/negligence and/or inside job corruption).

The infrastructure will mature at the rate that the market allows.


BB.

Since it looks like BTC-e's hot vs cold wallet and transfer limits worked to stop loss, it does seem like some of this is already implemented.  But I'm amazed that a btc-e rep wasn't there within 10 minutes.

It would be extremely easy to code soft limits that both trigger a bedside alarm (i.e. your phone) and slow things down whenever any out-of-ordinary transfers happen.  Like trading curbs in the stock markets.  For example, if the price of any currency increases/decreases by > N%, or BTC/fiat money incoming or outgoing is N% more then the average.  Its a 10 minute confirmation time anyway so most people would not even notice that their xfer needed to be manually approved.   

Accepting disrupted sleep due to false alarms once per month might have saved btc-e 40 grand USD...

It's all convenience versus security. I rather for an exchange to take 24 hours then to take a minute to process if it means the difference between theft and continuous operation.

Why is it that "depositing" coins in an exchange requires you to transfer coins to the exchanges BTC address? I mean, why do you give them complete control over your coin before you even decide to sell? Do exchanges use all the "idle" BTC for loans and stuff and just keep enough around to handle withdrawls?

Maybe we should have to enter our private keys or transfer coins only when we place a sell BTC order...it seems to me that the exchange concept ignores some of the security features of Bitcoin in exchange for convenience and liquidity.

Ok, I have taken the title of this thread to heart and stopped programming my web app.


The app would have made it possible to use Bitcoin at any retailer online and also all POS transactions. It would also allow texting and cell phone service anywhere via the blockchain for one Satoshi per month. I was just finishing up the code that piggybacked the mining GPU to help tell the future through a complex algorithm that could tell you what was going to happen the next day based upon a solved block.

I just did a rm -f* on my server and have quit my job as a software engineer telling my boss that the work we are doing is pointless because it is not secure. He agreed and quit, all the way up the ladder everyone is quitting and the company is shuttering their doors.

Thank You. Advice heeded.

There is software called Open Transactions, he is working on usability right now, it has everything needed to do exactly as you describe: you control your coins until the exact point of trade.

It is only a matter of time until that becomes user friendly, i hope.


Although you will still need to trust someone who holds the "cash" side of the trade. You can only trade digital for digital, so we still need "banks" that have an amount of dollars in an account.

Make sure to the delete your backups source control as well, otherwise it doesn't count.
Some hacker might find one of your backups and finish building the site for you ... and who knows what harm that will cause?!

Oh, and wipe all harddrives, those forensics dudes are devious.

We do.