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Comment by ryporter | Hacker News Reader

Normal banking systems can have the same problem when they, too, have lax security. Witness the $100 million heist from the Bangladesh account at the NY Fed.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/hackers-steal--100-million-fro...

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That the Bangladesh example is the common counterpoint despite tons of banks and money in US unaffected really supports parent's claim. You had go to to a 3rd world country whose banks had little to no security to make average bank look as bad or worse than Bitcoin exchanges. Doesn't work that way.

The quote was "normal banks can", not "average banks do at the same rate or worse". The point is that the same challenge exists with physical banks, it's just been solved better because they have had more time to develop the security protocols.

And they put more effort into doing so with regulations from central authorities pushing it. There are no regulations, central authorities, or even strong investments in such security for the Bitcoin exchanges. So, again, how normal banks handle security vs how Bitcoins are managed is difference between night and day. You bringing in an exceptional situation for normal banking (a) doesn't apply to majority of normal banks, (b) distracts from fact that such things are normal for Bitcoin but not status quo its proponents want people to avoid, and (c) ignores that there's rarely effort in protecting Bitcoin exchanges that matches what players in existing system put in.

So, people should trust or build on existing system if they care about their stuff disappearing or being stolen. There's mitigations that work for that situation for the common case. Unlike Bitcoin and its exchanges.

The NY Fed is in New York.

The point of attack was not. You won't regularly see hackers stealing $100 million through a bank in the U.S. or compromising all its members. You will see Bitcoin exchanges regularly suffer major losses. It's not the exception like Bangladesh: it's the rule. Hence my counterpoint.

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