
Swiss council to accept Bitcoin payments - djaychela
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-36257465
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herbst
> "It is highly concerning that a state institution should accept Bitcoin,
> since it is not a secure currency,"

I don't think this person understood what the word secure ment. There are many
negative things one can say about Bitcoin, but being not secure is clearly non
of those.

~~~
MichaelBurge
I think he's worried that someone will break into their website and steal all
the bitcoin. There could be no way to track down the offender, and no way to
reverse the transfer.

You might say that security is the probability of a successful attack times
the penalty. Maybe it's harder(less probability) to steal Bitcoin than to get
your routing and checking account number and drain the account, but in the
second case you call up the bank and get the money back(less penalty).

I don't know that 'Bitcoin is not a secure currency', but storing large
quantities of Bitcoin is a security hazard the same way storing large
quantities of gasoline, crude oil, and fireworks in your garage is. It makes
sense to classify that as a security issue, since "The bad guys light a match
in our garage" is an attack vector that needs consideration in the security
policy.

If you keep the Bitcoin on an airgapped computer, require two technical
personal for every interaction and document every step, install cameras on the
premises to watch for intruders, ensure that any received "hot" Bitcoin is
backed up to a separate secure "cold" facility using regular secure transfers,
ensure that the Bitcoin is transferred daily to the machine and that the
machine itself transfers it to a new address that nobody knows until its
needed, and use one of those fancy 3-party transactions requiring the mayor to
sign off on any withdrawal; then maybe it would all be secure.

Similarly, oil refineries do manage to process crude oil without burning down.
I bet you the people who secure it are paid a lot.

