> I agree that MtGox shouldn't be doing any kind of refunding in this case.
You didn't respond to my central point: blaming the victim.
I think we first have to discuss the word blame. What do you actually mean by "blame"?
Merriam-Webster: >1 to find fault with : censure <the right to praise or blame a literary work> >2 a : to hold responsible <they blame me for everything> > b : to place responsibility for <blames it on me>
Do you agree with this?
For the sake of the argument I will assume yes. According to this definition did dreen blame the victim? Yes. dreen claims that the victim acted wrong: Victim should not have ran the applet. Using my powers of intuition [i.e. shout if I am wrong] I assert that dreen considers the victim responsible for securing his bitcoins. A responsibility the victim failed. Hence blame.
Now using further powers of intuition, I believe that you, burntsushi, think that blaming the victim is inherently wrong. Interpreted strictly that means that the behaviour of a victim is always flawless, and and a victim always lacks responsibility for bad outcomes. This is in my mind a quite ridiculous view, so I don't think this is what you mean. So what DO you mean? I will consider two possible guesses and discuss them.
>The thief acted wrong. Stealing the coins was immoral. -I think we can all agree with this statement. Hence no need to state "you are blaming the victim" so insistently. >But then you shouldn't say "your own fault entirely" -Maybe you are right. Could be argued that everyone gets this anyway. Unsure.
>We should pity, not scorn the victim I probably, maybe agree with this. Clearly the victim is in crappy situation and has my sympathies. On the other hand, scorn discourages others from following his example, which could be useful.
Yes. This is my main point. It's easy to agree with in hindsight. I was insistent because it seemed like the parent completely forgot that there were more than two parties involved in this affair: the OP, MtGox and the phisher.
There is a certain attitude among folks that some people who don't properly secure themselves somehow "deserve" what they get. I vehemently disagree with this sentiment, and it is in essence what I was trying to combat.
> We should pity, not scorn the victim I probably, maybe agree with this.
I am all for calling out the victim's poor security practices as stupid, senseless, etc. But it's another thing entirely to blame the victim for someone stealing from them.
But I still think the victim here shares in the responsibility, because he wasn't careful enough. We're not living in a careless world and we never will.
Your central point is without merit. The "victim" is a victim, not of MtGox, but their own poor decisions.
Their decisions may have made themselves vulnerable to the attack, but (based on the information provided) they are a victim of a third-party that is neither the MtGox nor themselves -- that is, the people that actually used the malware to steal the BTC.
