Losing a Unix password file in the 1990s would have been newsworthy. Password files were "secured" using Unix crypt(3), an algorithm that at least made a nod towards resisting brute force attacks --- so much so that when PHK wrote FreeBSD's md5 scheme, he iterated it PBKDF-style, because even then it was clear that using cryptographic hashes "straight" was a bad idea.<p>The biggest differences between Mindvox losing it's password file in 1995 and a webapp losing its user table in 2010 are:<p>* Web apps are getting fielded with straight SHA1 hashes, which is inferior even to FreeBSD's original MD5 hash scheme.<p>* Brute force attacks have gotten much faster.<p>The main advantage to bcrypt over, say, AES, is that the key setup is really slow. Mazieres spotted a weakness in Blowfish and turned it into a benefit.<p>Is there some real argument you have with me? I agree: if you lose your user table, you have real problems apart from losing password hashes --- though we could bicker about which of those problems is worse. Where are you disagreeing with me?