[SwellJoe]

So, I've always had a bad feeling about brain wallets. They make me uncomfortable. The fact that some folks consider them more secure than a random private key is even more worrisome. There is the fear of an exploit of your computer, which is valid. It's very, very common. But, if your computer is exploited the exploiter could still obtain your brain wallet if you use it on that computer. Cold storage of your private keys, protected with a passphrase, on a couple of USB flash drives in two locations seems the obvious choice for safely protecting your cryptocurrency. Yes, there are still potential exploits. When you plug those drives into an exploited computer, you're potentially exposing yourself.

I think we need a lot more security awareness among the general population before Bitcoin becomes a mainstream thing. Right now, it's simply too dangerous to use Bitcoin with most people's security practices and their understanding of security.

[LyndsySimon]

Brainwallets are secure, but need to be more than just words.

"foo bar baz" is a terribly passphrase, for instance. "foo bar baz [e-mail]" is a much better passphrase - it's trivial to use a bit of personal information as a salt, thereby providing substantial protection against non-targeted attacks.