Originally Posted by Brujah

Anyone who loses their wallet.dat file has no way of recovering the Bitcoins it contains, since the currency has no central authority to appeal to. One Bitcoin early-adopter discovered just how painful this can be when they lost 25,000 Bitcoins to a hacking attack - worth around $500,000 at the time of the theft.

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/on...ts-are-on.html