Bitcoin Forum

1) I'm getting into bitcoins a bit, I'm worried about all the people whose accounts were wiped clean. Have there been any incidences of mac users being a victim to this?

2) I am going to use a yubikey and 2-pass for mt gox and store the wallets offline on thumb drives. Should that be enough protection?

3) Let's say that that all the thumb drives I save end up malfunctioning, if I write down my addresses and passcode on paper, would I still be able to get the bitcoins back, without the wallet/dat dat?

Thanks!!! I hope to do some buying bitcoins on this forum soon

No one, to my knowledge, has ever had a single bitcoin stolen from a paper wallet.

It is simple: visit BitAddress.org, and print one.  Send Bitcoins to the address on your successfully printed wallet.  (never just save the address to your computer)

When ready to spend, import the paper wallet, and spend it all (sending any unneeded change to a new paper wallet).

This is what I do.  I also split my bitcoins across multiple paper wallets so my whole balance is never online at any time.  I import paper wallets just big enough to do my business, and nothing more.

How do you access the wallets when the time comes, don't you need a dat file?
Edit: Don't you make the bars? I was just looking at your site

1) Mac's are very safe from virius so don't worry but encrypt your wallet, and make sure you back it up.

2) I would use a localwallet and not mt gox as your primary wallet.

3) I would download armory to create paper wallets very safe.

Mac are not that safe to hold a good amount of bitcoins.
Printing a wallet from a website is the stupidest idea I've ever heared of.

How is mac not safe to hold a good amount of bitcoins? I never had an issue. And it is alot better than windows.

If you really are a programmer you know that.
And don't start saying silly stuff like "no, there are no viruses around for Mac".

My workstation is a Mac, btw.

ced why is printing address a bad idea?
do you use linux? and how do you recommend people store their wallets
it seems all the users stolen from so far are on PCs, that the thefts haven't migrated to mac yet

Relax. It's not from a website. The wallet is generated entirely in your browser in javascript, and the entire website is a single static html file that includes everything and connects to nothing, so which you can clip and run offline from a clean booted machine.  At the very least, you can unhook your internet connection and confirm the page still generates and prints addresses without being online.

The easiest way to redeem a private key nowadays is to use your (or create a throwaway) wallet on BlockChain.info, import the coins, and send them to another address.  If you have a QR code, Blockchain can scan it through your webcam (it's some flash-based thingy that runs in your browser)

No platform is safe to hold a good amount of bitcoins.  New vulnerabilities are found in all platforms all the time.  Chances are someone will eventually get in, and if they do, they generally take everything.

To be honest most Viruses circle around Java and if you go to a shady web sits and run java stuff. The last pure mac OSX virus was hosted in a torrent of pirated copy of iwork so yea again if you do shady things you get a virus. So I don't get how you have a mac and your saying they are unsecured?


Again why you need to encrypt it and I use a cold storage method for most of my coins which I high recommend to new bitcoiners if you gain that kind of wealth.

A Mac is not secure enought. Stop. Linux is not secure enought.
You need a dedicated pc if you run serious money into bitcoin. Think at the Swiss researcher that got 10000btc stolen from his Linux pc.
About the website, what makes you sure that its not a dinamic page done to report back the private keys only once every 1000 views?

So a paper key is like a money order that hasn't been deposited yet. And you can start a wallet and 'deposit' at any time?

It could be. Make your own copy on disk, check the hash vs the signature, and use only the local copy.

Link? I never heard about this and google search returned nothing


can you explain this more I can't understand at all

I think the tin foil has gotten into your brain.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=113775.0
9000 BTC stolen

Mac is just as unsafe as Windows. May even more so, because of the false sense of security that Mac users tend to have.

Mac used to be safer because the amount of Mac users was completely insignificant compared to Windows (so it was simply not interesting for hackers to create viruses or malware for Mac). Same reason why Linux malware is very rare.

Lately, Apple has been doing well and now the Mac market is much bigger (now the second 'mainstream' OS after Windows). Along with that also came the interest of hackers and creators of viruses and malware.

torg approves of macintosh

False

This too is false.

Mac is like Windows, there are viruses for both. With the difference that windows user protect their computer from virus with antivirus and other things while mac user go full ahead with "ahah there are no virus for mac"...

Exactly the same thing apply for Windows. On windows you only get viruses if you do shady things/shady java websites and so on. It's not like you start a windows computer and after five minutes it automatically get infected

Well, this might happen with windows.
No, seriously.

Can you show articles that prove me false?

Actually I have a windows machine as well, and I get virus all the time, that are native, that corrupt parts of the system. I don't do shady things so explain. Windows is very insecure and everyone says, mac is very stable, and I have yet to have a virus, with 10yrs of use. This is going to turn into an Apple vs Windows thing and I am not going to keep going with it.