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Title: Simple non-techy way to reasonably secure btc Post by: 2chov on November 07, 2013, 04:55:13 PM Right, first off I'm not a techie. Every guide I see to securing bitcoins has masses of complex instructions.
I narrowly missed the inputs.io mess, by getting the coins out quickly into coinbase, but inputs.io has left me very, very nervous about online wallets and I want to get at least some offline. I know fine well that there are excellent guides out there to properly securing a wallet. I don't understand them, don't have a spare computer (or even a printer) to do it all properly. So what I've done is I've gone to bitaddress.org. Generated an address and private key. Screenshotted the page and saved the screenshot as a file on my laptop. Is this now a secure address that I can send some btc to so long as I don't lose the private key file? As far as I can see the only risk is someone hacking my computer and stealing that file, the private key has never been typed, so no keylogging issue. Yes? Next how do I secure that file because I am a fuckwit, who cannot be trusted with bits of paper and computers sometimes die/get hacked/get corrupted. Can I store it securely online somehow? (I get the feeling the answer is going to be no here, but worth an ask) Put it on a usb and delete the file from my computer? (hmm, may lose the usb, I told you I am a fuckwit) Etch the private key into a wall in my house? Commit the private key to memory through sheer willpower? Title: Re: Simple non-techy way to reasonably secure btc Post by: CIYAM on November 07, 2013, 05:01:38 PM So what I've done is I've gone to bitaddress.org. Generated an address and private key. Screenshotted the page and saved the screenshot as a file on my laptop. Is this now a secure address that I can send some btc to so long as I don't lose the private key file? As far as I can see the only risk is someone hacking my computer and stealing that file, the private key has never been typed, so no keylogging issue. Yes? Bad move - using bitaddress.org (online) is risky enough but then also saving screenshots of your private keys on your laptop means that you are just going to have to "hope" that no-one else is going to find them. Key logging is a major problem but it isn't the only one. The only way to really safely secure your bitcoins is to generate your keys *offline* (and best to do that with a computer that *never* connects to the internet again). For non-techies I think that the Trezor (or some similar) device might be the best answer. Title: Re: Simple non-techy way to reasonably secure btc Post by: 2chov on November 07, 2013, 05:11:31 PM Just download an offline wallet. They'll come with instructions, everyone can use them :P Ah - ok, so offline wallets are the way to go...like Electrum and stuff, yeah?. Never really looked into them. <Runs off to google> Title: Re: Simple non-techy way to reasonably secure btc Post by: Magazine on November 07, 2013, 05:13:37 PM Just download an offline wallet. They'll come with instructions, everyone can use them :P Ah - ok, so offline wallets are the way to go...like Electrum and stuff, yeah?. Never really looked into them. <Runs off to google> No, Armory. Title: Re: Simple non-techy way to reasonably secure btc Post by: CIYAM on November 07, 2013, 05:14:45 PM No, Armory. Armory may be the way to go in a while but currently unless you are using a beta it requires a *huge* amount of memory (and bitcoind). |