Bitcoin Forum

Created a bootable OS.
Downloaded GitHub BitAddress.org
Went Offline
Generated Address & Private Key
Sent Bitcoin To Bitcoin Address
Put Public & Private Key on fresh USB and physical paper.

Will my Bitcoin be secure? Of course I could lose them by plugging in the USB and getting compromised but the USB is just a back up

I spread my Bitcoin across 4 paper wallets...

Do you also have offsite-storage in case of fire or any other disaster?

Instead of spreading your coins across four wallets.  Why not make multiple copies of the same wallet?

I'll look into putting a copy of my private keys off-site incase of fire etc but are my Bitcoin considered cold storage

thx guys!

Yea that would be considered cold storage.

You can use BIP38 (password encrypted private keys) for co-locating paper wallets, however the catch is: if you forget the password you can't decrypt the private key and the bitcoin can be lost ever.

But you could store an paperwallet with plain text private key in your safe at home (you make sure no one ever sees it) and give a BIP38 copy to a friend or relative.

If you don't have a safe at home, BIP38 all copies and never, ever forget the passphrase/word!

Yeah you can sleep at night, you're pretty secure there. 

I'll look into encrypting a wallet to give to a friend or relative, for now I just wanted to make sure my Bitcoin were in 'cold storage' so I don't lose them!

thanks for the help guys!

If you printed the private keys to paper using an old printer and didn't cycle the power before going back online....another chance there for someone to get the keys off the printer memory.

Old printers generally didn't have data stored in memory after the power was cycled.

New printers simply cannot be trusted unless you know for sure they don't have persistent memory.

If you wrote it down by hand then a few drinks should help you to forget the private key making a future water-boarding-vulnerability-attack impossible.



 

Very good point, make sure you're using a read-only bootable OS and power cycle the computer and the printer... or like you said: hand write the wallet if you're super paranoid about persistent printer memory.

Also never send funds [back] to a paper wallet address that you've spent from before, create a new paper wallet once you decide to spend your savings from the old paper wallet.


It would probably go something like this

EvilPerson: Tell me your bitcoin private keys!
You: I'd never be able to memorize a 51 character key! Please don't hurt me, you have to believe me.
EvilPerson: I believe you. Now give me all your paper wallets, and the password to your wallet.dat, or I'll hurt you.

Cold storage doesn't solve physical security problems, it just helps protect you from sneaky online thieves.

Don't forget to lock your paper wallets in a safe, throw the key somewhere in the ocean then bury the safe in a random place in the middle of the desert.

I say you take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

nice, more copies means more chances of getting stolen.

I'm not really concerned about my wallets getting physically stolen, just concerned about those pesky online internet thieves!

as long as you have restored it a few times as practice and you have deleted your computer wallets, you have to write over your hard drive 7 times to be secure

what happens the magnetic resonance gets stuck in down in the layer of the steel cd drive or something, take it apart and melt it down and destroy the ram  :D

^^^^^ This.

A BIP38 backup is great to store in a safe deposit box at your bank, too. The encryption protects against theft, and the bank protects against destruction, e.g. fire damage.

This is exactly why I'm glad I only trade Bitcoin on TopOption. Eventually I want my own Bitcoins but until then I'm enjoying sleeping peacefully at night :)

Just use Armory...

How just put them in a safe place and don't worry so much. Sometimes all you have to do is relax and enjoy a little. Stay safe. If you decide you need to use the flash again, don't do it unless you are on a fresh copy of an OS or bootable one.

I just tried sending 0.1 to a test wallet I made (should of tested before not after) and was successfully able to sweep the wallet on blockchain.info

i won't use blockchain.info to import the private key when i come to bring my savings back online but it was just to test....

can anyone recommend a wallet to use that i can import private keys?

did you format your USB before use? over 90% of usbs come pre-loaded with virus/trojan/spyware/malware from the factory in CHINA. Did you know that? I heard that somewhere on another forum. Format that usb before using it.

Yeah, I formatted the USB in Tails then used gedIT text editor to write down the private keys, the usb is just a back up of my paper wallet in case I lose it. I doubt I will ever use the usb to recover my bitcoin!

Talking about FUD...
 :D

The original client can import private keys through the debug console; I do it fairly often.

https://bitcoin.org/bin/0.8.6/