Bitcoin Forum

How i can be sure that private keys not stored on centralized servers?

Electrum is open source, that means you (or anyone else) can check the source code and see exactly how the program works. Therefore, if the private keys were to be stored on centralized servers, someone would likely take notice. So it should be safe. But if you really don't trust it for whatever reason, you could always stick to Bitcoin Core.

In addition to what the user above said, the servers that Electrum connects to are not made by the developer of the wallet (ThomasV), they are made by people from the bitcoin community so It wouldn't make sense If the developer will make the private keys sent to somebody else, those servers only know your addresses and nothing else.

When users enters private key it must to be send to bitcoin blockchain servers in encrypted format, how i can be sure that no one can see them, use packet sniffing, etc..?

- Electrum wasn't created yesterday, it has been around for a couple of years.
- it is open source so you either have to know programming (python mostly) and go through the code and compile it yourself. or trust others who have done it.
- also you can trust many other users who are using the wallet to report in case one of them lost anything because of what you assume.


i think you are having trouble with the basics of bitcoin.
what you send to the "blockchain servers" which is called a node is your public key and that is safe because there is no way of finding private key from public key.

It can be used for 100 years... I want know myself how private keys transfered? Do they transfered in ecnrypted format? Do no one can intercept while private keys sending to servers?

Of course the keys you entered will be encrypted, that's a protocol. But let's be practical here, when it comes to online transactions many eyes are lurking and handling this is the job of Electrum's developer. We cannot deny that at some point a hacker might have unlocked a user's private key by decrypting. However, this is not a common scenario. Electrum may be safe for now, but i advice you to take precautions just to be safe. And if you are having doubts regarding Electrum's safety, you can always use hardware wallets. I think they are more secured.

I think it's safer to use Bitcoin core wallet because it connects directly to nodes.
Electrum servers are centralized.

What do you think?

I think it is safe to use Electrum. In this forum is the people's favorite regarding desktop wallets. Electrum does not give out your private keys to the servers. Electrum is as safe to use as your PC is. Nothing to worry for example if you format your PC and install Linux into it. Soon after you install Electrum, 99.99% of the cases you will be safe.

No matter what people will say, people who think with their own head want to analyse themselves.
You think that it safe, but it does not mean that it actually safe.

It give - transfer keys to the servers, because this is the only way to connect to the blockchain and receive your bitcoins.

I think you need to read the documentation. Below a part of the documentation that states Electrum never gives out private keys to the servers

"
Does Electrum trust servers?

Not really; the Electrum client never sends private keys to the servers. In addition, it verifies the information reported by servers, using a technique called Simple Payment Verification"

Now below the Simple Payment Verification

"Simple Payment Verification (SPV) is a technique described in Satoshi Nakamoto’s paper. SPV allows a lightweight client to verify that a transaction is included in the Bitcoin blockchain, without downloading the entire blockchain. The SPV client only needs download the block headers, which are much smaller than the full blocks. To verify that a transaction is in a block, a SPV client requests a proof of inclusion, in the form of a Merkle branch.

SPV clients offer more security than web wallets, because they do not need to trust the servers with the information they send."

I have been using Electrum as my day to day wallet from quite some years now, never encountered a problem with the private keys.

as i told you, if you want to know yourself you need to know programming (python for the most part) and go through the code.
here is the link: https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum
otherwise i am afraid there is no other way, other than trusting other people's judgement.

of course you can always ask/pay someone whom you know around you to go through the code and check it for you.


this is the only way that "you can think of" as i said above you should read more about basics of how bitcoin works.

From the day I know bitcoin I am using only electrum wallet and now its more then 2 years and I feel that my bitcoins are really safe in it as I have never faced any issue with the security of the coins nor I have lost any single penny from it so for me electrum is the best wallet.

I've just installed an Electrum wallet for the first time. In the [Console] details there is a "welcome to hachre's Electrum server!" (running Electrumx 1.0.5, Bitcoin 0.13.2)

Hachre sounds like hacker, but I notice that one of official servers on the electrum.org website is listed as "hachre" with the .de website country code for Germany.

However, further on in my Electrum wallet console the contact email "electrum@hach.re" is given. The .re is a website country code for Reunion - a remote French island next to Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.

My question is: Is this a genuine Electrum server?

What you are seeing in the [Console] tab is simply the welcome message when your Electrum client connected to one of the many Electrum servers. Its basically an announcement when you connect to their server. This is fine and nothing to worry about :)

What can these centralized servers see from me? Only my adress, or also, but not limited to, IPS, operating systems, etcetera. Which data does electrum stores/collects? How much privacy do i have using Electrum in comparison to Bitcoin Core?


If anyone has a link to their ToS, that would be greatly appreciated.

The servers can see your IP address as well as your public addresses. I don't believe your Operating System or other PC specific information is revealed though.

If you want to be more anonymous while using Electrum, you should use a proxy or Tor for Electrum's connections.

Does anyone still use 2FA (and the charge!), All i see are posts of people recovering from seed and ditching it.

Also does anyone bother with Trezor or a similar hardware wallet ?

Not sure how you set it up with Electrum ?

I'm still studying their system, but it's probably a lot better than storing in exchanges or online wallets. If you do not already have a hardware wallet, that might be a good option until you get one.

What might be a good option until i get a hardware wallet ? Confusd??

You guys think hardware wallet materializes bitcoins? Electrum as to my knowledge is a lite client connected to one or several full nodes and besides it's a free software be grateful.
Packet sniffing? you need to first know what cryptography is, it's called crypto currency for a reason. any data incoming/outgoing with firewall layers protected and are heavily encrypted.

If you don't want to trust any third party then you could use bitaddress.org or any other similar service (coin.dance) in offline mode, generate an address and then save both address and the private key and send your bitcoins to those addresses and for further transfers import in blockchain.info first as a watch only and then when you click on a watch only address in send menu it will ask for private key.

And I think you can use the Core wallet as a lite wallet in latest version, without having to download the whole blockchain. (need confirming)

Also Electrum is a third party and free lite wallet either use it or don't.

Electrum and a few others desktop wallets. But as you said, I have to study this more deeply, to know which is the best.

My favorite desktop wallet is Electrum. I definitely recommend using this until you get a hardware wallet. It also has the benefit of being compatible with a number of hardware wallets so you could choose to use it once you get a hardware wallet as well and you will already be familiar with it.

Has anyone on here used a Hard Wallet ?

I am seriously thinking about getting one....I have heard BAD storie about MultibitHD and it's ledger wallet although its looks VERY nice...

Is that the only two on the market ?

Cheers

Some of it's end-users have looked through all their code and because the way peer servers work as someone described..

if you don't have the time/expertise to review the code yourself, its good to know Electrum has been around a long time and has an excellent reputation.

but I'm still learning from my friends to understand more about their system review.

It is safe to use it.

Pretty sure that the code is open source, meaning that anyone can verify that it is legit.

I have used electrum for the past year. I have never regretted started using it last year because it is so easy to use and the design is clean as well for the graphic user interface. Use it man, you won't regret it ;)