Title: [TUTORIAL] How to extend seed phrase in electrum wallet Post by: Zilon on May 02, 2021, 11:51:46 PM Seed phrase, seed recovery or recovery phrase which is said to be an arrangement of words used to gain access to cryptocurrency wallets. In Bitcoin, seed phrases gives users an avenue to backup their wallets. If one looses access to a certain wallet it can be accessed in any BIP39-compactible wallet to recover funds. We have over 2048 words on the BIP39 word list, this means that a string of 12 words would have 128bits of security. This makes hacking or intruding into your wallet a bit studious.
If an intruder wishes to attack a wallet it is expected of such to carryout 2128 operations to guess a 12 word phrase. It might seem to be a small number, but it is more complex than you think. This seed can also be extended to improve security. Is seed phrase the same as private key Quote Seed phrase is different from private key in that private key can be considered to be a secret number that allows coin to be spent. It creates a key pair that grants access to wallets. While a seed phrase is simply a representation of a random number. It's an ordered sequence of 12 or 24 words, chosen from a list of 2048 words. Using cryptography, your wallet can derive your private key using your seed phrase. And with that private key, your wallet can spend your bitcoin. Seed phrase extension Seed extension is the process of adding more words to the existing seed phrase to strengthen the security of a crypto wallet. This is done while creating a new wallet. Reserved extension seed phrase: Code: abandon https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039/english.txt
How to set up seed extension step 1: from www.electrum.org download the app to your preferred device. https://i.ibb.co/p3m2KKc/Screenshot-20210503-002407-2.png (https://ibb.co/557Tjjm) Step 2: click on next to which would take you to where you would select the wallet type you prefer. https://i.ibb.co/2Wxn1Jf/Screenshot-20210503-010120.png (https://ibb.co/WGZx4CY) Step 3: from the menu select your preferred wallet type. https://i.ibb.co/2Wxn1Jf/Screenshot-20210503-010120.png (https://ibb.co/WGZx4CY) Step 4: proceed to create your own personal new seed from the BIP39 word list. https://i.ibb.co/ftnvzDD/Screenshot-20210503-011011-2.png (https://ibb.co/P49QvDD) Step 5: write down your seed phrase in a save document, from the seed phrase menu click on the settings icon https://i.ibb.co/fQb5MkZ/Screenshot-20210503-011205-2.png (https://ibb.co/7bH5vnB) Step 6: click on the box provided to add the seed phrase selected from the list of reserved words https://i.ibb.co/bQxFDL3/Screenshot-20210503-011310.png (https://ibb.co/jbdzsG5) Step 7: enter the custom words you wish to extend your seed phrase with. https://i.ibb.co/3mKnJyY/Screenshot-20210503-011457-2.png (https://ibb.co/PGkdSZz) Disclaimer: The images provided is for illustration purpose only and does not belong to anyone. Source https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039.mediawiki [/list] Title: Re: [tutorial] How to extend seed phrase in electrum wallet Post by: Upgrade00 on May 03, 2021, 02:58:58 AM If an intruder wishes to attack a wallet it is expected of such to carryout 2128 operations to guess a 12 word phrase. It is far more difficult than that and not feasible for a hacker to correctly guess the entire seed phrase of an address, even without an extra passphrase as it's more complex than simply guessing any random 12 words. Also, a seed phrase can be used for plausible deniability; to create an address which is different from the original one, this can be used to hide balances should the holder find themselves in any trouble. Title: Re: [tutorial] How to extend seed phrase in electrum wallet Post by: nc50lc on May 03, 2021, 03:29:05 AM Seed phrase extension Take note that the extension doesn't necessarily have to be a word from BIP39 wordlist.Seed extension is the process of adding more words to the existing seed phrase to strengthen the security of a crypto wallet. This is done while creating a new wallet. Reserved extension seed phrase: Code: -BIP39 seed wordlist- It can be any word, phrase or even symbols, the "Seed Phrase Extension" is actually a passphrase a.k.a. "BIP39 Passphrase". Title: Re: [tutorial] How to extend seed phrase in electrum wallet Post by: SquirrelJulietGarden on May 03, 2021, 03:37:54 AM Hackers steal your seed when your store it online or in devices that you use to connect to Internet. Your devices need to be clean and seed backup need to be in encrypted files.
If you secure your devices well and don't connect it to the Internet more than you need, the risks of hacks will be less. Many people use Notepad to store their private keys, seeds or passwords and it is too bad. Unencrypted and vulnerable to hacks. Worthy to note. Wallet with extended phrase is a different wallet than the one without extended phrase. If your create a wallet with extended phrase, and store your Bitcoin in that one, you must back up wallet seed (default) and extended one. Secure them and make sure you don't make typos for back ups. If anything is inaccurate, you will get troubles when recover that wallet. At worst, you will lose your Bitcoin. Title: Re: [tutorial] How to extend seed phrase in electrum wallet Post by: pooya87 on May 03, 2021, 06:16:17 AM We have over 2048 words on the BIP39 word list, We have multiple word lists each in a different language but in each word list there is exactly 2048 words (not over it).Quote this means that a string of 12 words would have 128bits of security. To be clear this is a combination of the number of words and the length of the word list but generally speaking the security of the mnemonic comes from the size of the entropy. A 128 bit entropy providing 128 bits of entropy could be encoded using a bigger list to have smaller number of words or a smaller list and have larger number of words but the security remains the same.Quote If an intruder wishes to attack a wallet it is expected of such to carryout 2128 operations to guess a 12 word phrase. It is 2128 not 2128 and it is not the number of operations, it is the number of possible values for a 128 bit entropy.When copying text from elsewhere you should take note of the formatting! Quote It might seem to be a small number, but it is more complex than you think. This seed can also be extended to improve security. Extension most of the times does not provide additional security because for one users don't use a truly random input as their extension word and also the algorithm used to derive the keys is not strong enough.Quote Seed phrase extension Not exactly correct. I alraedy explained why it is not providing security, also it is not "adding more words" it is adding an arbitrary string which can be words or literary anything else like a bunch of emojis or a random password like "jz7P*s&{$Ys5+GoJoA".Seed extension is the process of adding more words to the existing seed phrase to strengthen the security of a crypto wallet. Title: Re: [TUTORIAL] How to extend seed phrase in electrum wallet Post by: o_e_l_e_o on May 03, 2021, 08:21:18 AM Further corrections to the ones already given above:
Title: Re: [TUTORIAL] How to extend seed phrase in electrum wallet Post by: Zilon on May 03, 2021, 11:32:08 AM Further corrections to the ones already given above: Correction taken
li]Total privacy: This phrase aren't saved on electrum server and is only unique to you alone.[/li] [/list] Title: Re: [TUTORIAL] How to extend seed phrase in electrum wallet Post by: BlackHatCoiner on May 06, 2021, 12:46:01 PM Total privacy: This phrase aren't saved on electrum server and is only unique to you alone. I find this part of the post a bit misleading. What does it have to do with privacy? The addresses you'll derive from that seed will be known from the server(s) you're connected to. The seed phrase doesn't provide privacy, it *just* recovers your wallet. Going non-custodially surely provides better privacy in contrast with an online wallet. But, keeping yourself private depends on how you will transact. (e.g: Making coinjoin transactions, revealing your master public key etc) This is what you may wanted to say, but you haven't formulated it properly. You've added this under “Why should you extend a seed”, which isn't true. If you extend your seed you aren't increasing your privacy strength. You strengthen the security of your wallet. The odds for someone to successfully find a seed collision. Title: Re: [TUTORIAL] How to extend seed phrase in electrum wallet Post by: pooya87 on May 07, 2021, 03:06:51 AM I find this part of the post a bit misleading. What does it have to do with privacy? The addresses you'll derive from that seed will be known from the server(s) you're connected to. I believe OP was under the impression that the seed phrase the wallet create is shared with Electrum servers! which is obviously not true.Quote If you extend your seed you aren't increasing your privacy strength. You strengthen the security of your wallet. The odds for someone to successfully find a seed collision. The extra words do not provide any meaningful security to your wallet.And the odds of finding a collision is already high due to the big size of the entropy used to generate the seed phrase and is not really improved by adding extra words. Title: Re: [TUTORIAL] How to extend seed phrase in electrum wallet Post by: BlackHatCoiner on May 07, 2021, 07:12:28 AM The extra words do not provide any meaningful security to your wallet. I'd like to examine the chances. Let's assume that someone wants to brute force a certain legacy address you own, knowing that you've derived it from a master private key that was also derived from a seed. Let's also assume that he knows the derivation path of your address. The chances of finding your address are 1 in 2160, since he'll stop once he successfully finds your RIPEMD-160 hash. Whether he tries on twelve or twenty four words (128 or 256 bits), he'll stop once he finds the hash collision. This means that on average, finding your seed phrase will be 232 times easier than with brute forcing the address itself, excluding the different operations that need to be taken for a seed and for just an address. I'm just adding the numbers decimally: Code: 2^128 = 340282366920938463463374607431768211456 (12 words) So yes, it may not provide any significant security to your wallet. It just makes brute forcing meaningless, since it'd be quicker if you brute forced the address instead of the seed phrase. Title: Re: [TUTORIAL] How to extend seed phrase in electrum wallet Post by: pooya87 on May 08, 2021, 03:45:05 AM It just makes brute forcing meaningless, since it'd be quicker if you brute forced the address instead of the seed phrase. Brute forcing is already meaningless because the entropy size is big enough to make it impossible. Adding a very small step on top of it can not be considered a security measure. Also if we assume that the seed phrase is leaked, it is safe to assume that the extra words are also leaked.Also saying one impossible thing is easier than another impossible thing is like saying going to Uranus is easier than going to Neptune! Or in this case not even Neptune but only one of Uranus's close by satellites. |