You can always do a "factory reset" to clear all your settings via the Help menu, "Revert All Settings". Start over and work through settings one-by-one until it breaks  I can probably put in temporary unicode fixes for particular things, as long as they don't ever touch the wallet. |
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EDIT: Now after I installed the version of bitcoind from the official Ubuntu repository Armory can see it, but I still can not open the settings window, so I guess it's an independent problem.
I'm fairly certain it's a unicode issue. The installation path or datadir have a unicode character in them, and it's breaking the settings. This is one reason I'm anxious to do the new wallets and just clear this up once and for all. Do you still see a unicode error in the log file? |
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Yeah, I should've been focusing on things that were higher priority... but I didn't want to run off down the persistent-blockchain path until I had the auto-bitcoind stuff mostly out of the way. So instead, I've implemented a feature I've been meaning to do for quite a while! All unlock dialogs now have an "On-Screen Display" keyboard! Simple, off-the-shelf keyloggers won't be of much use if you're using an OSD keyboard. And while it's probably not worth it, I added a "scramble" option so that you can feel ultra safe, even if the keylogger is recording mouse clicks (but not screenshots). I say it's probably not worth it, because it's a cool idea, but it's a total pain in the ass to use! It's almost intolerable, especially if you have a 16-character password like I do! I'm sure someone will use it, though The managesatoshi branch now reflects 0.87.95, and probably going to move towards merging this into the testing branch. Some people have had some bad experiences with it, but I think the solution is to have a trouble-shooting webpage to help people get over it. There's only some much time I can spend debugging this!    |
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What you are asking about is precisely what "asymmetric cryptography" is. A public key is like a locked mailbox with a dropslot and a window in it. A private key is the key to that box.
-- (Encryption) Anyone with the public key can find the mailbox and drop a letter in the slot. N o one else can open and read it except for the person with the private key.
-- (Signing) The person with the private key can write a message and tape it to the inside of the box facing out through the window. Then anyone with the public key can find that mailbox, see the message, and know that only the person with the private key could've put the message there.
Most asymmetric cryptography is based on cyclic groups, and discrete logarithm problems. You can go look them up, but you have to be really good at math to really understand it.
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Okay Alan, I compiled 0.87.94-beta, after startup it prompted me that the bitcoind installation cannot be found, I tried to point it to the location of the installation, by clicking the "Change Settings" button in the dashboard, or the "Settings" item in the menu, both gave no response, no window popped up, instead, the console showed the following error message whenever I tried: Traceback (most recent call last):
File "ArmoryQt.py", line 716, in openSettings
dlgSettings = DlgSettings(self, self)
File "/home/****/BitcoinArmory/BitcoinArmory/qtdialogs.py", line 9913, in __init__
'specified format.' % exampleStr )
File "/home/****/BitcoinArmory/BitcoinArmory/qtdefines.py", line 203, in __init__
self.setText(txt, **kwargs)
File "/home/****/BitcoinArmory/BitcoinArmory/qtdefines.py", line 206, in setText
text = str(text)
UnicodeEncodeError: 'ascii' codec can't encode character u'\u5e74' in position 232: ordinal not in range(128)
So it seem like a encoding support problem(FYI u+5e74 is the unicode representation for the Chinese character meaning year), I don't know how difficult it's to sort this out, if you can't please just tell me what configurations I should change on my part to make it work. Yeah, Armory has no unicode support yet. It would've been trivial if I had known from the beginning what "unicode" is and how to support it... but I didn't. I haven't been able to upgrade it, because I didn't want to risk breaking the wallet code (fixed-width fields overflow with unicode characters). However, I'm totally revamping wallets in the near future, so I will go through and upgrade all of Armory with it. It shouldn't be too hard, I just don't want to risk coin-losing bugs by upgrading the old wallets in a hurry, and they're going to be obsolete soon, anyway. For now, let's see if I can get around this for you. Is it failing because of a custom bitcoind installation path? Or does it fail anyway? In the ArmorySettings.txt file, do you see fields with non-ASCII characters? I can probably work around a specific instance of unicode problems, I just can't upgrade the whole app, yet. |
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Hi etotheipi,
Thx, It worked now!  Armory is online, connected (229988 Blocks) and shows the right balance. I was looking everywhere to find this bit of info (this forum, github, your bitcoinarmory.com, google,..) but didnt find anything (yes there is something in this thread but you really have to look closely on page XX to find it). I guess it would help a lot of users if you could provide documentation for your client that also states those commands, such as " --satoshi-datadir=" and similar, also giving step by step advice on how to correctly apply them. Thx for your quick response! Cheers,Spekulatius Glad it worked! I actually do have someone helping me to create better documentation. The first thing will be an illustrated tutorial for offline transactions, with screenshots. Then we're going to try to add better general documentation. For now, if you're curious, you can run with --help to see a list of all the command line options. |
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Hey!
I've read that you recommend doing a clean install of the OS on the offline machine. Why is that? I understand that a computer once connected to the internet may be infected by malware and that that can fuck up it, including the Armory software, but does it pose threat to the coins if they are backuped on paper?
I have an old computer that I'd like to use as an offline wallet. Windows was reinstalled on it some time ago and it was connected to internet after that only for a short period - in essence, it is highly unlikely that it is infected. I do realize a virus can be there. But with paper backup, will the coins themselves be safe?
Thanks!
In terms of safety of your coins, it's more of how many 9's do you want on your 99.999...% security. A machine that was not previously used for Bitcoin and then is disonnected and starts being used is far less vulnerable than one that stays online. But there's no guarantee it didn't pick up some nasty Bitcoin virus that knows how to shuttle data off the system, or compromised your random number generator so an attacker can produce the same wallet your machine does. These things are tiny for someone holding $500 in BTC, but an unnecessary risk for someone holding $100k. The paper backup doesn't add security from people attacking the machine. It prevents you from losing your coins if your computer is lost, hard-drive crashes, or you forget your passphrase. If someone compromises the offline computer they can still take your coins, and by the time you notice it, it will be too late, regardless of whether you have the paper backup. |
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I have similar issues as OP:
My system:
Win 7 64bit
3 GB RAM (2,87 GB usable)
Intel Pentium Dual CPU T3400 @ 2.16 GHz and 2.17 GHz
Bitcoin v0.8.0-beta (Satoshi Client)
Armory 0.87.2-beta
Other:
I store the blockchain files of my Satoshi Client in a non-standard directory using the "-datadir=D:\Programme\Bitcoin\Blockchain" command in the bitcoin-qt.exe shortcut. This way the "Target"-field in the shortcut's properties looks like this:
"D:\Programme\Bitcoin\bitcoin-qt.exe -datadir=D:\Programme\Bitcoin\Blockchain"
The "Execute in:"-field looks like this: "D:\Programme\Bitcoin"
It works for the Satoshi Client but I guess my Armory client cant find the blockchain files on my hard drive and thus doesnt synch with the network. Im posting because I couldnt find any advice on how to tell it where to look, so Im stuck with "Connected (0 Blocks)".
My story:
I installed the Armory Offline Wallet on a separate Linux Laptop. Imported a priv key thats loaded with some 0.001 BTC.
Made a watch-only copy and saved the wallet to USB stick.
Then installed the Armory client on my other laptop (Windows 7) that also runs the Bitcoin Client and imported the watch-only wallet from the USB stick. Closed it down after the import worked alright and waited for the Bitcoin Client to synch with the blockchain. Rebooted Computer, then first started the Satoshi Client, waited for the green check mark, then started the Armory and waited for the correct balance to show in the Armory. It never showed up. It says in the dash board: "Armory is online!" but shows in the bottom right corner of the window: "Connected (0 Blocks)". It doesnt seem to synch with the blockchain.
Then I sent another 0.01 BTC to the Address from the imported watch-only wallet and surprise! It showed up, hence with 0 confirmations.
Now I rebooted and everything but the final balance is again displayed as 0.00 BTC. Blockchain.info shows 23 confirmations though.
How can I get my online wallet to synch with the blockchain!?
Thx
Thanks for the detailed report. I appreciate it! You didn't mention starting Armory with "--satoshi-datadir=D:\Programme\Bitcoin\Blockchain". Have you done that? If not, that would explain it ... it's probably reading whatever super-old blockfiles you have in your C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin directory, which is why it went online but didn't show any transactions. The zero-confirmation tx showed up because Bitocin-Qt passed it on to Armory, which recognized it as being part of the wallet. But it stayed at zero conf, because Armory never saw it get into a block. Or it disappeared between restarts, because Armory can't seem to keep that data persistent between loads in Windows... |
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This may have been asked before, but is there nothing can be done to mitigate the one hour freeze of my laptop whenever I start Armory?
Does it freeze? I should run but be in offline mode. If your laptop is lower on the RAM spectrum, then I suppose it can take a while... I'm starting on the RAM reduction stuff this week. I have no idea how long it's going to take, but I expect a week or two. Then you shouldn't have these problems anymore. Nah, it's online, freezes in the reading blockchain part. My laptop has got 5G of RAM, not sure how much is freely available at the time I started it though. I assume you're running 0.87.2? Before 0.8-something, I didn't have multi-threaded blockchain operations, which meant that it froze for everyone when it started up. But that was a while ago, I assume you have the latest... |
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This may have been asked before, but is there nothing can be done to mitigate the one hour freeze of my laptop whenever I start Armory?
Does it freeze? I should run but be in offline mode. If your laptop is lower on the RAM spectrum, then I suppose it can take a while... I'm starting on the RAM reduction stuff this week. I have no idea how long it's going to take, but I expect a week or two. Then you shouldn't have these problems anymore. |
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PLEASE help me figure this out! I have just released the latest, 0.87.92, installation instructions below. Note that more than just auto-management has been added. I also made the little "(?)" icons clickable, and reduced the number of windows you have to click through to use offline wallets.
Linux:
-- Pull and switch branches: "git checkout managesatoshi"
-- Must install python-psutil package. This is a new dependency to help with managing the background process. It will be added to the next offline bundle.
-- Recompile
Ok, I compiled it with signature checking. I don`t know what did you sign exactly (commit itself or its id, I don`t know how this realized in git, but probably in the right way I hope), but gpg says it is ok The first start says that I shouldn`t start bitcoind, so I click "Change Settings" and here what was in terminal: (ERROR) Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/opt/BitcoinArmory/ArmoryQt.py", line 716, in openSettings
dlgSettings = DlgSettings(self, self)
File "/opt/BitcoinArmory/qtdialogs.py", line 9913, in __init__
'specified format.' % exampleStr )
File "/opt/BitcoinArmory/qtdefines.py", line 203, in __init__
self.setText(txt, **kwargs)
File "/opt/BitcoinArmory/qtdefines.py", line 206, in setText
text = str(text)
UnicodeEncodeError: 'ascii' codec can't encode characters in position 228-229: ordinal not in range(128)
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/opt/BitcoinArmory/ArmoryQt.py", line 716, in openSettings
dlgSettings = DlgSettings(self, self)
File "/opt/BitcoinArmory/qtdialogs.py", line 9913, in __init__
'specified format.' % exampleStr )
File "/opt/BitcoinArmory/qtdefines.py", line 203, in __init__
self.setText(txt, **kwargs)
File "/opt/BitcoinArmory/qtdefines.py", line 206, in setText
text = str(text)
UnicodeEncodeError: 'ascii' codec can't encode characters in position 228-229: ordinal not in range(128) Also this happen when I go to File-Settings. Since then I can`t point bitcoind to Tor, I hope in Settings I can append commands to bitcoind when it works. On exit I get this error: couldn't connect to server If it is caused by lack of Internet then it`s ok P.S. On Arch Linux, python 2-psutils is needed. Ahh yeah, back to the unicode issues. I just don't have support for unicode yet, so I guess non-English/ASCII-native systems will have trouble. That is something I was going to fix when I upgrade the wallets. As for adding command line arguments to bitcoind/bitcoin-qt... I hadn't planned on it. I figured, if you are using non-standard command line arguments (that aren't configurable in your bitcoin.conf, then you'll probably just turn off auto-bitcoind management anyway. |
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Is it really likely they would be able to get 200,000 computers (presumably using 99% of CPU) actually working (presumably undetected) for that to work?
See the historical list of botnets on wikipedia. Tens of millions of computers were compromised. And don't forget that the coins mined are literally free for the operator (besides the legal risk). If they are successful, even $20/day is an extra $600/month for doing nothing. Does it matter? As long as the blocks are not empty, then the botnets just add to the Bitcoin network. Shows how powerful the model is. New headline: Botnets enslaved by Bitcoin! You're right, it doesn't matter from the network's perspective. I was just dispelling the idea that it's not worth CPU mining with your botnet. |
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Is it really likely they would be able to get 200,000 computers (presumably using 99% of CPU) actually working (presumably undetected) for that to work?
See the historical list of botnets on wikipedia. Tens of millions of computers were compromised. And don't forget that the coins mined are literally free for the operator (besides the legal risk). If they are successful, even $20/day is an extra $600/month for doing nothing. |
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Entry level printers are typically sold below cost because they gouge you for replacement ink.
For something as important as an offline wallet backup, it's worth it to buy a brand new one that's on sale, hook it up to your offline computer to print a few backups, then destroy the printer just to avoid that particular attack vector.
Or: (1) Write it down by hand Or: (2) I will implement backups that print encrypted and flash on the screen "Write this code on your paper backup. Your backup cannot be used without it!" |
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I wouldn't say it's that stupid. One user turning on their CPU to mine Bitcoins at 5 MH/s is a total waste of electricity for that user. But someone running 200,000 stolen CPU miners gets them 1 TH/s for free -- about $1000/day while the compromised users pay for the electricity!
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Haha, nice interview anyway, good job Did I miss it or did you completely step over the fact what your 'role'/'contribution' is wrt Bitcoin? (aka, the real proof you are an expert). Did you leave out Armory on purpose? They literally called me and said "Hey we're from this radio station and want to interview you? How bout in 10 minutes?" I didn't realize it was only going to be a five-minute interview, so I didn't have time to talk about myself. I would have if he asked anything about security, but the topic never came up. Personally, I'm fine with the way it went. I'd rather try to spread good information about Bitcoin and get people interested in Bitcoin in general, than promote some application for that "Bitcoin thing" that they don't understand. "It's the most secure way to use this thing that you don't care about! Go try it out!" |
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I've never mentioned an Armory-based company, I think they were just trying to beef up my "resume" so they had an excuse to call me an expert. Probably don't need an excuse, but it sounds better |
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Yes, my`n too. But here what I have then .../bitcoin/blocks/blk00051.dat is 134,217,728 bytes
Attempting to read blockchain from file: .../bitcoin/blocks/blk00052.dat
.../bitcoin/blocks/blk00052.dat is 33,554,432 bytes
***ERROR: Block previously main branch, now orphan!?05144c26dec863e01856723e3cf6b1a8ee2c5c1dc64108664400000000000000
***ERROR: Block previously main branch, now orphan!?04da38005924745390c483ca73438f30b109109345ceb0df1201000000000000
***ERROR: Block previously main branch, now orphan!?04da38005924745390c483ca73438f30b109109345ceb0df1201000000000000
***ERROR: Block previously main branch, now orphan!?0571b25e96affedaf5efefe77b45656cf537561cbc0e7994d700000000000000
And many lines like that, which I suppose represent missing blocks It looks to me like a corrupted blockchain file. Most likely, block 229673 in your blockfiles is corrupt, and thus Armory doesn't see any blocks beyond that, because they all trace back to an orphan block. I don't know if you can just delete blk00052.dat and restart bitcoind and it will figure out what happened...? If you don't mind redownloading the blockchain, you may have nothing to lose... (just delete everything in the .bitcoin directory except wallet.dat and let bitcoind redownload everything. Armory will work after that, I promise |
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On short notice, I got a call from a radio station in Ottawa, Canada yesterday who wanted to interview me about Bitcoin. Only 7 minutes: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1139081/BitcoinShare/ae.alan.reiner.13.04.04.mp3I gotta work on some of my talking points, but I don't think it was too bad. I just think I made it sound too hard. "Find an exchange or find someone who has some and will sell or trade for it". "Anyone with a computer or phone can use it." Meh, with some more experience I'll get it all ironed out |
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Ok. So, is it accurate to say that a "Digital Backup" of my normal, encrypted wallet from my offline computer will contain the deterministic seed?
The digital backup does contain the deterministic seed. But it's encrypted. Which means it's 100% useless if you forget your passphrase or you get hit by a bus and your family would like to recover your fortune. If you've ever forgotten a password, either write it down with the backup, or make a paper backup. So far, I haven't observed anyone lose coins with Armory except for two reasons: (1) Forgotten passphrase (80%), (2) Failed harddrive (20%). All of it would've been avoided with a paper backup. |
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