Yes, I'm aware of deterministic wallets and how they work cryptography-wise. It would work in cases where the determinism is permissible. However, a setup process where you have to write something down would be bad for automating. Electrum, supplemented with a printer interface which blocks until the key has been printed out could work. But I understand that there is no ready-to-use solution yet which automates the process of having keys securely synced before being used on the network.
The writing down seed step is merely in place for human backupability. If you were to code a separate project that would automate wallet creation for some kind of script... a la bitpay's merchant address generation script etc... you wouldn't need to write down anything and you could store the hex seed encrypted and not even bother with making it into a mnemonic. I am not quite understanding what you are trying to do. I also don't really understand your main concern either... but I think if you tell us what you are trying to do, we will be better equipped to assist you. |
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Do what I said earlier and it'll be fixed.
Slight correction tho, no need to delete blockchain headers, just delete the config file.
Electrum will generate a new default config file on boot.
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just above the folder with your wallet file is a blockchain headers file and an electrum config file.
Delete those and restart Electrum. Don't worry, as long as you don't delete your wallet (or the wallet folder) you'll be fine.
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Can we Diceware the Electrum word list? I mean I prefer to use real dices to the computer's random number generator to give me my words.
All you need is a 6 sided die. Then do the below. Be careful though. Electrum console records every command input to it. So to prevent it writing the command to your hard disk (effectively writing your seed to the hard disk unencrypted) Find /gui/qt/console.py file in your electrum install folder. Then go to line # 147 def addToHistory(self, command):
if command.find("importprivkey") > -1 or True: # <<<< add " or True" to this line (This is line 147)
return
if command and (not self.history or self.history[-1] != command):
self.history.append(command)
self.history_index = len(self.history) That will disable Electrum writing to Hard Disk all the commands. Then here is how you generate your own seed. Roll dice 53 times, write down each result (writing "0" for every 6 rolled) as a 53 digit long number
with only the digits 0-5. Then input the following lines of code in the electrum console:
>> from electrum import mnemonic
>> ' '.join(mnemonic.mn_encode(("%032X" % (int('01234501234501234501234501234501234501234501234501234',6)%(2**128)))))
(replace the 012345012345 etc with your actual dice rolls)
(note you need to input "from electrum import mnemonic" first then hit enter. After that do the second line I wrote) Edit: I borrowed the text of the second part from a reddit post based off of something I said in IRC. http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2akdl5/howto_use_your_own_dice_rolls_to_generate_an/ |
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Noticed the site is down.
Any updates as to when it'll be back up?
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there was a way to do it on Linux... but Windows looks like there's no way to get zbar to work with Python 2.7
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What features are you looking for?
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I've implemented this and it works great
Btw when will it go live. I am very excited to see how it looks with the aesthetic of your wallet. Also, I assume that it checks the checksum when inputting the worded phrase. That is going to help a lot imo. |
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dabura667
I've implemented this and it works great, the only thing I don't like is that some of the words are pretty negative, e.g. suicide and will be on their homepage forever, so I propose to replace some of the words with "happy ones", I assume this will make the method non-standard but as this is not for Bitcoin keys and rather a site specific validation procedure I don't see this as a big issue. Any thoughts?
Cheers
Ben
The BIP0039 protocol is made to be interchangable. The idea is that eventually any language in UTF-8 can create their own language's word list. If you went through switching bad / negative / not-clean-for-mommy type words out. (hey, kids will use Bitcoin someday, so why not) Try pull requesting bitcoin/BIPS to add the Clean-English.txt list. I am all for it! Edit: Just remember to read the "rules" that were followed when choosing words. I think one of them was "no two words will have the same first four letters" or something. Plop the list into Excel, slap an ordering column next to them (numbered from 1 to 2048) and turn on the filter. Maybe add some columns to the side with a =LEFT(<celltotheleft>, 4) to just cut off the first 4 letters and see if the four letters at the beginning of the word you want to add is in the list etc. |
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Yes, upgrade to 1.9.8. Also, double and triple check spelling when you write your seed down. But also remember: (Because there is always possibility of malware on your computer that may alter things.) Be familiar with your wallet. Know how many bitcoins are in it. Know about how many times you've used it. Know what kind of labels you have on it. If a piece of malware replaced default_wallet with a watch-only wallet to an attacker's electrum wallet, would you be safe? Would you recognize that it isn't your wallet? The bug in 1.9.7 is a bad bug, I understand, and I don't want to blame victims. BUT I think that people need to be diligent when dealing with money on their computer. Especially on a computer that has touched the internet, double check everything, always. Anyone who hits the wallet restore bug has about 3-5 huge red flags they should notice... restoring from seed should NEVER create a watch-only wallet, being one of them. |
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Thank you very much. You have been very helpful to me, and I appreciate what you have done.
You're welcome, glad to have helped. |
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There is no way to 100% protect your Bitcoins.
As long as Bitcoin is based on ECDSA which is based on random numbers, there will always be a probability that someone generates the same key as you.
Electrum seeds are one in 346 trillion trillion trillion (rounded down thats 3 with 38 zeros)
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Very nice wallet.
1. Open sourcing it during alpha will help a lot with testing imo.
2. This could be the Coinbase of on-chain decentralized wallets! (After looking at your FAQ etc. I feel like your wallet is DarkWallet and Greenaddress.it having a love child, minus the stealth addresses.)
3. That being said, having to copy / paste a fingerprint over will likely confuse a lot of newbies. I would suggest using the 20 bytes fingerprint and encode with BIP39, then reverse the encoding process on the receivers end. That way it's more pleasant to the eyes of a non-techie, and there's a checksum included in case they copy and paste it wrong or forget a word. (not to mention if the word is cut off it won't exist in the wordlist, so there's another way to check.)
I will try it out with some friends from our local meetup.
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In Internet slang, a troll (/ˈtroʊl/, /ˈtrɒl/) is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people,[1] by posting inflammatory,[2] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response[3] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion. Asking why you're not spending time to write a native app, and getting angry when you can't even be civil to one of your investors is not trolling. About your investment. Pics or it didn't happen. Where's your proof? |
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Even so i re-created from seed it still reads watching only.
That's a bug. (It's fixed in 1.9.8. You should upgrade) Those aren't your transactions. That isn't your wallet. I'm sorry for your loss. |
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Hi!
(sheepish look) ok, so it looks like i didn't quite understand it after all, thanks really a lot for helping to clear that up. Just to make sure that i understand - question to the audience at large out there - what i keep in cold storage is simply the master key with which i sign transactions i want to make from my watch-only wallet. There are never any coins in it nor for that matter 'in' any other wallet of mine, they just possess the keys with which transactions can be made.
More or less correct?
Thanks again for the help!
Adrian
Perfect! You chose one of the best ways to keep large amounts of bitcoin safe imo. Just guard that seed and your offline computer as you would a vault. Those are your keys to your bitcoin fortune on the blockchain. |
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Yes. We have the first seed and other seeds in a document, but don't know what to do with them. Do you know?
Tried out to restore with them but just create new wallet.
You did not record the seed correctly. Electrum seeds are order specific. If your wallet is "... bacon crab" and you type in the exact same thing except "... crab bacon" you will get a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT (and probably unused, brand new) wallet. Make sure that you are only using 12 words. Electrum seeds are 12 words long. If you can't get it to restore, then you recorded your seed wrong and if your password is wrong... until you find one of them, your bitcoins are lost. |
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I think you misunderstand what cold storage with Electrum is.
1. All bitcoins exist on the blockchain, not on your computer.
2. You computer merely stores "Private Keys" that "Unlock" bitcoins FROM the blockchain, and you send them to other people by locking them back up into the blockchain using the address you are sending to. (Think of Bitcoin addresses as lock-only keys, and "Private Keys" as unlock-only keys)
3. Every "Private Key" is directly associated with a "public key" which is used to create your Bitcoin address. So Private Key - Public Key sets come in pairs.
4. Your Offline electrum contains a "seed" (that 12 word phrase) that will go through a mathematical function to create one of those "private keys"
5. From that initial "Private Key" created from your seed, a special mathematical function is used to generate sequential private keys. (meaning if you use this function on your original Private Key once, it will create a second private key, twice it will create a third private key etc.)
6. This mathematical function allows for the Public Keys and Private Keys to be generated separately. ie. if we call the original private-public pair Private(1) and Public(1), then I can generate Public 2, 3, 4, 5 etc. just from knowing ONLY Public(1), but in order to generate Private 2, 3, 4, etc. I must have Private(1).
7. Your offline wallet holds your Private Keys(1,2,3,4...infiniti)
8. Your "watch-only" wallet holds the Public Keys OF YOUR OFFLINE WALLET, (Public(1,2,3,4...infiniti))
9. To send bitcoins to cold storage, you just need to send bitcoins TO one of the addresses on your watch-only wallet. (because these addresses are EXACTLY THE SAME as your offline wallet)
10. However, because your watch-only wallet only has your Public Keys, you must sign the transaction using your Private Keys on the Offline wallet to SPEND FROM your cold storage offline Electrum wallet.
tl;dr Your offline wallet and your watch-only wallet are THE SAME WALLET. Just your watch only wallet has no private keys, so no one can steal your bitcoins from your online computer.
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thanks for the speedy reply!
oooooookaaayyy....so then i should steel myself for the fact that i will never see any balance or transaction history of any kind in my offline wallet? that although i'll be transferring the greater part of my bitcoins into this wallet, the offline wallet itself will never look any different than it did upon first installation and all information on deposits to it will be kept in the watch-only wallet and only the watch-only wallet?
it seems a little counter-intuitive so i just want to double-check.
thanks again for the speedy reply!
adrian
Think of it this way. Your offline Electrum exists ONLY to sign transactions. As it can never touch the internet it doesn't know anything about the blockchain, and has never seen the blockchain before in it's life. Your offline Electrum wallet becomes useful ONLY when an online watch-only counterpart exists to create transactions and manage balances for it. Honestly, I think that when Electrum is in offline mode, it should shrink to a minimalistic GUI that just has one button. "Open unsigned transaction" and doesn't show the tabs for receive addresses or anything. You don't need all that info for your offline wallet, all you need is to sign with it. |
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