Actually I thought that address was the wallet I was using. From the blockchain explorer looks like not.


Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. For now I think this all may end up taking more time than it's worth.

I may have used 7zip but it's in zip format. Crark-7z says it won't accept it because it's not in 7zip format.

Looks like it's guess and check for me.

I believe I used 7zip.

I do remember the beginning of the password. I even named the zip file to remind me of it. I just don't remember what came after it.

It was probably a full passphrase. So, long.

So a while back I took my Bitcoins and zipped them in nested zip files. And I can't remember the password.

I'm running Linux. Anyone know a good password cracker? Or, a way to recover my Bitcoins? I have a wallet address in my LastPass, will that help me get things back?

I can't seem to vote, but if I could, I'd vote for Shared Maximum Pay Per Share.

I'm not a Mac user but I've heard of one called Mac Defender...
(just kidding - do NOT go install Mac Defender, although there is a legit product called Mac Defender there's also a virus called Mac Defender.)

I'm sorry, I know that's not helpful but I had to say it.

FYI - the banks backing your credit cards are not owned, operated by, or affiliated with the Federal Reserve (which is the bank that handles the distribution of US currency). Similarly, any bank backing a Bitcoin-based credit card most likely will not be owned, operated by, or affiliated with this site or the creators of the Bitcoin software.

So basically - who knows? We have no say in that. We can support companies if they offer such a card (I believe there already are some doing something similar), but that's all we can do.

Also - a better option would be to put a Bitcoin client on a smartphone equipped with an NFC chip. This could be used to both send and receive payments from other mobile users quickly and easily.

And you have Bitcoin open and running on your computer?

Is Bitcoin able to connect or is it stuck at 0 connections?

From the description on the mouseover, it sounds like all this means is that you didn't spend those coins yet.

Here's the best way to put it:
I bought a small form factor ATi card (Radeon HD 5570) for about $60. (I've got a server that already runs 24/7, and I figured it might as well mine all day too, and it's SFF so I had to get an SFF card for it.)
GPU mining on it gets me about 60 Mhash/s.
CPU mining on it with a dual core AMD Athlon 64 5200+ (2.6GHz per core) gets me about 1.2 Mhash/s.

I just checked Google Shopping, and this CPU still costs $150+ new it seems.
So you pay double and get about 1/50 the speed.

Basically... the CPUs will work and will chug away on the calculations. However, you're far more likely to generate an electricity bill than a Bitcoin. Even in a pool, because most likely your CPU won't submit any work before the end of the round.

Try it for fun if you want. Just be prepared for a letdown. My processor is from the Vista 64 era, and it often doesn't get its work done before the end of the round. Since yours is Win98 era, I'm guessing it's about 1/8 the clockspeed (300-400 MHz range) and is only single core (so in all reality you'll get about 1/16 the speed, meaning it's 16 times more likely that the rounds will complete before your CPU is done).

Also - remember, the value of Bitcoin seems to be hovering between $15-20 these days. A new GPU might be able to pay for itself before too long. 10 BTC will pay for a new GPU.

If you've got that card lying around, fine, but don't buy an nVidia card for mining. They have fewer cores and so they're slower miners.

No. I understand what you're saying and where you're coming from, but no.

Purchasing Bitcoins is not something the software enables you to do. Mt. Gox is a third-party service, and they do a great job. Right now Bitcoin is part of the better half of open-source. I've been using Linux and open-source for over 10 years, and I can tell you that what you're thinking of is what brings projects over to the other side.

Let's focus on making Bitcoin itself better at what it's intended to do, and let's let the people who run Mt. Gox and these other "exchange" sites do what they do best. Yes, they still have kinks to work out, but creating our own version will only add to the confusion.

No matter what, Bitcoin won't become widely accepted until it becomes trusted. Which is why I say, let's focus on making it secure and making it easy for people to learn how to keep their wallets secure. Right now everyone's looking at the poor guy who lost his 2500 Bitcoins - we all know how it could've been avoided, and so that's the sort of thing the software needs to do. Make it one-click to transfer all your Bitcoins to an encrypted Flash drive.

Ease of use is important too, but not in the way you've mentioned. Already it's easier to transfer money online through Bitcoin than it is to transfer it through other services - there are no passwords or accounts necessary, just a piece of software. What we do need, however, is solid mobile apps. The Nexus S has a NFC chip, and supposedly the next iPhone will as well, with other phones to follow - we should look into using those to transfer Bitcoin between phones. Contract workers and freelancers would love that because it's as handy and easy to use as a credit card, but accepting payment wouldn't require them to pay any fees. Stores will love it because they, too, want to avoid paying those fees, but they know that it's so handy for us to just swipe a card. Now we can just swipe a phone instead. And THAT is how people will gain interest in Bitcoin. Sure, the average person won't care - until their local market starts charging extra to use a credit card. There's already one chain of stores (Aldi) that doesn't even accept credit cards at all, and that's supposedly how they keep their prices down - if they accepted Bitcoin, they could have the convenience benefit while still not having to pay the credit card fee.

But aside from the lack of a mobile app, it's not Bitcoin that is preventing this. It's trust.

Here's the take-away:
1. ONLY store your wallet.dat on an encrypted partition.
by extension:
1a. DON'T BACKUP YOUR WALLET TO AN UNENCRYPTED PARTITION!
1b. Don't use Dropbox to backup your wallet!
1c. DON'T USE DROPBOX TO BACKUP YOUR WALLET! Yes, it's handy, yes, it's automatically backed up, and yes it's encrypted. But none of that matters. Although Dropbox does encrypt your data, the way the Dropbox system works makes it a relatively insecure place for storing your wallet - once you connect to Dropbox on a PC, rather than keeping your password, the program keeps a token. Anyone with that token has access to your Dropbox (and your wallet). It doesn't matter that the data is encrypted because Dropbox does the decryption on their end (not good - companies should learn, this is the same thing Gawker did wrong, and is one of the many things Sony did wrong, and it's one of the easiest problems to avoid).
1d. If you want to use a cloud-based back-up solution, MAKE SURE that it encrypts *LITERALLY *ALL* of your data before it is "sent to the cloud." Also, MAKE SURE THAT ONLY YOU HAVE THE ENCRYPTION KEY. (Or trusted loved ones. But you know what I mean - make sure the service doesn't keep a copy of your key - otherwise you can get totally screwed even if you personally do everything right.) Yes, this means that if you ever lose that password you lose all that data - but that's why we have password "hints" and why we have password autofillers. Wuala does encrypt your data beforehand and does not store a copy of the key (and incidentally, accepts Bitcoin if you want to use their paid services) and there are services such as Carbonite which can supposedly do the same (although I can't personally vouch for any of these).

2. The key to keeping a system secure (aside from just disconnecting it from the Internet) is to BE AWARE. Pay attention to what is installed on your system, and why, and how often you use it. If you aren't using it, get rid of it as it's nothing more than a potential attack vector.
2a. PAY ATTENTION to what's on your computer!
2b. PAY ATTENTION to what's on your computer! Assuming this guy is telling the truth, this is where he really fucked up. He was running this on his main home PC, which he also used for work and stock trading. I'd assume he also used the same computer for general Web browsing, file sharing, gaming, chatting, and everything else. We all do it, and it puts us at risk. It's not that it isn't/can't be OK - it can - but he did it without thinking about the fact that every program is a potential attack vector. It would've been OK if he'd kept his wallet on a physically disconnected volume, but he didn't.'t.

3. Keep the PC which holds your main wallet up-to-date and keep it secure, and/or keep your wallet off your PC until you want to use it.
3a. If you can, keep your wallet on another computer (IE, not your main PC) that pretty much isn't used for anything but Bitcoin, and LOCK IT DOWN TIGHT. The more programs you have on the PC, the more vectors of attack an attacker has.
3b. For most of us, it's not feasible to have a separate PC just for Bitcoin. This can be OK. If you have a lot of Bitcoin, keep your main wallet on a Flash drive or something similar that is only physically connected to your system when you want to run Bitcoin. (Make sure you understand - I am NOT talking about making a copy of your wallet, I am talking about actually moving the file to a separate drive where it is normally inaccessible to the Bitcoin software except when you deliberately plug it in.)

4. Be smart and realize you are human. Leaving your wallet in plain sight in a locked car isn't "keeping it safe" and it seems like it's pretty obvious that doing it puts you at risk, but accidents happen sometimes - which is why we tend to keep our money either with a bank or somewhere safe at home. If you have enough Bitcoin, keep two wallets - one with the majority of your Bitcoin, and one with your spending money - and make sure the "main" wallet is kept ultra-secure. Treat your BTC wallet like a real wallet - don't keep large amounts on you because if you get robbed and you're carrying $100 or even $1000 you're set back but not enough that you won't recover, but if you're carrying $500,000 and you get robbed (or lose your wallet) you're pretty well fucked.

Don't know about whether or not anything on your end is wrong.

As far as the confirmed/unconfirmed blocks - what it means is that once the blocks are confirmed by a certain number of other computers on the Bitcoin network, you'll get that money.

Would it be possible to get a link set up on the site to a JS miner? I know it won't help much - but it would be cool easy way to donate some extra CPU cycles when you aren't on your main PC.

And who knows, maybe someday WebGL can be used for mining BTC.

Where'd you get that stat? How do you know how many people use Linux Mint? Is there some sort of empirical evidence? And how do you know it's not only you?

I run Ubuntu x64 and it works just fine for me.

What window manager?
Did you get any warnings during compile?

What does that mean?

If you have two of the same-model video cards, you shouldn't need to have anything plugged into the second card - the program should be able to access it via CrossFire. Unless CrossFire isn't working correctly.

Is CrossFire working correctly?

(Sorry, I'm on only one vidcard - I don't remember how to check this.)

It's possible too that something happened in shipping. Or that they are from the same bad line run.

Doesn't sound like there is an issue... you probably haven't downloaded the blocks yet. It can take a while.

Remember - for Slush's pool the username and password you need to give the miner are NOT your login username and password, they are the username.subname and password set that you set up on Slush's site (and that if you have more than one miner, you need a "sub-username" and password set up for each).

IIRC you need to type the http:// too into the URL.