As a well-disciplined newbie (although I already bought a bunch of BTC while still at $200-250), I tried to read this thread thoroughly, and the more I read the more I started to suspect that, unless I’m grossly missing something, the thing about “100% secure wallet” is a little bit paranoiac.
First I’ll state my conclusion: besides backing up the data to an external media, the only thing I have to do is to soundly encrypt the wallet and keep the passphrase out of the system. For additional protection I’ll put the wallet in an encrypted volume.
Now my arguments:
1. I think that most users generate and keep their passwords (the passphrase in this case) via a serious, dedicated app, protected by a healthy master password. This app will enter the passwords in any box you direct it to, bypassing the clipboard.
2. I know a thing or two about hacking (the now and then pass-time with friends in the nineties, as a teenager), and I’ll say that even if you are a greenhorn that opens unknown emails, visits unsafe sites etc., and thinks that the costliest antivirus, antispy and antimalware programs do protect you (they don’t), still:
- keyloggers may work only if you enter the password manually. You should be quite a nerd to enter a 20 chars long gibberish password manually.
- spyware and such are useless against encrypted data.
- theoretically, a second-rate hacker may enter your system any time he wants and, finding a hot keyword in your files (as bitcoin, for example), he may start digging. But why choose precisely your computer? If you kept a low profile and your mouth shut, chances that he’ll find you are nil. And again, if your data is well encrypted, you are safe.
My 2¢. I’ll be grateful to the enlightened of this forum to show what am I missing. Perhaps things are more complicated. I still have to work out how using the same address for multiple transactions makes you vulnerable, as asserted in a previous reply in this thread.
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