I have been using 1Password for over 2 years and with all of this I am very thankful I have. It is very easy to use and I feel like it makes me more productive because of the speed I can login and fill in forms.

+1 for 1Password

Same. Used it with no problems.

I never worried about getting robbed when I pay cash in most stores. I don't worry about being scammed at any brick and mortar business. I also don't worry about most online businesses if they are reputable (even if I have fraud protection from my cc). I wouldn't need fraud protection if credit cards weren't so easy to use by someone else.

The common thread is I trust most merchants. They honestly have more to lose if they scam you. A merchant prospers or falters by it's reputation. Bad reviews, word of mouth, and poor business practices are a death sentence for a merchant. It is why mtgox is working so hard to get everything back to business as usual because his reputation depends on it.. Sure he could have run off with everyone's money, but he stands to make far more if he stays in business and rebuilds trust.

We need more merchants that take bitcoin because it will instill more trust in the currency.

For person to person transactions bitcoin is very risky. The anonymity of bitcoin is exactly what encourages and facilitates an easy rip-off. This really is why we need a good escrow service and/or a widespread easy reputation tracker.

Well it seems a good escrow service is needed more than ever now.

My experience with clearcoin was that the seller was unwilling to send the product after I suggested clearcoin. He was a poster without a lot of posts and I wasn't about to trust $600 worth of bitcoin to someone I didnt know. Although clearcoin was good it did favor the buyer. As the buyer I could very easily cheat a seller and then have the added bonus of contributing to a charity to counteract all the bad Karma I just did! My bitcoin would go twice as far that way! I'm not sure there is an easy way to solve that though. Maybe I just should have asked for a valid tracking number.

Something that would be a great addendum service is using a re-shipper for a fee along with your escrow. That way it isn't up to the buyer to verify receipt. A trusted third party verification seems to me well worth whatever fees were involved.

The #bitcoin-otc web of trust is nice but you basically have to be involved in a lot of high risk small transactions to build that reputation it seems. I personally prefer to do my trading on an exchange, although I am glad it is there for us all. The reputation system though is what makes it really unique. It also is anonymous.

I think you could very easily allow people to login anonymously in a similar fashion with GPG verification if they wish to, or if that is too technical (which for me it was very confusing) then they can log in with an email and password verification. Every undisputed transaction should reward the person a few points of trust rating, disputed but resolved transactions be listed as well as disputed unresolved transactions.

Seeing someone rated on an escrow service would certainly do a lot to instill trust.

I personally have a problem with a password keeper that won't work when I am offline. I prefer to be able to look up my passwords where ever I am incase I need to use someone else's computer etc. I am not sure how LastPass handles these situations but I have fallen even more in love with 1Password after all of these security issues came up. It syncs secure between my phone, multiple computers, and my ipad.

It is so simple to use that I have turned on most of my friends and family on to it.

http://agilebits.com/products/1Password

The fact that it also makes filling out online forms and storing entering credit card information more secure is the added bonus that I have trouble living without.

Whatever password keeper you use it will improve your security. The most secure password really is the one that is too difficult to memorize. Without a program like this there is no way you could choose secure different passwords for all your logins and remember them.

No where did I hear Kevin say "I should get to keep them all!"

In fact he is speaking out primarily because he personal account contradicts MtGox side of things.

This is not going to be solved on an internet forum. I personally can't claim to know anything about the truth.

However MtGox has established itself as a reputable business within our community. They do have records of all the trades, where the transfers came, and their own transfers. Much of this can be corroborated by independent sources and even within the bitcoin blocks themselves.

I do think that the only way MtGox will repair the trust lost from their investors and this community as well as quell any stupid conspiracies is to bring in an independent financial auditor or forensic investigator. Yes I know this is what caused the problem in the first place, THAT auditor deserves to be sued nine ways till sunday. However instead of a general audit this particular incident needs to be investigated and explained in detail.

There are just too many questions everyone has and it at this point is just too early to have all the information.

Let MtGox do a thorough investigation, let an independent investigator in (with tighter security controls in place), and lets all reserve judgement until the verifiable facts come out.

Money is valued by people's trust in it. Is it surprising that the market is dropping with all the bad press about the bitcoin theft?

For the market to stabilize people need to regain trust in the currency. Pure speculative investment will just cause lots of volatility. Not necessarily a bad thing for bitcoin because money will be coming in and out of the economy. However until there are easier safer ways to store bitcoin new people bitcoin are not going to want to invest in it.

Once a more secure way to store bitcoin is written into the client that will start to restore more trust in bitcoin. The market will likely recover more at that time.

Also once more business offer goods or services for bitcoin it will also contribute to more trust in it. (I am personally involved in a new startup that will hopefully launch in the next couple weeks that will help in this regard).

Lastly once the press forgets about the bitcoin theft and start writing more positive things about bitcoin (and we give them more positive things to write about) the markets will be a friendlier place for people to invest in increasing the exchange rate again.

Personally I do think bitcoin will weather this storm. Now that the reason for the theft has been detected and the community is more aware of it there will be more focus on security protocols and making bitcoin safer for the average user.

I've personally lost quite a bit on this market downturn buying BTC at 28 but i'm certainly not selling. Before that i'd rather take every bitcoin I have and buy whatever goods and services I can with it. At least there my lost value contributes to the economy rather than driving prices lower.

Honestly after what I went through lastnight almost losing my entire savings of bitcoins when backing it up i'd say the appeal for having an online account is very strong.

They won't be in business long if people get wind of them scamming people and likely an online account is more secure for people very new to bitcoin with only medium computer skills.

I sent some bitcoin to a friend as a gift and honestly it is easier to tell her to get an account at mybitcoin.com then tell her how to create encrypted backups.

Just to report in the balance was restored.

4 backups later and a hell of a lot wiser I realize how fragile my wallet is and the need for good backups is apparent.

I am very computer literate but I have to admit the process to do backups and then learn to use trucrypt was quite the undertaking.

I think it should be emphasized even more that the bitcoin client needs to be shutdown completely before backing up. I can see someone not realizing it is still running in their task bar and having problems.

Perhaps in my earlier attempts not al of the blocks had downloaded and I would have received the balance regardless and this is actually not as big of an issue as I thought.

I think the next step is making a how to video on backups for the average joe. One for just securing from loss, and then a second for securing from theft.

So i actually did find a wallet.dat file in my auto backups god bless time machine.

I checked my drop box and the timestamp is before i moved the file but after the the money showed up in my wallet. I am 90% sure i have an uncorrupted wallet.dat that has my transactions as well as was not moved before it got backed up.

I restored the file again just by copying it back in and the same thing is apparent. I have all the transactions and addresses listed.

As I am typing this one of my transactions is coming in confirmed as more blocks are being scanned. Hopefully the next ones will come as well.

Seriously, that seems like such a simple error to almost lose all of my money over. Move a file out of the client and all of my money gone.

I am so lucky my auto backup had the file.

The client really needs an auto backup in it. Bitcoin will not gain any acceptance by the general public if it is so easy to lose all of your bitcoin.

Here is crossing my fingers that my final transaction of all my BTC being deposited gets confirmed.

I don't have an older copy.
I am running a mac so i don't have an exe file
How do i run a -rescan on a mac version?

Any other ideas?

If my transaction data is there shouldn't I still be able to recover it?

What a market. I sure hope things stabilize. It is certainly a deterrent to try to sell goods and services when the price changes are so dramatic. There literally isnt enough time to take bitcoin and sell it on the market for USD without the possibility of losing 10-20% in the process.

So I had just transferred all my bitcoin out of MtGox and I wanted to back up my wallet.dat

I mistakenly moved instead of copied the wallet.dat file while the bitcoin client was running. I then made several backups of the file, deleted the old bitcoin software 0.3.21 (mac), reinstalled and overwrote the wallet.dat file with the backup.

It shows all my transactions and everything in the address book but my transactions are all 0/unconfirmed and my balance is still at 0.00

The blocks are all scanned, do I just need to wait a few more hours for the network to confirm the transactions and the balance will be restored or did I do some damage to the file when i moved it while the client was running?


Thanks for any help.

You laugh now because it is at $18 a BTC but that was the going rate when I posted this thread. I am still interested in buying bitcoin through ING direct instant transfer at market rate.

Anyone have an account with ING Direct? Provides instant transfer of funds. Offering $200 for 21 BTC