I did read it, and you can make your SD card or even USB un-writable and make it as read-only mode with a lock, and there is also Write-Once-Read Micro SD Cards.
Thanks for explaining.
Now that makes me wonder if there is any workaround to bypass the write protection hardware switch of SD card readers, or if there's any way these hardware switches could be faulty and simply not lock the SD card when I think it physically did so. I don't trust hardware that much, especially as I'm not an expert and I mostly trust what others tell me about it rather than studying the facts by myself - I wish I had the knowledge to personally study those as well, but we can't have everything. One thing I know is, today's software and components are filled up with backdoors and maliciously-intended codelines. The "old ways" are safer than ever before: dumb phones, CDs, wired connections etc. I don't mind CDs being unreliable for long-term storage. After all, I would only use them for wallet updates and I don't need those forever. In fact, I'd rather use as many disposable devices and objects as possible the same way I'd rather use Live CDs than install the OS. I feel like it's safer and chances of messing up are lower when you know you just start from point zero every time. |
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I would not use disposable CDs for storing anything really.
They are very unreliable any data stored on them can easily be gone in few years even without moving or playing CDs.
I had bad experience several times with backup on CDs that was not being able to load, so I would suggest you use USB or SD card if you want to store it in digital format.
Usual CD storage life is two to five years, and USB is over 10 years.
I feel like you haven't really read my post, but I'll reply anyway. Using writable devices such as USB or SD cards on a PC that is supposed to have no connection to the outside world poses a risk imo to the security of the airgapped device. I could insert an USB into my Internet-connected PC, download an Electrum update, infect the USB, plug it into my airgapped device and infect it. Now: - If I had used a CD instead, after the update is done, even if the airgapped PC is now infected, I would just unplug the CD and cut it into pieces. No information will leave my infected airgapped PC. - With the USB, the device is re-writable, so crucial information may now leave from my now-infected, airgapped PC straight onto the USB. Next time I plug it into an Internet-connected device, the "fun" part begins.  AFAIK, Linux systems are way harder to infect than Windows ones. However, I'm taking as much precaution as possible. I want no USB devices to ever be connected to my airgapped device. The safer, the better. USB devices can be wiped, but I would honestly not risk information leaks when a CD is only like $0.20. (sorry for repeating "airgapped" 6 times in this post) |
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What's the issue with the law-abiding group of people? We indeed have a two groups of people here in this forum - one, who wish to comply with the KYC request and pay taxes and two, who wish to remain anonymous. But if we really want bitcoin to become a new world currency, regulation is the only way towards it. Bitcoin will never be able to become mainstream if we resist regulation, in that case, it will stay only as a parallel currency system like it is today! There will definitely be a few crypto-friendly countries, but majority of the world governments will become more hostile against it!
If someone agrees to comply to these absurd laws, let them do so. The main issue is that, once they do, it becomes mandatory for all of us. The second group, which wishes to remain anonymous, is always going to be at a disadvantage because of the first. It's just like the first group is enforcing the second to comply. I would not mind laws that are not intruding my private life, but unfortunately that's exactly what these laws do. I agree with the adoption of stuff that fights against crimes, but here in Romania we have something called presumption of innocence and I think I have the right to have it. One of the issues I see with the mindset of the vast majority of people is that, as you have also mentioned in your post, most think that the law-abiding group pays taxes while the second doesn't. I pay my taxes and everything I do is legal, although I'm looking to be as anonymous and private as I can be. Yet, it's funny how people would get angry at me over my $60 Amazon order I supposedly haven't paid taxes for when there are trillions of USD moved around every year by politicians and high-tier personnel nobody cares about and nobody pays taxes for. At this point, looking at how things evolve and that apparently even YouTube is moving towards identity verification, I think I'd honestly rather see Bitcoin as a parallel economy or an underground currency than submit to shitty laws and regulations. Let me be free, under my own cloak, living in a non-Orwellian state. The worst thing is, the "Bitcoin & crimes" excuse has been used so exhaustively that it honestly surprises me seeing how people don't realize the regulations are a plan to defeat BTC and everything Satoshi wanted to create! Realistically, Bitcoin cannot be a world currency. The authorities know that, yet they push heavily for absurd laws that only lead to more control from their side and least decentralization and freedom on ours. Nobody will ever be able to convince me that a country leader will ever support a currency they cannot control. They're leaders because they want control and power. Regulation is fine, but limited and non-intruding one. If wealthy owners have a lot of privileges we don't have access to and have lots of ways to get away with tax payments, I can't see why Bitcoin owners should be this limited. Ah, precious metal regulations are coming as well.. looks like I forgot for a moment that the average Joe should not be allowed to exit the wage slavery class, according to the current system we're living in. You see, we're living in a world where we want fairness although the ones giving us orders are the least fair. As long as you don't have evidence that I'm doing anything illegal with my decentralized currency, what I do with my coins should be nobody's business. |
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Forked coins are "third-party" coins even if they're forked from supported coins, and the exchange has no obligation to install its software or to provide services related to these third-party coins, if this is not marked in the User Agreement. The exchange has therefore no obligation to make forked coins available to its users.
Honestly, as much as I hate Coinbase, this makes sense. There are a sh*tton of forks (I believe the website isn't even up to date) and if I owned Coinbase, I'd do either the same or allow the customer to take the forks with a little premium for my company's efforts of retrieving them (unless I directly gave the customer their privkeys). Furthermore a judge confirmed in an earlier decision - also quoted in the present one - that, were the Court to acknowledge this obligation, then "The Court would be imposing a major new duty on all cryptocurrency exchanges (...) to affirmatively honor every single bitcoin fork." This point of view was shared by aesma in this post. Just as I said in the paragraph above, it'd become a crappy mess if all companies would be enforced to honor all forks out there. 2. "(...) whether Coinbase could provide plaintiff with access to the forked currency is not dispositive; the pertinent question is whether Coinbase had a contractual obligation to do so, and the undisputed evidence submitted by Coinbase shows it did not"
A huge missed chance... The Court does not have to answer the important question if Coinbase should give the private keys to the client, if possible and when asked, because the Plaintiff is founding his defense on the principle of breach of contract (which it's not) and not on the principle of his (possible) property rights of the private keys. In other words, the important question if an exchange user has the right to have access to his private keys, is left unanswered because it's impertinent for this case.
In a fair world, the customers should have access to the privkeys. But we unfortunately do not live in a fair world, and if the contract doesn't specify the user has a right to the privkeys under custody, I guess the answer is "no".. A possible explanation could be that in the meantime the Plaintiff's Bitcoin Gold value was way lower than at the moment of the fork. For this reason, having access to his private keys would have become less interesting anyway, from a financial point of view. Therefore, the argument of "Breach of contract" might have been preferred as a strategy of trying to get an indemnity from Coinbase with the BTCGold value at the time of the fork, instead of trying to obtain the private keys and those Bitcoin Gold coins, which had a much lower value now.
Bad strategy (imo) if so. Under the last instance, I would've at least tried to ask for the privkeys as a last resort. It does look as if we are close to answering the question if not owning your keys indeed means you're not owning your coins. Or put differently: (if not stated otherwise in the User Agreement and when asked) do exchanges have an obligation to provide you access to your private keys? To be continued soon...  If we take it as a comparison to banks, wouldn't privkeys be basically the backend of our bank accounts? I don't think handing out privkeys are an obligation to be honest, although I would highly prefer that to be the case. Handing out privkeys may also be bad from a security point of view.. It's the main reason why I find it rather disturbing that this principle of "not your keys, not your coins" is used over and over, whether appropriate or inappropriate (even by this self-declared "crypto lawyer"). People will never blindly or unthinkingly accept or understand such advice - no matter how well meant it is - if they do not understand WHY. I'd like to urge members who have the knowledge and experience to not use this expression recklessly, because it's eroding its credibility and undermining the important message it really does contain.
Laziness. It's much easier to use Coinbase or other "user-friendly" wallets that look fancy but hold your assets under custody, isn't it? It scares me how people are lately giving up anything and everything for comfort. It's almost like they simply don't give a damn that someone else is the owner of their stuff. 1. Read the frigging Terms of Use, before transferring your coins and make sure they're watertight. Would you buy a car or a smartphone or a TV without reading any reviews? Same goes for an exchange. KNOW WHAT YOU USE BEFORE USING IT.
Hehe, the old ToS problem.. To be honest, out of a million people, I'd be surprised to find out that 100 read the ToS of a software/website before registering. 100 may be a generous number. People sign bank contracts without reading a single word out of it. This is how bad the ToS reading situation is. Fortunately, there are a few websites that have been reviewed on ToS;DR. At least do that if you're lazy enough to read terms before signing them. |
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I would recommend using whole disk encryption on your airgapped computer.
~
Possibly, but if you use whole disk encryption using good open source software (LUKS or VeraCrypt, for example), then you would be largely protected against a physical attack by someone with some sort of backdoor in to the hardware.
Oh I will, no doubt. Thanks for the recommendations of encryption software. No, provided the seed phrase was created securely and you don't expose the seed phrase or private keys via any other means. The risk of leaking information from a permanently airgapped device is very small, and would likely require that you be a target of a three letter agency somewhere. As long as the airgapped software you are using can still sign transactions created by whatever software you are using for your watch only wallet, then there is no need to ever update it. I probably still would every so often though (by transferring the update on removable media - not by going online!)
Got it. I might do updates using disposable CDs to make sure the data is written one-way only then. You are some kind of privacy genie here tbh so I will have the insolence to ask this do you have any other recommendations, or do you think the way I thought organizing my coins sounds fine so far?
Also, I have a little doubt that came up in my mind right after reading @Lucius' reply above: is connecting Bitcoin Core with Tor the safest way to broadcast a tx signed from my airgapped PC without revealing my fingerprint? |
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Not long I made a topic about bitcoin, how it is not vulnerable like other money, but people just need to know how to perfectly control their bitcoin by practicing self-custody in a way they will control their private keys themselves rather than depending on custodial services as 20kevin20 commented already. And also, someone need to have privacy both offline and especially online, protecting your bitcoin against scammers generally. With these, bitcoin is the perfect version of money.
While you are right and self-custody is the best way to do it, it still does not really come as a solution against what happened with JM Bullion. At least not entirely. Personal information can still be easily stolen - it's just that instead of credit card names, numbers and security codes, they'd get the BTC addresses instead and from there on, it just goes down to a game of blockchain analysis and dust attacks. The JM Bullion scenario could be repeated onto a lot of websites with BTC. Imagine a malicious script was suddenly placed on paper wallet or seed generating websites. The hackers would just scrap data off whoever uses the website and have full control over their newly-generated keys/seeds. |
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On the 22nd of September, YouTube has announced new plans for Europe: identity verification for videos that are age-restricted. If until not too long ago the verification was a Google account which already required mobile number verification, the corporation will soon implement a KYC-like procedure in order to be allowed to watch age-restricted videos. It seems like the new procedure has to do with Revision of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD), which has been adopted on the 6th of November 2018. According to YouTube's recent blog post, As part of this process some European users may be asked to provide additional proof of age when attempting to watch mature content. If our systems are unable to establish that a viewer is above the age of 18, we will request that they provide a valid ID or credit card to verify their age. We’ve built our age-verification process in keeping with Google’s Privacy and Security Principles. This is very alarming imo. If we rewind the time back to 2013 and slowly remember all the new "regulations" and "guidelines" that have been implemented among most of the online platforms, we would find out that these things are so smoothly implemented it's just scary. I keep repeating on a daily basis this same idea that only seems to become more real every day: privacy is soon going to be a definition of the past! |
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I'm really wondering, is there anyone out here who's had a great success with bounties and airdrops? I have never heard of anyone who's earned a lot of profit in the end off those, and all those hours people waste over assets worth nothing are surely not worth it in the end. Change my mind.
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If you want complete privacy you have to start from scratch, which would mean that you will always use a TOR or a trusted VPN, and that all coins will be mixed. So first secure your internet privacy (mask your real IP), then move your coins to another wallet and reset Ledger, create a new seed and never connect to Ledger or any other server with your real IP. Then mix your coins again, and send them to Ledger.
I mostly got the mixing, IP masking and coin handling part. There definitely are some flaws I have sometimes missed, but now that I have a RYF-certified PC, I'll be fixing them as well. Tech and cybersecurity is a never-ending education. Now the question arises as to how you will use these coins, because if you pay something online with this BTC you will reveal your identity in case you buy an item to be delivered to you - although there is a way not to use your real address.
My long-term mixed coins will be used P2P only, while my hot wallet will be a little more "vulnerable" privacy-wise. There are some workarounds for name and addresses as well that I've been successfully using for a while now. It feels a bit less secure than handing out your real personal information, but it's worth it in the end. I'm not saying that Ledger has any bad intentions, but they have already shown considerable incompetence, which is just a warning that they should not be completely trusted. IP addresses combined with coin addresses could really be a big security issue, and the question is how Ledger handles them.
They're a company and they may have shown mostly good intentions in the first few years, but lately they've turned to the "darker" side in my opinion. As a company, no matter how much it looks like they are well intended, they may be influenced in the end the same way Google and almost all the other corporations of today have been - especially if large money comes into the game. The Secure Element is another thing that makes me question whether backdoors are a thing - hence why I previously searched for a way to use my HW offline. If you back up your private keys&seed on a airgapped PCs, then you don't have to worry about it becoming unusable and after a long time, it's something that should always be standardized way for recovery.
I wouldn't worry about losing the privkeys/seed as much as I'd worry about the fact it's somewhere stored on my drive. While Ledger has its own security and encryption by default, the other devices I own such as PCs are only as safe as I make them be. And since I'm not a security expert, there may be large flaws I'm missing. |
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Just about time for precious metal investors to shift to bitcoin, as you can totally protect your own assets as you own the private key.
I get what you're trying to say, but even if you switched to BTC and paid using it, your address will likely be stored under JM's database and with one little hack, it could be easily linked to your identity. As long as you're ordering stuff and using centralized platforms, information about you will always be available for bad actors to steal. Welcome to the Internet - it's a quite dangerous place. |
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So I just got a RYF-certified device on my hands and I'm now thinking about what I should be doing with it. I love my Ledger. I've been using it for a long time now, but I am constantly thinking about the fact that I sometimes have to access Live to remove/add apps on it, and that is something I definitely don't like from a privacy perspective. I have no programming knowledge to review source codes, and I am highly paranoid that Ledger Live may be collecting information from my HW (I know it does not have an identifiable serial number, but it does have apps and the addresses and these could be linked to my IP) and either store it or even sell it to other interested parties. PC components have backdoors and creepy closed-source stuff in them, so I am constantly wondering why Ledger wouldn't. In consequence, I'm contemplating about moving my mixed/CoinJoined coins to an airgapped PC that will never go online. I would have used my Ledger in conjunction with an airgapped PC (I'm somehow pretty scared about my private keys and seed living on a hard drive and Ledger makes me feel safer about it), but I know it sounds like a useless idea. Sometimes I'm wondering if airgapped PCs pose a risk when it comes to outdated wallets. If I airgap a device, I want to keep it forever offline. Will my funds be under risk if I never update my wallet again, as long as the device is never going to connect to the outside world? The doubts I'm facing are about the way I should store my long-term coins now that I have three different devices: a RYF-certified one, a laptop with all wireless and bluetooth modules removed and HWs. I have been thinking about using my Ledger as a "hot wallet" for non-mixed coins and storing the mixed ones on an airgapped device, but I am not sure whether I should use my RYF-certified device or the kind of device doesn't matter as long as it has no wireless modules to communicate. I want my airgapped PC to be as authority-proof as it can be. Could my non-RYF-certified pose a higher risk of being unlocked by someone who has access to the backdoors installed in it? In fact, I am not even sure if there is any better alternative, so I thought some members out here could give me a helping hand. I am basically looking for the safest (from a privacy POV) way to sore and use my coins as privately and open-source as possible, or at least for someone who knows what they're talking about to tell me whether my idea is a good one or needs improvement. |
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Yeah, segwit only has somewhere between 40-45% percent but that alone would not be enough for cases like this or for the future, imagine doubling usage, even with segwit it won't be possible, the solution is to move to a second layer, but that at this point seems ten times harder for new users than simply using bitcoin, and for most people out there even this is quite a hurdle.
Well, I guess something will need to be done at one point. The usage will inevitably increase anyway, especially at the market expands and Bitcoin matures. By second layer, do you mean LN? Would that be a working solution that could work at a large scale while also preserving the main aspects of Bitcoin, such as decentralization? |
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Interesting analysis, but I don't think one needs anything else other than a brain to realize it's all about bullshitting on a constant basis in a desperate attempt to earn a name he doesn't deserve. Over time, with every word he said he only dug his grave deeper and deeper into the ground. A lie can't hold long, especially when you constantly try explaining it as if it was the truth. There comes a time when your BS doesn't make sense anymore. He tried his best, but unfortunately (for him), he lost and only completely destroyed his image in front of all of us. All these new things only further dig his grave deeper but, to me at least, it's a closed case. He's just a pathetic liar. |
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You do not own any specific, identifiable, Crypto Asset. This is the biggest red flag, confirming my previous thoughts: you won't be holding cryptocurrencies. You'll be holding basically nothing - PayPal is selling you air. If my purchased coins are not specific and identifiable crypto assets, I will suppose the price of the real Bitcoin may move completely different to the Bitcoin Air they're "selling". The saddest thing is that PayPal already knows >95% of the incoming Cryptocurrency Hub users will NOT read the ToS and, in consequence, will get wrecked up by shitty terms. The good news is, Paypal supporting it will be a huge encouragement to all sorts of asset managers and hedge funds that it is now officially a mainstream currency.
I personally do not see any of this PayPal news in a positive way. They're either trying to profit off the continuous rise of crypto users, to attempt taking down cryptocurrencies and manipulate markets or both. It's them selling nothing with a premium. This isn't encouragement but more of a middle finger towards Bitcoin purists. |
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On the eve of Halloween 31 October 2008 satoshi wrote
"I have been working on a electronic cash system that's fully peer- to -peer ,with no trusted third party."
Can we say that his work has been done or is still a work in progress .
I think we could say the main idea has been successfully achieved: it's p2p and doesn't require a trusted third party to function. What has been the development of Bitcoin and improvement since that statement was made till now?
And will Bitcoin (satoshi dream or goal ) be fully accepted in the world as a means of payment?.
Bitcoin has changed drastically ever since. A ton of new functions and modifications have been done - you can see all the changes on the Bitcoin GitHub repo. We've had hard forks, big flaws that have been fixed and so on. It's like an eternal baby growing up. Fully accepted? It depends on what you mean by "accepted". If you're talking about worldwide adoption, it'll never be. There will always be an opposition somewhere around the world. But right now, Bitcoin works in any corner of the world as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system. So if you take it this way, it's already working everywhere around the world. |
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Some people are against Bitcoin specifically due to the large amount of energy consumed, but we're going fully digital in all domains anyway and nothing is perfect. An interesting comparison is how Bitcoin mining energy consumption compares to the consumption of electrical cars: Miners of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies could require up to 140 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2018, about 0.6 percent of the global total, Morgan Stanley analysts led by Nicholas Ashworth wrote in a note Wednesday. Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-10/bitcoin-outshines-electric-cars-as-driver-of-global-power-useIf virtually all passenger cars in Texas were electrified today, the state would need approximately 110 more terawatt-hours of electricity per year — the average annual electricity consumption of 11 million homes. Source: https://www.inverse.com/article/51486-electric-cars-demand-better-infrastructureElectric cars are advertised literally everywhere as eco-friendly vehicles, yet from this perspective, it's not as fun as it sounds. We're saving the environment from the damage done by non-electric vehicles only to replace the damage with the one done by EVs. The thing is, this is the only way we can have a fair currency that doesn't provide certain categories of the population an advantage. Be it rich, poor, a CEO or a garbage truck guy, you can own and use Bitcoin whenever and however you like. |
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God damn it, it's one of my deepest fears getting confirmed little by little. I keep saying it: it's exactly why they are suddenly starting to "support" cryptocurrencies! They found a way around the decentralization: the owner of a non-KYC-verified address? Suspect. There will probably come a time when things will split up into two sides, as you have mentioned: the "law-abiding" users and the underground ones trying their best not to be caught trying to have digital intimacy. Unfortunately, we have too many crypto users that now don't care about their privacy anymore. If >5 years ago these news would've turned into a crypto revolt, today people don't care as long as their wallets grow. But they knew it, and they just know the more people join crypto blockchains, the more people they can easily monitor. Guess there'll always be some ways around their laws as well, such as moving to crypto AND privacy friendly countries. Interesting times coming soon for sure. |
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Halloween, or all hallows evening, evolved from the Celtic Samhain festival. This marked the end of the summer, and preparation for the start of the New Year on November 1st. So much of the Elite/Banking creations seem to have associations with the old mystic festivals. Some may consider this as an indication that Satoshi was in fact one of the covens of the Elite world.
Mock if you will, but there seem to be too many of these coincidences and associations.
It's a pretty plausible idea, only a few days ago I was wondering why Satoshi chose the Halloween as Bitcoin's beginning. I personally think it's quite silly to completely disagree with a plausible idea about Satoshi's origins as we have just no idea about his identity besides the way he writes and active times on the forum. Around the 3rd of January, the Earth is at the closest point to the Sun as well. These things are quite interesting, although lots of people think they're BS. The Elite surely do follow their meanings - most of the important dates, buildings etc have a specific meaning in numerology and it almost always links up. |
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The rising number of institutional investors leads to Bitcoin getting hit harder during top events such as American elections. IIRC, 2016's elections have had an impact over Bitcoin and precious metals too, so has Brexit. It definitely does not decide or change its fate, but it does influence prices. The fact that Bitcoin always has the halving right before elections strengthens the influence even more imo.
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Unless Bitcoin becomes centralized or some classes about it are added to schools (unrealistic), it's never gonna be something the average Joe knows about. Bitcoin's quite hard to understand because it's something new. Like other domains, you have to study it if you want to use it and know more about it.. and I personally think it's better this way.
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