Blockchain Security Questions

[ranochigo]

Blocking TOR IPs is always a good idea however, if you are in a situation which you can only use TOR to access internet, you can't access the wallet as you have blocked the IP. If you whitelist and restrict IP, you would not be able to access your wallet if you go anywhere else and the network don't have the same IP as the whitelisted one. Do not do this if your address is dynamic as the IP will change.

Blocking tor probably doesn't matter much. If someone tries to log in via tor and they can't they'll just find a proxy that they can.

True but tor is more anonymous than open proxies. They are also easier to setup and require 0 trust. It really doesn't matter if 2FA is used as hackers won't probably crack your 2FA and password due to the automatic locks after a few failed attempts.

[viking02]

Okay im still confused at this.  So the backup file on my electrum is the 12 word phrase... theres nothing else.


But for my blockchain, what is my backup file?  I downloaded it and sent it to my email and its 2kb.  Is it also the 12 word phrase or its something else?  I couldn't open it because it said you need some program to open it.

[Abdussamad]

Okay im still confused at this.  So the backup file on my electrum is the 12 word phrase... theres nothing else.


But for my blockchain, what is my backup file?  I downloaded it and sent it to my email and its 2kb.  Is it also the 12 word phrase or its something else?  I couldn't open it because it said you need some program to open it.

You need both for blockchain.info. The mnemonic, which is actually a different version of your password, and the wallet file which contains your encrypted private keys. Over time you need to create fresh backups of your wallet file and if you change you password you need to copy over the new mnemonic as well.

In electrum all the private keys are derived from the seed which is represented as a 12 word mnemonic. Those 12 words are all you need to backup. Of course you should still set a password for the wallet file on your computer so that in case somebody or some program gets access to the wallet file they can't spend your bitcoins because the seed is encrypted with a password.

If I were to simplify this:

blockchain.info backups:
- latest wallet file (aes.json) + mnemonic
Or
- latest wallet file (aes.json) + password

Regular backups required


electrum backups:
- seed only
Or
- wallet file + password

One time backup suffices.

[viking02]

Okay i took a look at my blockchain phrase just now.  Its not 12 word phrase its 23 word phrase.  Is that correct?