I was browsing the Wiki (
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade) on the various places where one can spend their Bitcoin and stumbled upon a bootable USB stick called Ninja Boot (
www.ninjaboot.com). This $20 gadget comes pre-loaded to boot your computer into a TAILS OS and only use the Tor network. I'm thinking that this might work for an offline computer similar to a Live CD, provided that you don't give it access to the internet by unplugging your Ethernet and/or disabling your WiFi?
Obviously, one would need to install Armory each time, but if it could work, it may be an alternative for those that do not have the old laptop lying around or the $200-300 to get the offline computer required for cold storage.
I would guess this all hinges around weather or not the offline Armory bundle will install on this OS.
Thoughts?
Did I mention that it looks cool too?
It
isn't very hard at all to put your own pgp-verified download of Tails (or any linux distro) onto a USB stick and spend less than $20.
Consider the average Joe that may not be as geeky as some of us (myself somewhat admittedly included). Joe works at CompanyXYZ where they pay him $25/hr. If Joe were to sit in front of his computer and learn about a bootable USB, PGP-verified, SomeOtherMumboJumbo that he does not know a thing about yet but he just wants to keep his Bitcoin safe, he could possibly take 2 hours to 20 hours to learn how to do it. Now if there was a ready made alternative that he could order for about an hours worth of his paycheck, why wouldn't he choose the alternative? Hardware wallets are being developed for some of these same people and same reasons. How much are those going to cost?
When trying to be security conscious/paranoid, it doesn't make any sense to me for someone to not do it themselves. If I were nefarious, I would build a custom Tails distro with a backdoor hidden service and a keylogger and sell it to noobs who don't know how to format a USB stick.
The future of Bitcoin will include many thousands of noobs, and they may not want to learn all of the techie stuff to keep their Bitcoin safe. Should they not have an easy alternative?
If the machine NEVER has an internet connection, is this a possible threat to said Bitcoin?
I'm not saying Tails won't work, but I don't see much point in using it for an offline system. The whole point of Tails is Tor. I guess it is an easy way to get an encrypted partition. Side note:
read this about TrueCryptThe point was to have a computer that is isolated from the internet "unplugging your Ethernet and/or disabling your WiFi" without having to use an additional computer.
Also, Tails has had a persistence partition since 0.11, so you wouldn't need to install armory every time. For an online system, Tails should work well and you should be able to install armory on it no problem.
This is good news, and saves a few steps. Thanks for the tutelage.
