Why you cannot enter an arbitrary seed in Electrum

[GODLIKE]

I get that 99% of people aren't able to generate a good sentence to remember, but I still don't like being given the chance to use my favourite sentence.

It's nothing I've found on internet, I searched for it and there's NO MATCHES on internet, and it's a sentence of 16 WORDS, that could also include punctuation.

Having to fiddle with hex is not fun for a non-coder and may also lead to problems in future updates I guess so I won't go that direction.

But in example, to not get bored with that sequence of words, I just snapshot it and send it to my email, which has a password of only 10+ characters... is that really better?
And I guess many people are doing it like that.

Printing those words on paper? And if somebody stumble on that paper?
Remembering 12 words without any sense? Good luck with that: nobody will even try. I didn't, for sure.

OMG you typed into google? Are you serious?

Did you e-mailed it to your other e-mail?

Man you must be the most uneducated person in internet security ever. You totally compromized your password and it's only a matter of time before you get robbed.

If you can't memorize 12 words then fucking carve it into a tree in a forest somewhere, to make sure nobody stumbles on that paper.

Man you need to keep your sensitive data more secure, because the thieves always love newbies who cannot secure their sensitive info.

I typed only the initial part of my sentence, just to see if it would have found any reference.

[1713310009]

1713310009

[1713310009]

1713310009

[1713310009]

1713310009

[1713310009]

1713310009

[RealBitcoin]

I get that 99% of people aren't able to generate a good sentence to remember, but I still don't like being given the chance to use my favourite sentence.

It's nothing I've found on internet, I searched for it and there's NO MATCHES on internet, and it's a sentence of 16 WORDS, that could also include punctuation.

Having to fiddle with hex is not fun for a non-coder and may also lead to problems in future updates I guess so I won't go that direction.

But in example, to not get bored with that sequence of words, I just snapshot it and send it to my email, which has a password of only 10+ characters... is that really better?
And I guess many people are doing it like that.

Printing those words on paper? And if somebody stumble on that paper?
Remembering 12 words without any sense? Good luck with that: nobody will even try. I didn't, for sure.

OMG you typed into google? Are you serious?

Did you e-mailed it to your other e-mail?

Man you must be the most uneducated person in internet security ever. You totally compromized your password and it's only a matter of time before you get robbed.

If you can't memorize 12 words then fucking carve it into a tree in a forest somewhere, to make sure nobody stumbles on that paper.

Man you need to keep your sensitive data more secure, because the thieves always love newbies who cannot secure their sensitive info.

I typed only the initial part of my sentence, just to see if it would have found any reference.

Still not recommended, especially if you do it from you own IP, because it can link back to you, and a clever hacker could use it if he ever breaks into your PC.

For example if your sentence is this:            "My baby is feeded 3 cups of milk/day, and he giggles."

Then obviously this sentence might occur in some pregnant women forum somewhere in the obscure part of the internet, and google could find it, but if it has no link back to you then the odds of somebody taking a sentence from the obscure part of the web and linking it back directly to your bank account password or bitcoin password is very very unlinkely.

But if you per-se write it into google, then it is directly linked to you, and as i told above, a hacker can use any snippet of info to guess/bruteforce your PC and the sensitive stuff you might keep there.

Even if you wrote half of the sentence, that means that now your sentence is only half strong as it was before because half of it is compromized...

I suggest you to immediately change your password, and never ever use it in any public site/forum or search engine!

[GODLIKE]

I suggest you to immediately change your password, and never ever use it in any public site/forum or search engine!

Dude, thank you for all your effort first of all, but... can you tell me how my search can be directly linked to me?
Also, my provider still groups many users under one IP, so I think I shouldn't be so easy to trace.
And last but not least, where should my IP be published?

[jonald_fyookball]

I suggest you to immediately change your password, and never ever use it in any public site/forum or search engine!

Dude, thank you for all your effort first of all, but... can you tell me how my search can be directly linked to me?
Also, my provider still groups many users under one IP, so I think I shouldn't be so easy to trace.
And last but not least, where should my IP be published?

you always think these ways of getting hacked are unlikely until they actually happen.
I think the bottom line is to never type your cold storage Bitcoin password on a live computer.

A much simpler case is that you have a keylogger that is sending all your information to a
hacker who can later use it.

[RealBitcoin]

I suggest you to immediately change your password, and never ever use it in any public site/forum or search engine!

Dude, thank you for all your effort first of all, but... can you tell me how my search can be directly linked to me?
Also, my provider still groups many users under one IP, so I think I shouldn't be so easy to trace.
And last but not least, where should my IP be published?

If you have static IP then its horrible, because once anybody gets a hold of that they can track you every website you visit, if they obtain the websites logs.

If its dynamic it adds a little bit more security.

Every website you visit knows your IP address because everytime a connection is made to another site, your IP is revealed. Every instant messaging software reveals your IP. So any stranger you have skyped with, yahoo messengered with, or any other instant messenger you used to talk with strangers can have you IP.

Also if a hacker puts a tracking cookie on your PC (which many advertising sites already do, but a hacker with malicious desires i mean), he can track every site you visit.

Also trojans, and keyloggers are the other part, when if you get a virus that logs everything and sends it to the hacker, he can log your entire internet activity, from every mouse movement to every keystroke.

Yes privacy is very shallow on the internet, you must take extra precautions if you dont want your sensitive data to be revealed.

[RealBitcoin]

I suggest you to immediately change your password, and never ever use it in any public site/forum or search engine!

Dude, thank you for all your effort first of all, but... can you tell me how my search can be directly linked to me?
Also, my provider still groups many users under one IP, so I think I shouldn't be so easy to trace.
And last but not least, where should my IP be published?

you always think these ways of getting hacked are unlikely until they actually happen.
I think the bottom line is to never type your cold storage Bitcoin password on a live computer.

A much simpler case is that you have a keylogger that is sending all your information to a
hacker who can later use it.

Oh i`m very tinfoil hat when it comes to cold storage

I took out everything from my offline PC, left with only a cd reader ,motherboard, and ram, and a keyboard with wires.

Wireless stuff are insecure. The operating system is booted from CD, and and data storage is on a double encrypted USB stick. All other connections are disabled from BIOS and sealed with tinfoil to not leak password through radio/infrared signals.

http://www.wired.com/2014/11/airhopper-hack/

[jonald_fyookball]

I suggest you to immediately change your password, and never ever use it in any public site/forum or search engine!

Dude, thank you for all your effort first of all, but... can you tell me how my search can be directly linked to me?
Also, my provider still groups many users under one IP, so I think I shouldn't be so easy to trace.
And last but not least, where should my IP be published?

you always think these ways of getting hacked are unlikely until they actually happen.
I think the bottom line is to never type your cold storage Bitcoin password on a live computer.

A much simpler case is that you have a keylogger that is sending all your information to a
hacker who can later use it.

Did you roll your own entropy with physical dice too?


Oh i`m very tinfoil hat when it comes to cold storage

I took out everything from my offline PC, left with only a cd reader ,motherboard, and ram, and a keyboard with wires.

Wireless stuff are insecure. The operating system is booted from CD, and and data storage is on a double encrypted USB stick. All other connections are disabled from BIOS and sealed with tinfoil to not leak password through radio/infrared signals.

http://www.wired.com/2014/11/airhopper-hack/

[RealBitcoin]

Did you roll your own entropy with physical dice too?

No because dice rolls are not reliable source of generating random numbers as the texture that is generated on can lower the cryptographic security of it.

But what I did was to compile random text from 3 different sources , and merged them together in a random but discretionary way and that generated my master private key.

[jonald_fyookball]

Did you roll your own entropy with physical dice too?

No because dice rolls are not reliable source of generating random numbers as the texture that is generated on can lower the cryptographic security of it.

But what I did was to compile random text from 3 different sources , and merged them together in a random but discretionary way and that generated my master private key.

dang you are paranoid.

but i would disagree that dice rolls aren't reliable.  I think any bias you could find would be far too small to exploit.

[GODLIKE]

I suggest you to immediately change your password, and never ever use it in any public site/forum or search engine!

Dude, thank you for all your effort first of all, but... can you tell me how my search can be directly linked to me?
Also, my provider still groups many users under one IP, so I think I shouldn't be so easy to trace.
And last but not least, where should my IP be published?

you always think these ways of getting hacked are unlikely until they actually happen.
I think the bottom line is to never type your cold storage Bitcoin password on a live computer.

A much simpler case is that you have a keylogger that is sending all your information to a
hacker who can later use it.

I use computers since I was 11.
I am now 45.
I have antivirus installed since ever and always updated.
I update Windows every week.
People that find keyloggers in their pc are no tech savvy at all, they roam shitty websites and click yes on every window that pops up, then run or install everything.
That's not me.
I'm bold on this: I've never been hacked, and only got a virus in 2001 when internet here was pretty fresh.
I'm nothing special, just a user that uses antivirus and closes all the shit that pop up and install only known source software.
So thank you for your effort, but believe me: nobody is going to enter here.

[GODLIKE]

I suggest you to immediately change your password, and never ever use it in any public site/forum or search engine!

Dude, thank you for all your effort first of all, but... can you tell me how my search can be directly linked to me?
Also, my provider still groups many users under one IP, so I think I shouldn't be so easy to trace.
And last but not least, where should my IP be published?

If you have static IP then its horrible, because once anybody gets a hold of that they can track you every website you visit, if they obtain the websites logs.

If its dynamic it adds a little bit more security.

Every website you visit knows your IP address because everytime a connection is made to another site, your IP is revealed. Every instant messaging software reveals your IP. So any stranger you have skyped with, yahoo messengered with, or any other instant messenger you used to talk with strangers can have you IP.

Also if a hacker puts a tracking cookie on your PC (which many advertising sites already do, but a hacker with malicious desires i mean), he can track every site you visit.

Also trojans, and keyloggers are the other part, when if you get a virus that logs everything and sends it to the hacker, he can log your entire internet activity, from every mouse movement to every keystroke.

Yes privacy is very shallow on the internet, you must take extra precautions if you dont want your sensitive data to be revealed.

I honestly don't know if it varies, but I know that I'm not in Rome and my connection always shows up like I'm in Rome.
Anyway, to hack my wallet, a hacker should have got my IP when I made my search at that time (years ago). I since then changed home and internet provider many, MANY times. And even if he's a "friend" and sees my IP now, he only knows part of my passphrase. I have no virus on my computer, no keylogger or anything (of course I may be wrong, but I have always updated antivirus and system, and there's firewall of course).



Anyway, my security is all off topic.

Back on topic.

I can remember EASILY my passphrase, and many people could do that as well.
It's much more difficult to remember random words, especially when those words are all in english and not all the world speaks english.
This leads to people escaping remembering those words and adopting solutions like the ones I explained.
Only security maniacs will store those words in memory at all costs.
Common people have huge difficulties remembering a password of 15 characters 5 minutes after they set it.
I KNOW THIS, because I help all friends and relatives with their fuckin accounts...
So, just to recap, not giving the chance to set up an arbitrary seed doesn't increase security.
Most common users won't store those words in memory.
People will either snapshot the screen (like I did) and send it to their email.
Or print it. Or write those words in email or in a txt document (that can be lost and/or stolen).
ALL these solutions lead to security issues and this means the mandatory random seed doesn't work as wanted, while an arbitrary seed can be better remembered and would probably be used as intended.

Now, this is my opinion, of course, and it may be wrong.
But I suggest then a poll to verify if I'm so wrong, because I may be not that far from reality.

[jonald_fyookball]

Electrum is open source.  You can always make your own version with different parameters.
Or you can choose another HD wallet.

I think remembering 12 words is easier than 12 random characters, because you
can paint a mental picture with those words.  If you have "horse battery",
you can remember a horse licking a battery.  Much easier to remember than "hb".

Although human chosen passphrases with high entropy are indeed possible,
most average users do not understand enough about security and high entropy
and thus, many will make the mistake of choosing a low entropy password. 
This is why Electrum doesn't do it.  It wants to be "idiot proof".

Not everyone needs to memorize their seed.  You can write it down
and store it in a secure location.

[GODLIKE]

Electrum is open source.  You can always make your own version with different parameters.
Or you can choose another HD wallet.

Thank you but I'm not such a coder.
So I just make present my opinion here, in the right section of the forum, in hope devs reconsider their choice.

Last but not least, your can FORCE the user to generate a high entropy passphrase.
This already happens on many websites when you make an account, they FORCE you to put caps and numbers and symbols, I'm sure you know it, so I can't understand why you keep on putting false obstacles only to keep saying that my considerations are wrong. It looks you just keep posting because you want to be right at all costs.
Anyway, because HE thought the passphrase, he will better remember it and there are more chances he won't need to store it anywhere.

[jonald_fyookball]

Electrum is open source.  You can always make your own version with different parameters.
Or you can choose another HD wallet.

Thank you but I'm not such a coder.
So I just make present my opinion here, in the right section of the forum, in hope devs reconsider their choice.

Last but not least, your can FORCE the user to generate a high entropy passphrase.
This already happens on many websites when you make an account, they FORCE you to put caps and numbers and symbols, I'm sure you know it, so I can't understand why you keep on putting false obstacles only to keep saying that my considerations are wrong. It looks you just keep posting because you want to be right at all costs.
Anyway, because HE thought the passphrase, he will better remember it and there are more chances he won't need to store it anywhere.

Listen, I'm more than happy to be wrong (about anything).  And I'm not trying to put any
"obstacles" on your opinion.  Your opinion has been noted.

You do have a good point about the ease of memorization.
However, the devs are unlikely to change their opinion
as far as this:
 

This is because humans are not good at generating really random phrases.

(That's straight from the OP in this thread).
Forcing the users to put caps and numbers and symbols is not sufficient to create Bitcoin level entropy.

[RealBitcoin]

This is an example of password people should use (don't use this example)

JhXb3gDtr8sDBhSmN3Pe5qwKMT3D4DgAqrYEZ8Ngqh5hW97cQEmrKuV3D
(57 character, cryptographically secure, totally random, impossible to guess & bruteforce)

dang you are paranoid.

but i would disagree that dice rolls aren't reliable.  I think any bias you could find would be far too small to exploit.

It's called precaution, sure i have less than 15 bitcoins now in my posession, which arent worth alot to go through all the hassle to steal it compared to the security i put in, but one day that 1 bitcoin can be worth 1 million dollar, and then its another story.

I`m thinking ahead in the future.

I just remember some idiot had 1000 bitcoins in the blockchain.info account and he got hacked and lost it all.

There is a saying:  "A fool and his money are soon parted.And it's true."

[GODLIKE]

This is an example of password people should use (don't use this example)

JhXb3gDtr8sDBhSmN3Pe5qwKMT3D4DgAqrYEZ8Ngqh5hW97cQEmrKuV3D
(57 character, cryptographically secure, totally random, impossible to guess & bruteforce)

dang you are paranoid.

but i would disagree that dice rolls aren't reliable.  I think any bias you could find would be far too small to exploit.

It's called precaution, sure i have less than 15 bitcoins now in my posession, which arent worth alot to go through all the hassle to steal it compared to the security i put in, but one day that 1 bitcoin can be worth 1 million dollar, and then its another story.

I`m thinking ahead in the future.

I just remember some idiot had 1000 bitcoins in the blockchain.info account and he got hacked and lost it all.

There is a saying:  "A fool and his money are soon parted.And it's true."

My passphrase is more than 12 words, more than 90 characters, includes punctuation and cannot be found anywhere on the internet and not even on my computer
Oh, and it's not even in english!

You can't compare an alphanumeric string to the set of 12 words automatically generated as a seed: that SURELY is more entropic than any human phrase, but maybe 1 person on 1000 can remember that string. I can remember my fiscal code that is 15 characters, and I could probably learn that string, but I still don't think that's needed.

We are talking about the possibility to let users write their own key phrase.

Btw: I'll be back when my money will be parted

[GODLIKE]

Electrum is open source.  You can always make your own version with different parameters.
Or you can choose another HD wallet.

Thank you but I'm not such a coder.
So I just make present my opinion here, in the right section of the forum, in hope devs reconsider their choice.

Last but not least, your can FORCE the user to generate a high entropy passphrase.
This already happens on many websites when you make an account, they FORCE you to put caps and numbers and symbols, I'm sure you know it, so I can't understand why you keep on putting false obstacles only to keep saying that my considerations are wrong. It looks you just keep posting because you want to be right at all costs.
Anyway, because HE thought the passphrase, he will better remember it and there are more chances he won't need to store it anywhere.

Listen, I'm more than happy to be wrong (about anything).  And I'm not trying to put any
"obstacles" on your opinion.  Your opinion has been noted.

You do have a good point about the ease of memorization.
However, the devs are unlikely to change their opinion
as far as this:
 

This is because humans are not good at generating really random phrases.

(That's straight from the OP in this thread).
Forcing the users to put caps and numbers and symbols is not sufficient to create Bitcoin level entropy.

Look:

I loved my little furry Jeenee, got her at the beach in an afternoon of summer 1992. Now Jeenee is no more but my memory for her still lives.

You have a word that was nowhere to be found on internet before (bad spelling from my ex-girlfriend), caps, numbers, punctuation and a total of 140 characters.
What do you think about this?

Just to not let hackers waste time: those sentences have nothing to do with my passphrase

[jonald_fyookball]

again, yes, 140 characters is good but many aren't that savvy.
If you think you can convince Thomas to change electrum, go ahead and try

[oda.krell]

I loved my little furry Jeenee, got her at the beach in an afternoon of summer 1992. Now Jeenee is no more but my memory for her still lives.

[...]

What do you think about this?

The problem with this is that it's a grammatically well-formed sentence, not a randomly chosen sequence of items. That probably makes it easier for you to remember, but it's also easier to predict what follows next. For example, after "I loved my little ...", the next word has to be an adjective or a noun (phrase), so a search can exclude (or at least, discount) inflected verbs, prepositions, etc.

(EDIT) And the problem with "original" words is that (a) you have no guarantee that they are original, and (b) they constitute a single point of failure, i.e. if the security of your (otherwise not so secure) passphrase rests on the originality of a single word, and you are wrong about it being original, you're screwed.

[GODLIKE]

I loved my little furry Jeenee, got her at the beach in an afternoon of summer 1992. Now Jeenee is no more but my memory for her still lives.

[...]

What do you think about this?

The problem with this is that it's a grammatically well-formed sentence, not a randomly chosen sequence of items. That probably makes it easier for you to remember, but it's also easier to predict what follows next. For example, after "I loved my little ...", the next word has to be an adjective or a noun (phrase), so a search can exclude (or at least, discount) inflected verbs, prepositions, etc.

(EDIT) And the problem with "original" words is that (a) you have no guarantee that they are original, and (b) they constitute a single point of failure, i.e. if the security of your (otherwise not so secure) passphrase rests on the originality of a single word, and you are wrong about it being original, you're screwed.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think we are a bit on the paranoic side of the matter now.

You can search a word like Jeenee: if it brings less than N results, you can be sure it will be in the last positions as a tried password term. Or even just passed altogether.
Also, the originality of that phrase doesn't rest on a single word, it's just ONE additional measure of security. The phrase itself is all original, or at least self produced.

Also on your assumption "the next word has to be an adjective or a noun" the paranoic is powerful in you
It's not wrong what you say, but it's a very complex programming matter imho.
I could have put Jeenee, which is a name, following in there, no nouns or adjectives or anything. Or I could have separated the adjectives with commas. Or not, no commas. As you can see there's more options that you think. Screw jumping one in your hacking code, in you can let it search up forever.

But I want to consider another factor, that I think many people forget: time.
How many tries can you do in one second?
I mean, you have the best connection out there, and you try and try and try to hack into one Bitcoin account with false credentials with your hacking routine. How many tries can be done PRACTICALLY?
NOT theorethically. PRACTICALLY.
So don't bring up IBM supercomputers, and imagine a common hacker, with common CPU power, that wants to hack a common person address.