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[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

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[justusranvier]

https://bitcoinarmory.com/using-offline-wallets-in-armory/

[glitch003]

It's like a shopping cart in a populated area, people might not take your apple or can of tuna, but you won't store $10,000 in cash there and go to the restroom, would you? You'd keep it securely, encrypted with a good passphrase, and backed up on multiple locations.

Could you please tell me how to encrypt $10,000 cash with a good passphrase in a shopping cart? 

[zeroday]

It's just as keeping money in European bank in some small southern country. Period.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

It's just as keeping money in European bank in some small southern country. Period.

Heh 

[tvbcof]

Ya, ya...You are also *fucking dumbass* if you put a dime into a gumball machine.  Sometimes you turn the knob and your dime disappears but you don't get a gumball!

I would agree that your are a 'fucking dumbass' if you whine about losing money when you relinquish control of secret keys and someone thus loses or steals them.

edit:  BTW, what exchange do you use where you retain control of your funds if you don't mind my asking?

[tvbcof]

edit:  BTW, what exchange do you use where you retain control of your funds if you don't mind my asking?

I use(d) Bitcoin Central (right now only to buy). I had exactly 0€ on my account and less than 4 BTC when they closed. All other BTC are in a offline wallet.

Funny thing is that the OP is pumping lots of things all of which, I will bet, have accounts where a user is supposed to send Bitcoin to but not have exclusive ownership of the private key controlling their funds.

The only time I have had real funds out of my control was when I was buying BTC at an exchange.  In that case I kept all of the BTC I  didn't have on the market at home (and since I was a buyer, there were not many) and I sweat bullets every time I wired funds.  I wired funds in sizes which made the wire fee a reasonable percentage, but not so large that I could not stand the loss easily.  I was occasionally left with no dry powder when I wanted it, but not terribly often.  And since it was during a declining market, it worked out in my favor anyway.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

edit:  BTW, what exchange do you use where you retain control of your funds if you don't mind my asking?

I use(d) Bitcoin Central (right now only to buy). I had exactly 0€ on my account and less than 4 BTC when they closed. All other BTC are in a offline wallet.

Funny thing is that the OP is pumping lots of things all of which, I will bet, have accounts where a user is supposed to send Bitcoin to but not have exclusive ownership of the private key controlling their funds.

There's a difference between using a service to store bitcoins, and you know, depositing bitcoins for a service.

[tvbcof]

edit:  BTW, what exchange do you use where you retain control of your funds if you don't mind my asking?

I use(d) Bitcoin Central (right now only to buy). I had exactly 0€ on my account and less than 4 BTC when they closed. All other BTC are in a offline wallet.

Funny thing is that the OP is pumping lots of things all of which, I will bet, have accounts where a user is supposed to send Bitcoin to but not have exclusive ownership of the private key controlling their funds.

There's a difference between using a service to store bitcoins, and you know, depositing bitcoins for a service.

And the difference is...?

[Joost]

edit:  BTW, what exchange do you use where you retain control of your funds if you don't mind my asking?

I use(d) Bitcoin Central (right now only to buy). I had exactly 0€ on my account and less than 4 BTC when they closed. All other BTC are in a offline wallet.

Funny thing is that the OP is pumping lots of things all of which, I will bet, have accounts where a user is supposed to send Bitcoin to but not have exclusive ownership of the private key controlling their funds.

There's a difference between using a service to store bitcoins, and you know, depositing bitcoins for a service.

And the difference is...?

The time you generally use it to store your bitcoins. When you're using the exchange like a wallet (i.e. storing your coins on there for months) it is equally unsafe. The chance of losing your coins is linearly related to the time you store it at any online service, assuming the chance they go down is distributed equally over time.

[MysteryMiner]

Stored 0.8 BTC in Instawallet. Intended to store them there for maximum of 2 weeks until I upgrade and reinstall my computer because of failing hard drive. It was not a big deal back then 0.8BTC was probably about 5 EUR. The computer failed completely and I could not buy replacement. Ended up storing the coins on Instawallet for almost 6 months. Now they probably are gone.

I love instawallet for receiving small transactions that when stored in Bitcoin-Qt will end up with large tx fee. Instawallet is excellent for mixing coins and for merging them without fees.

Instawallet owners are not anonymous. If they run away with coins like MyBitcoin did someone will find them and sodomize.

[tvbcof]

edit:  BTW, what exchange do you use where you retain control of your funds if you don't mind my asking?

I use(d) Bitcoin Central (right now only to buy). I had exactly 0€ on my account and less than 4 BTC when they closed. All other BTC are in a offline wallet.

Funny thing is that the OP is pumping lots of things all of which, I will bet, have accounts where a user is supposed to send Bitcoin to but not have exclusive ownership of the private key controlling their funds.

There's a difference between using a service to store bitcoins, and you know, depositing bitcoins for a service.

And the difference is...?

The time you generally use it to store your bitcoins. When you're using the exchange like a wallet (i.e. storing your coins on there for months) it is equally unsafe. The chance of losing your coins is linearly related to the time you store it at any online service, assuming the chance they go down is distributed equally over time.

I suppose it is true that anyone who sent money to one of:

  - bitZino - Blackjack, Slots, more!
  - BitMillions - Win BTC1000
  - BTCINVEST - the bitcoin investment fund

probably could expect that said funds would only be there for a limited amount of time ;^  Turns out that there are a lot of ways to be a 'fucking dumbass.'  Whoda-thunk?

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

Oh look, someone is complaining because they stored a bunch of coins on Intersango.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=159071.0

Yeah.

[mufa23]

I agree with everything Trade has said. I don't trust anyone.

A paranoid schizo is the best way to keep yourself safe. Just sayin'

[dscotese]

I trust other people with about as much as I'm willing to spend to find out that they aren't trustworthy.  I recommend the policy.

[Joshster]

I am paranoid when it comes to stuff like this, always use my normal wallet.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

First time I've seen this thread. I have nothing to add.

[crazy_rabbit]

First time I've seen this thread. I have nothing to add.

Having run an instawallet- I disagree. Maybe in the future there will be a better option, or better way, but for the moment it's still pretty inconvenient to use crypto and instawallets plug that hole. It's a bad idea to hold a lot of coins anywhere but an off line cold wallet. but then of course, cold wallet coins aren't all the useful for anything.

[tvbcof]

First time I've seen this thread. I have nothing to add.

Having run an instawallet- I disagree. Maybe in the future there will be a better option, or better way, but for the moment it's still pretty inconvenient to use crypto and instawallets plug that hole. It's a bad idea to hold a lot of coins anywhere but an off line cold wallet. but then of course, cold wallet coins aren't all the useful for anything.

Dead right on all accounts.

My Android phone got completely hacked the other day for no reason that I can see.  It is unknown exactly what capabilities the hacker had, but good security practices make me assume they had full access.  So, nix that solution.  Unless one is a 'fucking dumbass' that is.

God only knows what kind of spyware permeates most windows machines these to.  So using Windows in any capacity also makes one a 'fucking dumbass'.

Like I mentioned earlier, anyone who lets anyone hold any coins in any account as a function of using a service is also a 'fucking dumbass' by the logic of the OP here.

I won't go into detail, but when I did my own cold storage work I paid particular attention to the hardware storage device I used used (and whether it was a cryptographic filesystem or not) as well as the 'wipe' command (or 'shred') in conjunction with any temp files.  I also never used any binaries I didn't compile myself.  I also chose my secondary crypto system carefully and of course took pains with the physical security of data resulting from my cold storage operations.  I cannot honestly say that I took any care against TEMPEST, but I did think about even that.

I won't call anyone a 'fucking dumbass' for failing to employ the rigor I used, but I will say that it is not completely trivial to use Bitcoin with a high degree of safety in spite of the much balyhoo'd assertions to the contrary.  I was very rigorous because I expected Bitcoin to be potentially very valuable (though likely a total loss) and it was not worth playing unless on is willing to do it right.  I don't fault others for having a different philosophical outlook though, nor for lacking certain technical skill I developed over many years due to my chosen line of work.