Have I been hacked?

[The 4ner]

A while back I installed the original Bitcoin-Qt client on my computer since I installed it I have not used it. The only thing that I have done is encrypted the wallet (I don't know why I did that. I don't even own any bitcoin yet). Anyway,about 4 days before I encrypted it the client crashed on me once. I closed it then opened it and it gave me an error message. I repeated this about two more times and the same thing occurred. I figured it was because I had barely completed downloading the block chain the day before and my pc was "exhausted" or something haha but I feel like maybe it was a cyber attack. Since then the client has been working fine after opening it. Can anyone tell me if they think my wallet's fine and I'm just being paranoid? Or can that crash really signify something? It's been about 4 days since the crash. I just want to make sure my wallet is safe to deposit coins in.

[dflatline]

Who cares? Make a new wallet.

[Isokivi]

My first tought is checking that the hardrive where you have the blockchain has free space.

[Kluge]

My first tought is checking that the hardrive where you have the blockchain has free space.

I'd lean toward that, thinking also PC may have bad RAM or HDD. QT uses HDD and RAM quite a bit compared to normal productivity/browsing apps. Either could cause that kind of behavior. QT sync'ing might also cause heat production in HDD it might not have been able to handle, especially if there's a lot of dust in the case. Possibly also problem with OS which could cause these kinds of "random" crashes.

If you're really concerned about a cyber attack and downloaded the QT client directly from the Bitcoin Foundation's SourceForge page, the malicious individual probably has access to your network, not just your Bitcoin wallet, so requesting an IP address change from ISP followed by a clean install of your OS and fresh download of QT from Bitcoin's SourceForge page would be advisable.

- Or it could be the cosmic rays!! 


(Error message text would help.)

[Dabs]

1. Clean fresh install of OS.
2. Clean fresh install of Bitcoin-QT.

See if that works.

You could also do some hard drive testing (spinrite or equivalent) and ram testing (memtest or equivalent).

[Kazimir]

- Or it could be the cosmic rays!! 

Yes, it could, actually Also, hard disks tend to crash sooner or later.

Don't be the guy who learns this the hard way: MAKE BACKUPS!

[Kluge]

- Or it could be the cosmic rays!! 

Yes, it could, actually Also, hard disks tend to crash sooner or later.

Don't be the guy who learns this the hard way: MAKE BACKUPS!

Cosmic rays probably wouldn't cause four separate crashes unless OP is posting from a spacecraft. OTOH, maybe rays corrupted common resource on RAM (pre-Vista version of Windows?) which remained on RAM even when QT was closed and re-opened. If PC were rebooted or resource purged (and reloaded fresh from HDD when QT was re-opened), maybe that allowed it to operate properly later even though no QT data was changed.

Galactic octopus strikes again?! Foreman, go run the tests!

[The 4ner]

Thanks for all your suggestions everyone! This forum is great help.

[naphto]

Thanks for all your suggestions everyone! This forum is great help.

nvm

[The 4ner]

Thanks for all your suggestions everyone! This forum is great help.

nvm

I don't mind reading more suggestions. I still haven't found the solution I'd like to try out. I'm running Mac OS X Lion if that helps. I don't think it's malware because I recently installed Lion about 2 1/2 months ago and all I've been doing with my Mac is install apps (mostly from the app store) and safely browse the web (except porn). Plus I installed Intego antivirus about 4 days after I installed Lion. I have scanned my Mac several times and Intego hasn't detected anything. So I'm assuming my wallet is safe. The only thing that worried me is that crash that occurred and didn't let me open the wallet for a couple hours that one day after completely syncing the network but since then my Bitcoin-Qt client has been fine. I only recently encrypted it about 2 days ago (now I don't know how to unencrypt it -.-)  I have Little Snitch installed on my Mac as well so if any of my apps try to connect to any network I'll be aware of it.