HOWTO: create a 100% secure wallet

[BitcoinJayk]

i never have understand why BlockChain.info is necessary, you can do everything without it...

BlockChain.info provides a valuable service. You don't have to wait for a blockchain to load, you just see what is happening live on BlockChain.info

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[samuelkane]

tnx for this guide trying as we speak

[nycjosh]

Here's what I've done.

I'm using a mac. I have created an 128bit AES encrypted dmg file of 4Gb. I've put inside all my bitcoin folder and symlinked it to my bitcoin app folder into 'Applications'.

Everytime I need to do a transaction, I mount the dmg and running the bitcoin-bt app from the encrypted folder. I know this can be a bit slow at times; but I don't mind. As an extra measure I've also encrypted my wallet.dat file, just in case.

Cheers.

Thanks for this!

[samuelkane]

man o man so many new things to learn, i'm starting to get data overload.
I got a question though, in your example you use ubuntu live cd. As a greener then green greenhorn so am i , now i got to the point were im gonna download the BTC client, and i stumble upon this thing called PPA.
Securitywise it sounds like a possible leak to me? So can we/i trust these and why, or do we use older version or something. Plz advice

[auzaar]

Most secure would be brain-wallet, have a long phrase and using SHA256 once or combinations, you can generate a privatey key. Use bitaddress.org to see the public address and private key in any format.

Now you can use any thin client e.g. blockchain.info or electrum command line to send btc, benefit with this approach is that  you are not tied to any computer, don't have to worry about backing up or securing devices too much.

[edar]

i didn't bother to read EVERY thread on here, but a thing to beware of with linux USB / live CDs: if your encryption requires high-quality random numbers, you might not want to generate random keys after booting from a USB boot / live CD; apparently that's not a good choice because the environment is more predictable. Anyone out there ever even take advantage of this flaw? I sure haven't; I've only had wikipedia entertain me with these thoughts

Honestly, it surely doesn't matter, but for those that love being paranoid: beware of generating keys after freshly booting from a live CD / USB.

As for creating a "100% secure wallet", I don't think it's possible to quantify or measure the % of security that a wallet is under. Keep in mind that your wallet isn't exactly secure if even YOU lose access to it! (It's no longer secure--it is useless!)

im totally lost 

[OswaldZeid]

i didn't bother to read EVERY thread on here, but a thing to beware of with linux USB / live CDs: if your encryption requires high-quality random numbers, you might not want to generate random keys after booting from a USB boot / live CD; apparently that's not a good choice because the environment is more predictable. Anyone out there ever even take advantage of this flaw? I sure haven't; I've only had wikipedia entertain me with these thoughts

Honestly, it surely doesn't matter, but for those that love being paranoid: beware of generating keys after freshly booting from a live CD / USB.

As for creating a "100% secure wallet", I don't think it's possible to quantify or measure the % of security that a wallet is under. Keep in mind that your wallet isn't exactly secure if even YOU lose access to it! (It's no longer secure--it is useless!)

im totally lost 

Computers don't actually generate random numbers - they don't have the hardware for that. Instead, they use a function that has been shown to produce an evenly distributed, unpredictable result, as long as you don't know the number they start with, also known as the 'seed' - many generators use various information from your computer's memory as the seed. Since a Live CD / USB tends to boot up nearly the same each time (since you don't have a lot of user installed programs starting up every time you do), the actual variation of the seed is lowered, meaning that someone with a sufficiently complicated algorithm and some knowledge has a higher chance of generating the same keys.

Just do some stuff to change the state of your memory before you start generating keys - play some solitaire, pop open a text editor and mash on your keyboard for a while, save that file somewhere... whatever. Of course, you only need to generate keys occasionally, so you mainly want to be careful when generating your original wallet file.

[ninjaboon]

i never have understand why BlockChain.info is necessary, you can do everything without it...

BlockChain.info provides a valuable service. You don't have to wait for a blockchain to load, you just see what is happening live on BlockChain.info

BlockChain.info also allows me to do periodic backups (auto) to my google drive. nifty.

[BobbyJo]

Do people tend to use Armory?  I have recently created an offline wallet which is proving very useful.  You can also produce paper back ups which will be nice when I lose the numerous USB sticks which currently hold my back ups!

[warmach]

Thanks for the guide...best security practices...here I come!

[SysRun]

Thanks, useful stuff.

[jasoncol]

This is very useful information thanks a lot. I have my encrypted wallet on my everyday Linux box but now I see that its security is not the best, I better start now making some changes to guard my precious coins  . Cheers.

[chriswen]

You'll need bodyguards too so someone doesn't beat the crap out of you for the passsword.  Or you could learn Kung Fu!

[dakbits]

Good Post

[exdirrk]

Thanks for the post.

[gmouse]

Very useful post, thank you!

[bougelahi]

Thanks for the post. Trying all this stuff out now

[midnight]

Thanks , good info just what I was thinking about yesterday, funny too!! 

[SirMephisto]

thx for advices

[Monkey1]

Is there any way to get a wallet onto an iPhone or iPad?