HOWTO: create a 100% secure wallet

[Title12USC§411]

I c.

Well the reason I am concerned is I travel with my laptop and I am worried about the TSA goons groping more than just my private parts!

Hah, well I trust Mt Gox way more than the TSA.  Actually truth be told, after Mt Gox's reaction the their security breach and their response to the public, I really do think they're pretty trustworthy these days.  Hell, Sony was never that forthcoming, really very few companies seem to be willing to both take security seriously and tell the truth to the customers.

Well let's hope MtGox is telling the truth.  As I said in another post MtGox will probably have 100x more problems with the Japanese goons who enforce FRN (so called "USD") currency law (the so called "Legal Tender Law" http://www.truthsetsusfree.com/HJR192.htm ) than with the actual hack.

[papa_snurf]

Careful what version of Bitcoin you use! Some versions will display multiple addresses but the private keys won't be made till you do a transaction and have it open for a while!!! Someone did something similar, where they sent some to the first address as a test then saw it worked then send the rest to the second address. Deleted everything only to go back and see that he lost his BTC!!

Which version? Can you elaborate. This sounds stupid, why would anyone program something like that??

[netrin]

Careful what version of Bitcoin you use! Some versions will display multiple addresses but the private keys won't be made till you do a transaction and have it open for a while!!! Someone did something similar, where they sent some to the first address as a test then saw it worked then send the rest to the second address. Deleted everything only to go back and see that he lost his BTC!!

Bitlotto are you talking nonsense, misunderstood the use case, or trolling?

There was a time when keypool=100 was not default and so restoring from backup would loose the change and receipts since backup. But that is no longer the case (and was fixed by Satoshi long ago). If you insist there was EVER a version that presented an address (a hash of a key) before creating and storing the private key, I would like to see the source code in the git repository.

EDIT: Clarification to this point last month: http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=17240.msg222709#msg222709

[cbbitcoin]

@OP - thanks for the tips.

[ORE]

Thanks for all the info.

[zebedee]

Too complicated for Joe Blow to get right securely first time.  I can't recommend my parents use it for fear their Windows machine is hacked.

[chrisv]

Awesome. Thanks for the howto!

[Nobu]

Instead of booting a live cd, you could also mount a ramdisk (or make a folder in /dev/shm) and create a symlink from it to ~/.bitcoin, then create your wallet, addresses, backup etc.. This, of course, assuming you're already running some Linux distribution. Then the files will only have ever resided in RAM; unmount the ramdisk (or delete the folder you created in /dev/shm), and the symlink to it, and it'll be almost as if the files were never there.

Just don't forget to make the backup, since otherwise--because it is in RAM--once you shut down it'll be gone forever.

[Welvis]

Instead of booting a live cd, you could also mount a ramdisk (or make a folder in /dev/shm) and create a symlink from it to ~/.bitcoin, then create your wallet, addresses, backup etc.. This, of course, assuming you're already running some Linux distribution. Then the files will only have ever resided in RAM; unmount the ramdisk (or delete the folder you created in /dev/shm), and the symlink to it, and it'll be almost as if the files were never there.

Just don't forget to make the backup, since otherwise--because it is in RAM--once you shut down it'll be gone forever.

best be on a ups if you plan to do that

[Nobu]

best be on a ups if you plan to do that

Why? Until you put any bitcoins into it, the wallet is worthless, so losing it won't be a problem. It's no different from the livecd approach, except that instead of running a whole OS in RAM, you're just storing a folder in RAM.

If you ever need to use the wallet, just keep a copy on whatever medium you used to back it up, and copy it back to your ramdisk. where you make whatever changes you need to make. I don't know if you even need to overwrite the old copy with the changed one, since all the transactions are tracked/confirmed by the network.

Edit: If you thought I was suggesting not to keep a back-up on a physical medium, that is definitely not what I was saying. It's always a good idea to keep a back-up. Thought I'd clear that up, just in case.

[bitlotto]

Careful what version of Bitcoin you use! Some versions will display multiple addresses but the private keys won't be made till you do a transaction and have it open for a while!!! Someone did something similar, where they sent some to the first address as a test then saw it worked then send the rest to the second address. Deleted everything only to go back and see that he lost his BTC!!

Bitlotto are you talking nonsense, misunderstood the use case, or trolling?

There was a time when keypool=100 was not default and so restoring from backup would loose the change and receipts since backup. But that is no longer the case (and was fixed by Satoshi long ago). If you insist there was EVER a version that presented an address (a hash of a key) before creating and storing the private key, I would like to see the source code in the git repository.

EDIT: Clarification to this point last month: http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=17240.msg222709#msg222709

Ya sorry. I was talking about what you are linking to. I thought the addresses were showing for some reason. I see now that they just had one address showing. THEN created the other ones after. Sorry. I'd never troll! I thought that's what happened...

[mjsa]

Use Linux or get a Mac, then backup your wallet. :p JK lol Sorry I couldn't resist this immature joke.

[fulepp]

It is a great info! Thanks for sharing

[HanRuien]

Thanks!

[BeeTeaSea]

Thank for this howto! ;-)

[weirdgod]

Great guide.
i agree with notion to encrypt walet.dat when storing it.
also the length of password is critical. so mare at least 13 character pw that includes letters numbers and special chars. if you think that is too difficult to remmember - it is cryptologically as safe if your pwis like this: SoM3pW55$$$$$ as long as it is a secret which char was repeated at end....

[Xtremshare]

thanks for the info buddy!!

[aid2action]

Yes, both of you have a point I thought about as well: You still have to use the bitcoin client downloaded from the official site, sou you have to trust that thing unconditionally. And yes, you have to trust the liveCD

Of course, someone could trick you into downloading the wrong software (DNS redirect?). But there's a point where a certain level of paranoia is kind of exaggerated. You could of course always write your own client

I think it makes sense to trust both the Ubuntu LiveCD as well as the client from bitcoin.org for now.

yes i was thinking same
aid2action

[r50zyry5]

New version 1.2 of Secure Wallet Linux released.

Look :
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=25868.msg321839#msg321839

Best Regards
r50zyry5

[Smalleyster]

0) Why does that happen (the change itself) if I'm sending the exact amount I want to send?
1) As I understand, the change address is created and saved in the wallet.dat file but doesn't show up in the User Interface (UI). So how do I claim my money?

Sorry, I just have to ask:  Why did you start your numbering at 0?

Because everything starts from zero :p

0 is so important that it is the only number that had to be invented! 8^)