HOWTO: create a 100% secure wallet

[coinslot]

Here's what I do (on a Mac)

I created a symbolic link to point to an encrypted volume which contains my wallet.dat. Unless I've mounted that encrypted volume (which is just a megabyte), I can't send bitcoins.  I use Knox to manage the security of this volume, with AES 256bit encryption (http://agilebits.com/knox). I keep this volume safe (offsite and onsite).

You can also use this method using TrueCrypt, which is free but not as easy to use.

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[Exo]

Thank you  so much for this, finally. I can secure some of my coin eh?

[jrb596]

cool

[tidus_13]

Very good post, im going to backup my wallet.dat

[BrimStone]

A good security control process for the wallet is going to become more important as the value of the currency increases.

What are the chances that an encrypted "wallet bank" starts up?

[最爱你是谁]

useful

[tmand]

@catfish
I would agree with what you've said and what the OP said to start the thread.  It sounds as if securing the wallet (using truecrypt, or any encryption tool) on an unsecure computer is rather pointless, the more I read about this.  Because once you unlock the wallet, it's available for anyone to grab.  The one point that I've heard a couple times is the one made by this thread -- create a couple wallets to use for day to day stuff, which to me means on your daily computers.  And then create one wallet on a fresh install or at least on a machine that has no day to day use.  Then send money to that savings account like you would a normal savings account.

I'm not sure if rotating the savings account is important though.  It would seem as though if you trusted creating the savings account to begin with, then why create another one?  Creating more savings accounts would only cause you to be less secure, no?  I mean every time you have to do this you must somehow get into this "clean room" environment and create the account, copy the wallet's across a host of devices to ensure they're backed up.  Take it with you to some bank and lock it in a vault, etc.  All of these things are susceptible to a "bad guy" getting access to it, and the more you do this the more chances you leave for it to get out.

One question I have:  I am a n00b to this, but am trying to find my way by reading the forums and such.  One thing I haven't quite figured out is how you go about finding these "10 addresses" that are automatically created for each new account.  Whenever I start up bitcoin for the first time, I only see 1 address.  I can create more, but I'm not sure if that's the same thing.  Either way, I figured I'd just remember the 1 address that's created by default and send all my money to that one address.

[_saiko]

Nice info!

One thing keeps me puzzled. The contents of wallet.dat do change (additional data added) upon new btc address/keys creation right?
If you have a wallet.dat file stored somewhere in a safe and not used for a few years, and you actually use another wallet.dat (a copy of the safely stored one), what happens once you decide to bring up the safely stored wallet.dat on a different PC after some time?
Do you have all your funds or only the funds that you gained with the old keys available on both wallet.dats?

Not sure If a explained my issue here clearly..

[tmand]

One thing keeps me puzzled. The contents of wallet.dat do change (additional data added) upon new btc address/keys creation right?
If you have a wallet.dat file stored somewhere in a safe and not used for a few years, and you actually use another wallet.dat (a copy of the safely stored one), what happens once you decide to bring up the safely stored wallet.dat on a different PC after some time?
Do you have all your funds or only the funds that you gained with the old keys available on both wallet.dats?

I believe the keys (addresses) don't change when you are sent money, so the wallet you have stored in a safe would remain the same after years of sending it money.  The wallet that you use to send money would be updated though.  That's what I've read around here at least

[Fr0sty]

Thanks for this, it was useful

[CaptainDDL]

Encrypt your wallet...makes sense. Thanks for the post!

[damon1492]

I just use trueCrypt,
works fine for me and much secure.

[ryouiki]

Thanks for the info

[Mushroomized]

I always wondered if something like this was possible, thank you a lot OP

[btcontilt]

thanks nice post

[riceberry]

I used truecrypt before, but I like this solution here

http://bitcoin.blog.com/2011/07/17/linux-bitcoin-wallet-encryption/

uses seahorse-tool, with a custom startup script to decrypt as you open bitcoin, then ecrypt again when closing.
also back up a copy of your encrypted wallet and put it somewhere safe

[btcking]

Thanks. I always encrypt my wallet and also copy it to several locations that are not on my hard drive I pulled it from

[Bubi]

Thanks for the advice, you can never be too safe when dealing with money .

[Fountainhead]

Paper money --> more secure than bitcoin

[bigb159]

Paper money --> more secure than bitcoin

Don't you have mattresses to stuff? I just backed my wallet up to dropbox. I can be pretty dumb.