Hacked and stolen

[Welsh]

+1, Bitcoin is ready, Bitcoin it's self has not had a problem.

Imaging that bitcoin gains adoption and people start buying and massively using bitcoin tomorrow. After a few cases like OP has, mass media will destroy bitcoin's reputation claiming that it's insecure. That's it.

Bitcoin-QT has wallet encryption off by default. It's like your interenet banking is with empty password by default. Do you call this ready?

AGAIN, that is not BITCOIN itself, that's the users who mess up. Bitcoin can be stored safe on a paper wallet.
Internet  banking is the safe, I don't use it personally, why?
One of my friends has had their money taken, yes it was returned, but that's not the point.

People who understand, know how to make a paper wallet, now say that your house get's broken into and they find this 'paper wallet' this paper wallet can be disguised and not look like anything but a product key, someone who doesn't know what Bitcoin is, will not have a clue.

Anyway, I don't even store my paper wallet in my house, but in a external location.

[Welsh]

OP,

I wish you the best and hope you CAN recover from this.
It's not nice at all, I have never had my Bitcoins stolen like this, but I have been scammed which is pretty much the same.



Best of luck!

[Gabi]

The problem about paperwallet bitcoins is that to use them you need to get the private key on a pc. And if it is not offline, you risk to lose everything no matter what.

The only safe way is to have an OFFLINE computer, create a transaction on it and then copy the transaction on the online computer.

[bronan]

I see i have posted in my anger a statement which i should not have made

For that i do make my apology to the good members of the community.

But i sincerely would like to see some kinda secure system or a bank where you can put the coins for safe keeping with some kind of protection if it is being hacked.

I sure as hell would have instant used it if it existed in the first place.

I can tell you that when i retrace the bitcoin address that several hundreds of bitcoins are being processed so i am sure many more people have lost their belongings besides me.

Also the stealing from me is shortly after i reported the botnetter which had infected many friends their pc's with a secret miner to some pool owners, another fact is that i retraced on all those pc's that they was infiltrated from ip's originated which are located within Iran
Ofcourse those pc's also could have been victims of the culprit(s) for that i can not provide enough proof, i just can state they was all in iran.

Second i do think if bitcoin wants to become a system which all can use that there should be some kinda way to to get the money back if this kinda things happen
At our banking system you can reclaim a payement if it has been made in error. That ofcourse needs some kinda group of persons who would see if that claim is valid or just another try for scamming someone. If a bank goes bancrupt you get payed by a governement fund up to 100.000 euro.

I would like to thank those who expressed their sympathie as well by this post. These criminals make a promising iniative very bad

[newtothescene]

I was thinking of something very similar to your suggestion.  Some type of hardware wallet that can be used to store/transfer BTC without worrying about the host OS/Software being an attack vector.  I also like some of the other suggestions further up the list.  2 factor authentication in the client, daily limits, email confirmation before sending coin, user defined send delays that allows a cancel action during that delay.  

Many of you work in IT and have supported non-IT "users/customers" at some point, so you know this is truth:  There isn't enough education in the world that will make users behave intelligently on a computer.  We must find a way to make it "Grandma Proof" not spend effort on educating folks.  One in ten may take heed but that isn't enough to drive universal acceptance.  Perception is reality, and if people perceive BTC as unsafe then it is unsafe for them.

The truth is that we need a real hardware wallet wich allow you to make transactions without the risk of being infected.  Totally air-gapped. Otherwise you will have your private key in your pc/smartphone, wich can be infected.

Also a note about virus scans: if the computer is infected, scans may be totally useless because the virus might have comprimised the antivirus too. An infected pc is TOTALLY unreliable, the only safe way to fix it is to format it and every hard disks on it and probably whatever you connected to it (usb keys, external drives etc). Otherwise a clever virus may happily survive.

[Welsh]

The problem about paperwallet bitcoins is that to use them you need to get the private key on a pc. And if it is not offline, you risk to lose everything no matter what.

The only safe way is to have an OFFLINE computer, create a transaction on it and then copy the transaction on the online computer.

That's exactly what I do.
Really I don't need a paper wallet because I have a OFFLINE computer, but I always like to go the extra step.

[Rampion]

The problem about paperwallet bitcoins is that to use them you need to get the private key on a pc. And if it is not offline, you risk to lose everything no matter what.

The only safe way is to have an OFFLINE computer, create a transaction on it and then copy the transaction on the online computer.

That's exactly what I do.
Really I don't need a paper wallet because I have a OFFLINE computer, but I always like to go the extra step.

FYI: bitcoinarmory.com

[yvv]

The only safe way is to have an OFFLINE computer, create a transaction on it and then copy the transaction on the online computer.

Could you elaborate, please. This sounds interesting, but how do you copy a transaction? How do you sync the blockchain on offline computer?
 

[warpio]

I think there needs to be some kind of dedicated offline hardware wallet... Not a whole separate computer that you keep offline, but just like a $50 device, maybe powered by a raspberry pi or something, and with a small touch screen and an SD slot, and the only thing you can do with it is create private/public keys, transactions, and send the public key/transaction to the SD card to distribute to an online computer.

[daemonfox]

I think there needs to be some kind of dedicated offline hardware wallet... Not a whole separate computer that you keep offline, but just like a $50 device, maybe powered by a raspberry pi or something, and with a small touch screen and an SD slot, and the only thing you can do with it is create private/public keys, transactions, and send the public key/transaction to the SD card to distribute to an online computer.

Like an Android wallet you use on a device that has no cell service connected to it and wifi off until you are ready to send the transaction to your online device?

[1PFYcabWEwZFm2Ez5LGTx3ftz]

More secure ways will and should appear. But now it's far from being ready for an ordinary user to use in terms of security.

The same could be said about the internet in general.

[Gabi]

The only safe way is to have an OFFLINE computer, create a transaction on it and then copy the transaction on the online computer.

Could you elaborate, please. This sounds interesting, but how do you copy a transaction? How do you sync the blockchain on offline computer?
 

There is no need to sync the blockchain to use bitcoin and make transactions! The two things are totally unrelated. The blockchain is required to check your balance and to check if you received transactions, and  of course, since bitcoin is a p2p network, to relay blocks to other nodes, but not to make transactions. You just need the private key for that.

How to copy? You can for example display it as a qr-code and use a smartphone to read and send it to internet. This way no virus can enter the offline computer.

[yvv]

The only safe way is to have an OFFLINE computer, create a transaction on it and then copy the transaction on the online computer.

Could you elaborate, please. This sounds interesting, but how do you copy a transaction? How do you sync the blockchain on offline computer?

I'll elaborate for him.

Armory.

https://bitcoinarmory.com/

Thanks!

[lexxus]

AGAIN, that is not BITCOIN itself, that's the users who mess up. Bitcoin can be stored safe on a paper wallet.

No, you are wrong. I already gave you an example that you ignored. The most popular bitcoin client comes with the encryption turned off by default. It's not users who mess up, it's bitcoin community and developes who mess up here.

Paper wallet is just for storage. If you want Gold 2.0 only, then it's fine. Let's tell people the truth then: the only secure way is to store BTC on the paper (unless you have a PhD in CS). Period. Don't use it for anything else. And please forget about wide adoption, payments, etc. in this case.

[lexxus]

More secure ways will and should appear. But now it's far from being ready for an ordinary user to use in terms of security.

The same could be said about the internet in general.

Internet in general doesn't put at risk your money. Bitcoin does.

[virtualmaster]

This post seems to me very contradictory.
- First he is asserting that he had a very good secured PC which was hacked and his BTCs where stolen. If this is true the attacker must be very professional or the BTC holder very beginner.
- On the other side he is saying that he was able to track the IP of the thief even if as stated it was used as relay an intermediary BTC address. Which presumes that he (the former BTC holder) was very professional (it is not easy to track the IP of a thief) or the thief was very stupid.

[warpio]

More secure ways will and should appear. But now it's far from being ready for an ordinary user to use in terms of security.

The same could be said about the internet in general.

Internet in general doesn't put at risk your money. Bitcoin does.

no, the Internet + Bitcoin does. The internet is not required at all for Bitcoin storage.

[yvv]

The only safe way is to have an OFFLINE computer, create a transaction on it and then copy the transaction on the online computer.

Could you elaborate, please. This sounds interesting, but how do you copy a transaction? How do you sync the blockchain on offline computer?
 

There is no need to sync the blockchain to use bitcoin and make transactions! The two things are totally unrelated. The blockchain is required to check your balance and to check if you received transactions, and  of course, since bitcoin is a p2p network, to relay blocks to other nodes, but not to make transactions. You just need the private key for that.

How to copy? You can for example display it as a qr-code and use a smartphone to read and send it to internet. This way no virus can enter the offline computer.

Thanks! I have too few btc to worry about safety now, but I am going to play with wallet which is permanently offline to be ready to become bitcoin millionaire in the future
 

[bronan]

A good idea warpio that might work as well as long as it is able to be compatible with the current bitcoin clients
Which i think plays also also a small minor contribution into my drama.
I had to update the client/wallet so thats why the wallet was on my pc.
Ofcourse i should have put it back on the removable disc but i simply forgot to do it because of all kinda personal problems
Their is nothing i can do to change the events which have lead to this event.
Should i have not reported these botnetters to the pool owners ?, should i not have reported them to internet police ?

[1PFYcabWEwZFm2Ez5LGTx3ftz]

Internet in general doesn't put at risk your money. Bitcoin does.

It is the same as blaming a door manufacturer, because you didn't lock your door and got robbed.