[ANN] BoffOS Bootable clean OS for offline wallet printing, USB and CD

[aantonop]

This is the first beta of the BoffOS bootable offline printing OS.

This is an open source complete system for offline printing of paper wallets, securely and away from the stare of keyloggers and webcams (ie, your trojan-riddled online OS)

As part of the OpenPaperWallet and SafePaperWallet projects, we have developed a bootable clean OS (ubuntu saucy) with the following features:

* Boot from CD or USB while disconnected from networks
* OS runs without a network interfaces (offline) and boots directly into RAM
* Does not interact with your existing OS or hard drive. It keeps out of the way, and away from the trojans ;-)
* Contains many printer drivers for most common printers, like HP, Epson etc.. We can add more as needed.
* Contains the safe paper wallet printer software (derived from bitaddress) - One screen, one option, two buttons. Easy.
* Can print paper wallets onto the Safe Paper Wallet sheets (textured, thick, luxurious paper with gorgeous designs and perforated around each wallet)
* Detailed instructions guide you step by step, from understanding to printing paper wallets, loading them, redeeming and voiding (full lifecycle)

The first beta can be downloaded or ordered on a CD/USB as part of a complete Safe Paper Wallet kit.

We welcome feedback and comments and will implement suggestions readily.

[r3wt]

This is the first beta of the BoffOS bootable offline printing OS.

This is an open source complete system for offline printing of paper wallets, securely and away from the stare of keyloggers and webcams (ie, your trojan-riddled online OS)

As part of the OpenPaperWallet and SafePaperWallet projects, we have developed a bootable clean OS (ubuntu saucy) with the following features:

* Boot from CD or USB while disconnected from networks
* OS runs without a network interfaces (offline) and boots directly into RAM
* Does not interact with your existing OS or hard drive. It keeps out of the way, and away from the trojans ;-)
* Contains many printer drivers for most common printers, like HP, Epson etc.. We can add more as needed.
* Contains the safe paper wallet printer software (derived from bitaddress) - One screen, one option, two buttons. Easy.
* Can print paper wallets onto the Safe Paper Wallet sheets (textured, thick, luxurious paper with gorgeous designs and perforated around each wallet)
* Detailed instructions guide you step by step, from understanding to printing paper wallets, loading them, redeeming and voiding (full lifecycle)

The first beta can be downloaded or ordered on a CD/USB as part of a complete Safe Paper Wallet kit.

We welcome feedback and comments and will implement suggestions readily.

O.o did you remove the ubuntu spyware first?

[aantonop]

O.o did you remove the ubuntu spyware first?

* OS runs without a network interfaces (offline) and boots directly into RAM

We power on, boot, power off. No left-behinds.

In addition, we will be stripping out as much as possible from every part of ubuntu that is not necessary for printing and UI. The core principle, however is to restart fresh every time from read-only media into a system with no network interfaces.

[r3wt]

O.o did you remove the ubuntu spyware first?

* OS runs without a network interfaces (offline) and boots directly into RAM

We power on, boot, power off. No left-behinds.

In addition, we will be stripping out as much as possible from every part of ubuntu that is not necessary for printing and UI. The core principle, however is to restart fresh every time from read-only media into a system with no network interfaces.

yeah, i read that, i was just getting that question out of the way... giving you a little bit of hell. Good luck with it!

[blockgenesis]

The main problem with this approach is the risk that you lose the change of your transaction once you recover the private key and issue a transaction (most likely in a temporary wallet and most likely to greatest part of all your funds). It happened at least once in the past to someone.

The fact is that a paper wallet let's people think the remaining part of their bitcoins stored on this address will remain on this address if they issue a transaction. Unfortunately, this is not the case with Bitcoin-Qt, Armory, and even Multibit when there is more than one private key stored in the wallet. In the case where someone issue a transaction from the LiveCD, the risk is greater because all change private keys are permanently deleted when you shutdown the computer.

This is why I make a clear warning about this here in the offline wallet subsection :
http://bitcoin.org/en/secure-your-wallet

I would say that (to my knowledge), the only user friendly security that can be done to make a paper wallet secure is to use Alan Reiner (Armory) approach, only use deterministic paper wallets backup. That said, when deterministic wallets will become possible with thin clients like multibit, I think it would be excellent to have a LiveCD for this. It is definitively a handy way to have an excellent security level to store bitcoins.

Very good idea BTW.

[aantonop]

Some clarification:

There is no bitcoin wallet software on the LiveCD. Only software to generate keys and QRs and print them on wallets. The goal is to print wallets without ever having their keys be online or seen by an online system that may have trojans.


Loading the wallets and unloading them happens on an online system, later.

We offer full instructions as part of the Safe Paper Wallet project, which include a recommendation to only redeem a wallet once, fully and sweep into another wallet in full. Then never use it again.

If I understand correctly, the issue of "change" only occurs if people try to redeem small amounts of a wallet, not the complete balance of that address, right?

In any case, we do not do transactions offline, only key generation and printing.

[blockgenesis]

Some clarification:

There is no bitcoin wallet software on the LiveCD. Only software to generate keys and QRs and print them on wallets. The goal is to print wallets without ever having their keys be online or seen by an online system that may have trojans.

Sounds good. As long as users are aware that they are exposed to trojan the day when they need to load the private key in order to spend their bitcoins. But meanwhile, it is indeed a nice way to deposit bitcoins to a Bitcoin address securely.

If I understand correctly, the issue of "change" only occurs if people try to redeem small amounts of a wallet, not the complete balance of that address, right?

Indeed. Any transaction not spending the entire amount needs to send the change back to a Bitcoin address (otherwise the whole change would become the transaction fee). Many Bitcoin clients don't send the amount to the source address. They send the change to a random new address that is stored in the wallet. As such, if your paper wallet was loaded in Bitcoin-Qt or Multibit in order to spend only a part of the funds available on the paper wallet, there are good chances that such a transaction would transfer all remaining funds without the user being aware of it (because it's not really intuitive).

[Billyboy402]

has there been any update to the OS ?