Armory - and what about notebook theft?

[DrakonX]

Hi, I use Armory and always had a paper backup - very useful, as shown in this article: PLEASE Backup your wallet! A Paper Backup is *Forever*!

But I have a question: how does Armory protect me from losing Bitcoins through a notebook theft?

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[goatpig]

Your notebook should not have private keys on it.

[Casimir1904]

Your offline device you setup ofc with crypt setup and you crypt your wallets also with strong and long generated passwords.
You crypt all your devices anyway I assume.

[gangtraet]

Are you having your wallet on a notebook that you carry around, and may lose in the train or have stolen somewhere?  That is a bad idea, since only the password then protect you from losing your coins.

Or are you using the notebook as an offline wallet, and store it safely in your house?  In that case, it may of course still be stolen (and so may your paper backup), but it is far less risky.

In any case, have an excellent password.  Not a good one, that is not enough, modern password crackers are surprisingly good.

[DrakonX]

Thanks for your answers so far.

Well, I carry my notebook around with me. My wallet is on an external HDD that I do not carry around with me. (Save so far.) What I worry about is that the HDD could be stolen from my home, connected to another system and abused.

Would an HDD encryption protect it? What if the thief takes the notebook, cracks the Windows password and uses it to gain access to the encrypted HDD.

Again: what kind of protection would you recommend?

[gangtraet]

HDD Encryption is always a good idea.  But if your wallet password is really good, then even if the thief does get access to the file, they will not be able to crack it before you have had time to move the BTC to a new wallet.

[DrakonX]

I may mess things up: is the password associated with the paper backup in some way?

[gangtraet]

No, the password encrypts the file.  The paper backup is not encrypted - after all the most common use for the backup is to recover from a forgotten password

If having a paper with all your bitcoins on it worries you, then Armory is one of the very few wallets that offers a 2-of-3 backup. You can print the three different sheets of the 2-of-3 backup, and store them in three safe places.  If a thief gets any of them, it does not help him.  If you lose the computer with the wallet, you need to get any two of the three backups, and can use them to recover the wallet.