Bitcoin future - security options

[Galahad]

After comparing all the different wallet choices I think the best bet is to go with blockchain.info with watch only (paper) addresses. This way thieves would have to physically break in and demand my private keys for my paper wallet. But I've been thinking about this and this isn't really ideal. What if in the future everyone is doing this and we all have paper wallets kicking about the place? What do we do:

1) Have safe deposit boxes, this will cost us around £300 a year. This would prevent coercion.
2) Trust banks to keep our keys safe? This scenario worries me but I don't know why.
3) Hide it, secure it better somehow. Still not going to stop someone.

Someone could break in and steal my money this way right now. But the bank will refund payments, but not with BTC.

[1715147555]

1715147555

[1715147555]

1715147555

[1715147555]

1715147555

[Chalkbot]

Brainwallet!

http://brainwallet.org/


Unless you're prone to forgeting things....

[AliceWonder]

Hardware wallet.

The software client never has your private keys.

It creates the transaction, sends the transaction to the hardware wallet where it is signed and returned to the software client to go out on the network.

AFAIK Trezor is the only one and isn't shipping yet.

[acoindr]

After comparing all the different wallet choices I think the best bet is to go with blockchain.info with watch only (paper) addresses. This way thieves would have to physically break in and demand my private keys for my paper wallet. But I've been thinking about this and this isn't really ideal. What if in the future everyone is doing this and we all have paper wallets kicking about the place? What do we do:

1) Have safe deposit boxes, this will cost us around £300 a year. This would prevent coercion.
2) Trust banks to keep our keys safe? This scenario worries me but I don't know why.
3) Hide it, secure it better somehow. Still not going to stop someone.

Someone could break in and steal my money this way right now. But the bank will refund payments, but not with BTC.

The problem you're talking about is similar to when people traded gold nuggets etc. Someone could break in and steal whatever was hidden (under the mattress or whatever) so people started storing their gold with vaults and getting claim checks. Then people started trading the claim checks instead of the gold (since it was convenient) and that became modern paper money.

So there is still the problem of securing your money for yourself. I think people will again outsource this to some degree, and banks will hold bitcoins for them. The nice thing is that this time there is no need to start trading paper claim checks as a more convenient exchange mechanism.

[Galahad]

The problem you're talking about is similar to when people traded gold nuggets etc. Someone could break in and steal whatever was hidden (under the mattress or whatever) so people started storing their gold with vaults and getting claim checks. Then people started trading the claim checks instead of the gold (since it was convenient) and that became modern paper money.

So there is still the problem of securing your money for yourself. I think people will again outsource this to some degree, and banks will hold bitcoins for them. The nice thing is that this time there is no need to start trading paper claim checks as a more convenient exchange mechanism.

Learning things all the time here. So they had gold, then used paper money instead, then they stopped making the money gold-backed and forgot it was all about gold in the first place! I really hope that doesn't happen with Bitcoin.

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

1) Have safe deposit boxes, this will cost us around £300 a year. This would prevent coercion.
2) Trust banks to keep our keys safe? This scenario worries me but I don't know why.
3) Hide it, secure it better somehow. Still not going to stop someone.

This problem has been already solved by somebody.

http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/plausible-deniability

Now they have to prove that you have a wallet at all first.

[kik1977]

After comparing all the different wallet choices I think the best bet is to go with blockchain.info with watch only (paper) addresses. This way thieves would have to physically break in and demand my private keys for my paper wallet. But I've been thinking about this and this isn't really ideal. What if in the future everyone is doing this and we all have paper wallets kicking about the place? What do we do:

1) Have safe deposit boxes, this will cost us around £300 a year. This would prevent coercion.
2) Trust banks to keep our keys safe? This scenario worries me but I don't know why.
3) Hide it, secure it better somehow. Still not going to stop someone.

Someone could break in and steal my money this way right now. But the bank will refund payments, but not with BTC.

The problem you're talking about is similar to when people traded gold nuggets etc. Someone could break in and steal whatever was hidden (under the mattress or whatever) so people started storing their gold with vaults and getting claim checks. Then people started trading the claim checks instead of the gold (since it was convenient) and that became modern paper money.

There is even a step further: at some point the gold keepers (aka Goldsmiths) realised that it was extremely improbable that people storing their gold with them would have come all together to claim their gold back, since people had started trading the receipt of the gold deposited rather than gold itself. Therefore they begun issuing fake receipts (i.e. not supported by any deposit of gold) used to give loans to people for an interest. Fractional Reserve was born...   

[Hfleer]

After comparing all the different wallet choices I think the best bet is to go with blockchain.info with watch only (paper) addresses. This way thieves would have to physically break in and demand my private keys for my paper wallet. But I've been thinking about this and this isn't really ideal. What if in the future everyone is doing this and we all have paper wallets kicking about the place? What do we do:

1) Have safe deposit boxes, this will cost us around £300 a year. This would prevent coercion.
2) Trust banks to keep our keys safe? This scenario worries me but I don't know why.
3) Hide it, secure it better somehow. Still not going to stop someone.

Someone could break in and steal my money this way right now. But the bank will refund payments, but not with BTC.

A brainwallet or semi-brainwallet can work, and you can even have part of it written down and remember the rest.