Paper Wallets - Services, suggestions, warnings, etc.

[Its About Sharing]

Hey All,

Just curious what paper wallet "services" you guys use to store coins offline. Suggestions to use, etc.
Perhaps some to avoid as well.

Curious, if you print yours from the browser while offline (or from an Ubuntu live CD, then go offline), is there an easy way to send to them at a later date? (I'm on Mac and find no easy way to input the public address from the paper to computer, even via the QR code. Even using my Ipad to bring it to the Mac was a bit of work but the only solution I found. None of the free MAC QR readers seemed to work well.)

Suggestion/? - I've laminated a paper wallet before and wonder would that increase the life? It appears to slow down fading but I wonder if the laminate will separate at a later date and take some ink with it.

Here are some that I know of:
https://www.bitaddress.org/ (Simple and free online site we are all hopefully aware of)
https://bitcoinpaperwallet.com/
https://safepaperwallet.com/

Thanks,
Its about sharing

[canton]

Suggestion/? - I've laminated a paper wallet before and wonder would that increase the life? It appears to slow down fading but I wonder if the laminate will separate at a later date and take some ink with it.

Not sure about laminating, but here's some of the stuff I've been experimenting with:

Krylon "Preserve It!" -- acid-free spray
Teslin brand synthetic paper

At the very least I recommend keeping the wallets in a nice zip-sealing bag like the ones I feature at bitcoinpaperwallet.com

- Canton

[Stunna]

Weird solution I use for added security is I edit one of the characters on my hot wallet's private address. For example you can replace one character with a random letter and just remember to swap it out with the proper one when redeeming it. If anyone were to stumble upon my paper wallet, they wouldn't really be able to claim anything with it without that knowledge.

Also I just use a simple blockchain.info cold wallet, you can disconnect from wifi and generate an address/private key I believe and it will automatically set it to watch mode only.

Anyways, my main suggestion is to find some sort of balance between security and convenience, some people have lost their private key due to taking too many pre-cautions.

[malevolent]

Weird solution I use for added security is I edit one of the characters on my hot wallet's private address. For example you can replace one character with a random letter and just remember to swap it out with the proper one when redeeming it. If anyone were to stumble upon my paper wallet, they wouldn't really be able to claim anything with it without that knowledge.

If they somehow found out that the owner uses such a method of protection it would be trivial to access the funds of such an address.

Bitcoin private keys have 22 to 52 (compressed/uncompressed/casascius/etc.) characters that means after a maximum of 2907 combinations (51*(58-1) + 2) the attacker would gain access to your funds.

I would devise a different method of protection, e.g. make a sentence that is as possibly random as you can, take its first 22-52 characters, look up their DEC ASCII table code and shift each character of that private key by a corresponding number. If one of the letters in that sentence is "m", the number is 109, 109 mod 26 = 5, the new letter will be "r". The attacker will still be able to find out that your private is invalid due to the checksum but he won't be able to access your finds given the knowledge you are sharing on a public forum.

[Its About Sharing]

Thanks for sharing the great ideas guys. I would be VERY CAREFUL with complexity though. If you know (and PRACTICE) your method, then you are great. But one slip up, one memory loss or the like and... not good.

Canton - I love the physical methods you spoke of. Unfortunately, I'm in Germany and neither of those products are available here (Couldn't find them in the UK either). But, I've seen water/rip proof photo paper. That is probably similar in property (and cost apparently) to the Teslin but I know not as tough? I don't know of another spray product like you mentioned though. And thanks for the thread revival - was hoping for it to be a BrainStorm area.

The Teslin sounds like a great idea. I'm really surprised we don't hear about similar things from other BTC users. I mean paper wallets are used by many many people and paper has it's obvious faults.

And here is a stainless steel wallet. Great for fires, etc. And you can probably hide it quite easily. And unlike paper, you won't accidentally throw it out...
http://www.instructables.com/id/A-Stainless-Steel-Bitcoin-Wallet/

Keep the ideas coming,
It's about sharing

[canton]

Canton - I love the physical methods you spoke of. Unfortunately, I'm in Germany and neither of those products are available here (Couldn't find them in the UK either). But, I've seen water/rip proof photo paper. That is probably similar in property (and cost apparently) to the Teslin but I know not as tough?

I think almost any water/rip proof paper will be functionally similar to Teslin. There are a bunch of brands that I'm testing. I believe most of them just use polyester (plastic) instead of paper pulp.

[davidgdg]

Hey All,
....
Curious, if you print yours from the browser while offline (or from an Ubuntu live CD, then go offline), is there an easy way to send to them at a later date? (I'm on Mac and find no easy way to input the public address from the paper to computer, even via the QR code. Even using my Ipad to bring it to the Mac was a bit of work but the only solution I found. None of the free MAC QR readers seemed to work well.)...

Why not just scan the QR address code on the paper with the blockchain app on your smartphone and save the address?   

[Its About Sharing]

Hey All,
....
Curious, if you print yours from the browser while offline (or from an Ubuntu live CD, then go offline), is there an easy way to send to them at a later date? (I'm on Mac and find no easy way to input the public address from the paper to computer, even via the QR code. Even using my Ipad to bring it to the Mac was a bit of work but the only solution I found. None of the free MAC QR readers seemed to work well.)...

Why not just scan the QR address code on the paper with the blockchain app on your smartphone and save the address?  

I can do that now with new software but the old one on my desktop (QRReader on Mac) wouldn't work for some reason. The new one (QR Code Scanner) grabs it quick. Thanks for the mention as hopefully others realize not all software is the same.

I don't have a smartphone btw so not a possibility. Also, I would be very very careful about using a smart phone / Ipad, etc. and scanning the private key for cashing out a paper wallet. I'd prefer to do it locally for obvious reasons. Fewer points of attack.

IAS