Can non-techies keep their Bitcoin secure easily?

[Ulysses1994XF04]

The Piper paper wallet printer might be a good option for someone who is non-techie.  It's a completely offline printer that will print paper Bitcoin and Litecoin wallets.  It will even let you plug in a usb and backup the keys to that as well.  The website is piper.pw.

I really cannot buy any extra equipment or hardware for this. Right now, I can only afford to invest like $30 or $40 USD into this, and ideally, I would like this to be all in Bitcoin; buying any gear would wipe out any money for Bitcoin thereafter.

[Stinky_Pete]

I pull up the Command Prompt; it's another black box with white text that kinda looks like MSDOS and I type "fciv.exe." Nothing happens; it says "fciv.exe is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file."

You have to navigate to the correct folder/directory first. Your prompt probably appears as C:\Users\username>. You will to use the 'cd' command.

[Stinky_Pete]

I really cannot buy any extra equipment or hardware for this. Right now, I can only afford to invest like $30 or $40 USD into this, and ideally, I would like this to be all in Bitcoin; buying any gear would wipe out any money for Bitcoin thereafter.

OK, if you want to get into Bitcoin now, can you afford to lose that $30-40? Why not start with a simple wallet and only $3-4 dollars, that way if you lose it no serious damage is done. As you gain in experience you will find things that seem horrendously complicated now become clearer.

[Stinky_Pete]

I just have an ordinary, Windows 8 laptop; I have no idea what kind of security features it has or if it's secure; I don't know if I've ever been hacked or had a virus. I have no idea if it's safe to set up a wallet on my computer. What can I do? What can an average computer user do to set up a safe, secure Wallet and keep their Bitcoins as hack/scam-proof as possible?

Do you have antivirus software installed? Do you have a two-way firewall installed? If not then consider your computer as insecure and don't use it for anything important or valuable. If you don't know then consider it insecure.

Good, free, easy to use software packages are AVG anti-virus and ZoneAlarm firewall. Other products are available.

[Ulysses1994XF04]

I pull up the Command Prompt; it's another black box with white text that kinda looks like MSDOS and I type "fciv.exe." Nothing happens; it says "fciv.exe is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file."

You have to navigate to the correct folder/directory first. Your prompt probably appears as C:\Users\username>. You will to use the 'cd' command.

Typing "cd" doesn't do anything either; I type "cd", hit enter and the same  C:\Users\username> appears right below it.

I really cannot buy any extra equipment or hardware for this. Right now, I can only afford to invest like $30 or $40 USD into this, and ideally, I would like this to be all in Bitcoin; buying any gear would wipe out any money for Bitcoin thereafter.

OK, if you want to get into Bitcoin now, can you afford to lose that $30-40? Why not start with a simple wallet and only $3-4 dollars, that way if you lose it no serious damage is done. As you gain in experience you will find things that seem horrendously complicated now become clearer.

Yeah, it's just that others have suggested I get another, dedicated computer for this, and the printer he suggested is $200 USD. All I'm saying is that I can't afford to buy new hardware for this; not yet atleast.

Do you have antivirus software installed? Do you have a two-way firewall installed? If not then consider your computer as insecure and don't use it for anything important or valuable. If you don't know then consider it insecure.

Good, free, easy to use software packages are AVG anti-virus and ZoneAlarm firewall. Other products are available.

My trial Norton Antivirus expired a few weeks ago; I just removed it today and started using Windows Defender. I ran a full computer scan and it said my computers safe. I don't know if they have/had "two way firewall" functions. I'll look into those other services you suggested.

[Ulysses1994XF04]

I just have an ordinary, Windows 8 laptop; I have no idea what kind of security features it has or if it's secure; I don't know if I've ever been hacked or had a virus. I have no idea if it's safe to set up a wallet on my computer. What can I do? What can an average computer user do to set up a safe, secure Wallet and keep their Bitcoins as hack/scam-proof as possible?

Do you have antivirus software installed? Do you have a two-way firewall installed? If not then consider your computer as insecure and don't use it for anything important or valuable. If you don't know then consider it insecure.

Good, free, easy to use software packages are AVG anti-virus and ZoneAlarm firewall. Other products are available.

I just downloaded AVG Basic; the full package costs $54.99.

AVG Basic has anti virus and anti spyware function, but no firewall function.

[MAbtc]

I pull up the Command Prompt; it's another black box with white text that kinda looks like MSDOS and I type "fciv.exe." Nothing happens; it says "fciv.exe is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file."

You have to navigate to the correct folder/directory first. Your prompt probably appears as C:\Users\username>. You will to use the 'cd' command.

Typing "cd" doesn't do anything either; I type "cd", hit enter and the same  C:\Users\username> appears right below it.

If fciv is in C:\Windows, you can run it from anywhere. In that case,
fciv [____.exe] -sha1 --> Will run fciv on the file in question (____.exe = full file path)

If not,
cmd /K "cd /d c:\WINDOWS\" --> Will create a cmd window at the C:\Windows directory (replace c:\windows with the folder housing gpg4win-2.2.1)

fciv gpg4win-2.2.1.exe -sha1

[MAbtc]

I see now that you are using Electrum. They appear to use md5 checksum, not sha1. So you would replace "-sha1" with "-md5".

[MAbtc]

Currently downloading Gpg4win; just before I continue, what exactly is this going to do? I'm not sure I understand why I've got to do this.

Because I already have passwords for my Electrum wallet, and the wallet names I was assigned seem pretty complex. Is this whole process just going to add another layer of passwords around the software, the file or both?

In this case, there are two reasons to do this.

1) To confirm that you are downloading what you think you are downloading. In this case, the Electrum developers released the client, and you want to make sure that you are installing the original, unmodified version that you were intended to get. It's good to be in this habit to avoid malicious downloads.

At http://electrum.org/download.html you can see that they have provided an md5 hash of your download to ensure its integrity, and a .asc -- the files release signature -- so that you can ensure that you are receiving the original, unmodified version from the developers.

2) To be able to encrypt and decrypt files. For example, with Electrum, and others I think, only private keys are encrypted when you set a pass phrase. Encrypting your wallet file(s) adds another layer of protection and opaqueness. You have to understand that no security measure is enough to stop a well-armed attack. It's all about deterrence. A pass phrase that encrypts your private keys only means that in an unencrypted directory, your public keys are saying "I'm a bitcoin wallet. Right here!"

As always -- this may be overkill depending on your potential holdings and how you value them. You don't need to encrypt your wallet files beyond the encryption of your private keys by setting a pass phrase. Many people don't.

But it is good to be in the habit of knowing how to recognize a trusted download from an untrusted one.

You can set up cold storage on a USB drive, sure. With QT, for instance, just back up the wallet.dat file on the USB -- preferably, the wallet should be generated initially offline, the wallet should be encrypted before stored, and all files on the drive encrypted.

I actually cannot find a wallet.dat file; I did a full hard drive search. It's not on my USB drive either; all that appears on my USB is the Electrum program; and yet there appears to be Wallet ID's under the received tab.

Wallet.dat referred to the Bitcoin QT client. Sorry, I'm not too familiar with Electrum. Consider checking out the Electrum subforum: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=98.0

[MAbtc]

I just have an ordinary, Windows 8 laptop; I have no idea what kind of security features it has or if it's secure; I don't know if I've ever been hacked or had a virus. I have no idea if it's safe to set up a wallet on my computer. What can I do? What can an average computer user do to set up a safe, secure Wallet and keep their Bitcoins as hack/scam-proof as possible?

Do you have antivirus software installed? Do you have a two-way firewall installed? If not then consider your computer as insecure and don't use it for anything important or valuable. If you don't know then consider it insecure.

Good, free, easy to use software packages are AVG anti-virus and ZoneAlarm firewall. Other products are available.

I just downloaded AVG Basic; the full package costs $54.99.

AVG Basic has anti virus and anti spyware function, but no firewall function.

Consider the tutorial posted earlier on running an offline Ubuntu LiveCD from a USB drive or disc.
http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/create-a-usb-stick-on-windows

Nothing to buy, firewall easily enabled (terminal command for default enable: "sudo ufw enable"), clamTK anti-virus is free and pretty solid. Most viruses target Windows, despite the fact that most servers run on Linux -- something to keep in mind when considering which OS to keep your wallet on (if you keep it on a computer, especially an online computer). Linux/Unix has stronger security generally by limiting permissions beyond the root user... and anything downloaded from browser is not executable by default -- it must be granted permissions to be made executable.

Anyway.... something to consider....  Happy bitcoining!

[stevel2000]

I use the Android Wallet by Andreas Schildbach, it's open source, and I think it's pretty easy to use, and quite secure.

[Ulysses1994XF04]

If fciv is in C:\Windows, you can run it from anywhere. In that case,
fciv [____.exe] -sha1 --> Will run fciv on the file in question (____.exe = full file path)

If not,
cmd /K "cd /d c:\WINDOWS\" --> Will create a cmd window at the C:\Windows directory (replace c:\windows with the folder housing gpg4win-2.2.1)

fciv gpg4win-2.2.1.exe -sha1

When I typed cmd /K "cd /d c:\WINDOWS\" into the Command Prompt and C:\Users\username> changed into C:\Windows> in the Command Prompt. However, typing all those recommended commands fciv gpg4win-2.2.1.exe -sha1 and fciv gpg4win-2.2.1.exe -md5 yielded the same error message as before; "fciv is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file."

[po1992one]

If fciv is in C:\Windows, you can run it from anywhere. In that case,
fciv [____.exe] -sha1 --> Will run fciv on the file in question (____.exe = full file path)

If not,
cmd /K "cd /d c:\WINDOWS\" --> Will create a cmd window at the C:\Windows directory (replace c:\windows with the folder housing gpg4win-2.2.1)

fciv gpg4win-2.2.1.exe -sha1

When I typed cmd /K "cd /d c:\WINDOWS\" into the Command Prompt and C:\Users\username> changed into C:\Windows> in the Command Prompt. However, typing all those recommended commands fciv gpg4win-2.2.1.exe -sha1 and fciv gpg4win-2.2.1.exe -md5 yielded the same error message as before; "fciv is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file."

You need download fciv from Microsoft website