Raspberry Pi for paper wallet - offline and online?

[somac.]

Hi All,

I have just purchased a new Raspberry Pi in order to produce paper wallets. However, since these little computer are so awesome I would also like to play around with it for other uses, such as a media centre.

I realise for a paper wallet to be completely secure it has to made on a computer that has never, will never, be connected to the internet. I am wondering, if I use a specific SD card for the paper wallet (and never go online when using this card) and a different SD card for the media centre (but will go online with this one), will this mean that the raspberry pi will still be secure when switching to paper wallet use.

The Raspberry Pi has no onboard storage at all, not even for a BIOS, so I figure this might be able to be done, does anyone around here know if this scenario would be safe?

Thanks,

[jakedeez]

google "piper printer"

[cp1]

Yes, that's the same as installing linux on a USB drive to create an "offline" computer.  Of course, make sure you use a reputable rasberry pi distribution image off of a clean computer.  You'll need to connect to the internet to download whatever software you want to use to make the paper wallet, but then you can unplug.

[bycy]

Are you planning on using Bitcoin Armory? I saw them at the Inside Bitcoin conference in Vegas an their software is made for just this. You can even make an encrypted paper backup of the wallet.

[deepceleron]

I googled a bit for booting from a live-cd so there is no writeable media connected, and it looks like that's something this can't do. If you don't want it potentially storing data, you could try unmounting all the drives except for a ram disk you've made. It is hard to guarantee that the OS doesn't swap some data to a page file on the SD even if the wallet processing is only done in RAM.

For paper wallet creation:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=361092.0

Maybe it would be better to make a OS SD card just for paper wallets, and actually use the SD card as a backup of your paper wallets; just never let it touch the internet again and keep it secure. Or set it on fire.

Never connected to the Internet? I will bet every bit of software on it was on the Internet before it got there.

Are you planning on using Bitcoin Armory? I saw them at the Inside Bitcoin conference in Vegas an their software is made for just this. You can even make an encrypted paper backup of the wallet.

Backing up your wallet is not the same thing as making a cold-storage address.

[somac.]

Thanks guys you have given me much to consider. Linux on a USB is particularly intriguing (great idea for a portable computer). I do know of the Piper Printer, I can just do more myself for less cost.

I'll look into all your recommendations then get back to you if I have further questions. Thank you