Alternative Block Chains : be safe!

[AYOSALAD]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqJe1TZ3Zjs&t=39s
Sup guys check out my channel I got a new video coming out soon explaining the recent surges and a tutorial on trading Ripple

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[melancoly]

You have to really be careful and very cautious of the third party software.

[howardhoward]

Most of the new coins coming out daily are created by ignorant developers. Now that's scary. Very, very scary.

Why do you think so? Can you give any examples?

[Mzai620]

I'm usually a lurker in crypto groups and have exercised restraint when it comes to giveaways and airdrops of new altcoins. I work for a cybersecurity company and read a lot of scam and hacking stories. Safety and security in technical (IT) terms is not my strong suit. In general, when you do decide to install software for a new altcoin, I agree with the others who suggested using a separate machine. Especially for newbies like me, because we don't know how to look "under the hood" to check that malware or keylogger is not packaged with any new downloads and installs.

[doommy12]

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[Lara644]

Well said...I believe we have to be careful and analyse strategically when diving into new projects for security reasons..always do your own research.

[bitcoiner0101]

Crypto currencies or Coins Market are quite Confusing.should be more Forums 

[habibsir]

as we are working,i think it's actual

[hatd2012]

Hi
You can using an alternate cryptocurrency client would be a great way to get many people to install a hidden virus that targets Bitcoin users.

If you have a significant amount of Bitcoins, I wouldn't run other clients on the same computer until the alternates have developed trust over a longer period of time

[sudnokpok]

I strongly agree. That's partly why I haven't messed with the alt chains. I even mentioned this on the announcement thread for lxcoin but it got drowned out with all the excitement about it.

[Baxta]

For all the time that I was engaged in mining, I have never noticed any kind of third-party actions with the computer. For mining I use open source programs. Operating system Linux.

[andamers]

I am equally paranoid, if it is me, I will encrypt every one of my wallets, to ensure safety.

[mxyzptlkof6th]

I haven't seen anybody post about what would be my biggest worry if I were trying out alternative block chains. I realize this may be perceived as "Gavin is FUD'ding anything that isn't bitcoin!"  (FUD == Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt)  But I think some of you might be forgetting some basic computer security fundamentals in the excitement to be early adopters.

When I first heard about bitcoin, my questions were:

1) Can it possibly work (do the ideas for how it works make sense)?
2) Is it a scam?
3) If it is not a scam, could it open my computer up to viruses/trojans if I run it?

I answered those questions by:

1) Reading and understanding Satoshi's whitepaper.  Then thinking about it for a day or two and reading it again.
2) Finding out everything I could about the project.  I read every forum thread here (there were probably under a hundred threads back then) and read Satoshi's initial postings on the crypto mailing list.
3) Downloaded and skimmed the source code to see if it looked vulnerable to buffer overflow or other remotely exploitable attacks.

If I were going to experiment with an alternative block-chain, I'd go through the same process again. But I'm an old conservative fuddy-duddy.

If you want to take a risk on a brand-new alternative block-chain, I'd strongly suggest that you:

1) Run the software in a virtual machine or on a machine that doesn't contain anything valuable.
2) Don't invest more money or time than you can afford to lose.
3) Use a different passphrase at every exchange site.

Lots of thanks to you Gavin! This will truely help the ones that are very ignorant including me. It is true that the majority in this forum only knows the blockchain of bitcoin and have no idea about the other types.

[Bugatti73]

Can we assume that Ripple is an alternative to blockchain, or is it not a blockchain at all??

[kingasterisk]

If the point comes, where one is wealthy  enough that it would be painful as hell to be exploited by vulnerabilities, having just one pc isn't an excuse(you do have money to buy another).

I'm not wealthy enough to justify it, but if i ever was, getting a machine that is always offline to hold most of my value would be a priority. Yeah and i do have a trezor.

[Mzai620]

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[crimealone]

Novablitz is a game platform both for players and developers. It's an ETH-based collectible card game and alreay on steem.

Telegram Group : https://t.me/Novablitz

Or their official website at : https://novablitz.com

[retlaw04]

I do not know why I have not noticed this threat for so long. Probably because he is so old. Really good reading material. Amusing. And many of the postings encourage everyone to rethink everything in this hectic time.

[Mzai620]

It's hard enough to get the half-baked alt chain software to run at all (and speed is of the essence knowing they are all quickly collapsing pyramids) never mind configuring a VM with appropriate hardware access.  Here are steps I've taken which I think are "good enough" to be advice -- it's worked for me for 4 shitcoin chains so far.

1.  Don't use Windows and pre-built .exes.  Just don't.  Ever.  Nothing inherently wrong with Microsoft software, but it is well understood and commonly used by the botnet types.  Staying out of the monoculture is a form of security by obscurity.
2.  Create a new account with no group membership.  I call mine "goatse" for obvious but nostalgic reasons.  Make absolutely sure that account doesn't have read or write access outside of their home directory.   Make doubly sure they can't read the raw hard drive device.
3.  Log out of your main account and into that account whenever compiling or running the alt chain software.  Remember that compilation & installation scripts are code!
4.  Do not browse exchange sites you have coinage in and definitely do not save passwords in the browser when logged in as this account.
5.  If you log into this account via ssh DO NOT enable X proxying.  It's trivial to read your keystrokes, do screen captures, etc when X is proxied.  Let me repeat this one, make sure X proxying is disabled.  If you can type 'xterm' and see it show up on your main account's screen you're vulnerable. 

And yes, I even follow this for official bitcoin software.  On a different account than "goatse" of course.

[Tunjevina]

Thank you for sharing your knowledge about this subject. I will definitely take time to learn about it!