Bitcoin version 0.4 released

[jgarzik]

I don't want to be that somebody....

If you like the wallet encryption feature, send bitcoins to:
  Matt Corallo :  1JBMattRztKDF2KRS3vhjJXA7h47NEsn2c

Matt (aka "BlueMatt" in IRC) did the hard work of making wallet encryption happen, and deserves a ton of credit for being persistent and reworking his initial implementation a few times based on feedback and suggestions.

Gregory Maxwell ('gmaxwell') also deserves credit and donations, he gave a lot of feedback and did a lot of testing:
  gmaxwell : 1LjPAUKf23kDBy9sLJbiLfsvjde3ZdHcbJ

Well, for the record, I wrote the initial implementation (which BlueMatt then reworked):

     https://github.com/jgarzik/bitcoin/tree/crypter

[Bitsky]

Sadly still not working on W2k 

Are you joking? windows 2000 in 2011? Ehi i have a copy of windows 3.1 somewhere, are you interested in it? 

The fact that the client doesn't work with w2k is a GOOD THING.

Actually, I do have WfW on floppies. Also DOS.

But seriously, why should I replace a perfectly running system that's working as a server? I'd need to buy new hardware, a new Windows, install and configure it along with all the tweaks and services running on top of it. Just to run the client of an experimental currency? Yeah, like that will happen.

As I said before, I provided a solution already and hope that the Devs will add it.

[dree12]

Previous versions of bitcoin are unable to read encrypted wallets,
and will crash on startup if the wallet is encrypted.

Is it a notification or a real crash?

A real crash.

In a perfect world, Bitcoin version 0.1 would have included code that looked for a "Bitcoin version X or later required to read this wallet.dat file" setting, and notify the user and exit cleanly if X is greater than the version you're running.

We don't live in a perfect world.

So the second-best solution was to have version 0.4 and later do the "Bitcoin version X or later required to read this wallet.dat file" thing.  And write a value into the wallet that causes previous versions of bitcoin to crash on startup.

If previous versions didn't crash when given an encrypted wallet, they'd just ignore the encrypted keys, generate a bunch of new, unencrypted keys, and give people heart attacks when they ran the old version of bitcoin and told them they had a 0 bitcoin balance.

Hmm, how many files does bitcoin read? I might be able to help sanitize the input - display "invalid file: dsdsd, bitcoin will now exit" etc, like how "can't read blkindex.dat" works for the rest of the files that crash bitcoin. I would get a heart attack if any financial software crashed due to a cosmic ray.

[URSAY]

Link for Mac users?   

 

[error]

But seriously, why should I replace a perfectly running system that's working as a server?

You're running anything serious on an antique like that?! My phone is more powerful than computers that were contemporaneous with Windows 2000. There has to be a lower bound of support somewhere, and your old Studebaker is below it.

That's not to say that your simple change couldn't be added; the problem is it can't be tested and verified because the rest of us can't lay hands on Windows 2000 without significant time or expense.

[Bitsky]

You're running anything serious on an antique like that?! My phone is more powerful than computers that were contemporaneous with Windows 2000. There has to be a lower bound of support somewhere, and your old Studebaker is below it.

As said, it does all its work perfectly fine. Leave the imaginative problems which you assume I'm having to me and play with your phone.

That's not to say that your simple change couldn't be added; the problem is it can't be tested and verified because the rest of us can't lay hands on Windows 2000 without significant time or expense.

Again, as said, Matt worked on that for v0.3.24 and I successfully tested the fixed binary. It's an official MS fix and the only problem was compiler-related.

[LZ]

Would someone mind uploading the block chain somewhere for me those on expensive inet connections. Cheers!

http://eu1.bitcoincharts.com/blockchain/

If Windows: you may use 7-Zip to untar it.

[idontknow]

Previous versions of bitcoin are unable to read encrypted wallets,
and will crash on startup if the wallet is encrypted.

Is it a notification or a real crash?

A real crash.

In a perfect world, Bitcoin version 0.1 would have included code that looked for a "Bitcoin version X or later required to read this wallet.dat file" setting, and notify the user and exit cleanly if X is greater than the version you're running.

We don't live in a perfect world.

So the second-best solution was to have version 0.4 and later do the "Bitcoin version X or later required to read this wallet.dat file" thing.  And write a value into the wallet that causes previous versions of bitcoin to crash on startup.

If previous versions didn't crash when given an encrypted wallet, they'd just ignore the encrypted keys, generate a bunch of new, unencrypted keys, and give people heart attacks when they ran the old version of bitcoin and told them they had a 0 bitcoin balance.

Instead of this method, couldn't you have just changed the default filename to something like xwallet.dat?

Then the old client would ignore the file and generate a new empty wallet.dat, leaving xwallet.dat untouched.

[BkkCoins]

Is there some way to import a new key into an encrypted wallet?
I used to use pywallet but I'd expect that it can no longer support "--importprivkey" now.
Is there an json-rpc for importing a key? How would that be done?

[elggawf]

Instead of this method, couldn't you have just changed the default filename to something like xwallet.dat?

Then the old client would ignore the file and generate a new empty wallet.dat, leaving xwallet.dat untouched.

That still results in the same scenario: you roll back a version, and see "Balance: 0.00" and panic.

[Xenomorph]

There has only been one reliable release from Microsoft since 2000.

Seriously - if you pretend that everything between Windows 2000 and Windows 7 never happened, then Microsoft actually look like a badass company with solid products.

What the hell does this crap mean? XP (SP2+) had better security (and compatibility) than Windows 2000, and Windows Vista's security was light-years ahead of 2000 or XP.

[istar]

Its very common for people to forget their secure passwords and as Bitcoins becomes more mainstream it will happen quite a few times.

Is there any way to have a optional "password hint".

[BkkCoins]

Its very common for people to forget their secure passwords and as Bitcoins becomes more mainstream it will happen quite a few times.

Is there any way to have a optional "password hint".

Why aren't these people using a password safe? Try Keepassx, PasswordSafe or similar. Given how many web sites, accounts, keys and other things people use now it's plain idiotic to be trying to remember passwords or even worse repeat them on multiple sites/accounts.

I've been using Keepassx for years. Make backups of the pwd db file. I have hundreds of strong passwords in mine and about a half dozen copies in various safe places. It's way more convenient and safer than trying to remember passwords. There only needs to be ONE password in your head.

[Pieter Wuille]

Is there some way to import a new key into an encrypted wallet?
I used to use pywallet but I'd expect that it can no longer support "--importprivkey" now.
Is there an json-rpc for importing a key? How would that be done?

There will be soon, most likely.

[LightRider]

Its very common for people to forget their secure passwords and as Bitcoins becomes more mainstream it will happen quite a few times.

Is there any way to have a optional "password hint".

Why aren't these people using a password safe? Try Keepassx, PasswordSafe or similar. Given how many web sites, accounts, keys and other things people use now it's plain idiotic to be trying to remember passwords or even worse repeat them on multiple sites/accounts.

I've been using Keepassx for years. Make backups of the pwd db file. I have hundreds of strong passwords in mine and about a half dozen copies in various safe places. It's way more convenient and safer than trying to remember passwords. There only needs to be ONE password in your head.

https://www.grc.com/offthegrid.htm

[Stephen Gornick]

There is not a donation address for the whole development team; if there was, somebody would have to be in charge of keeping track of the bitcoins, deciding what they should be spent on, etc.

Incidentally, there is a service called PieTrust being built specifically for that scenario -- a system to let a community produce a reputation score for recognizing contributions to a team effort, everyone from programmers, graphics, documentation ... and for those providing support to the community even.  Using that score allocating of donated funds is one potential use of the service.  That service's founder is a participant in the Bitcoin community and Bitcoin is expected to be used as a compensation method though compensation portions are essentially only an add-on/module fo PieTrust.
  - http://www.pietrust.com

[Stephen Gornick]

Today I upgraded to v0.4 with passphrase encryption but believe I am subject to having a false sense of security.  I still have bitcoins kept in addresses from my wallet that previously was unencrypted and I still have backups of that wallet.dat from before I encrypted.  

I posed a question regarding this on the Bitcoin StackExchange Q&A:
 - http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/1243/can-i-force-my-wallet-to-only-have-news-keys-post-encryption

[mmortal03]

I'll be interested in two things, and I'll make some of my own estimates for the fun of it:

1)  Ratio of BTC lost due to forgotten passphrase vs. those to stolen wallet.dat's:
1e) 10/1

2)  First post here from someone needing to know how to get their coins from an encrypted wallet due to forgetting their passphrase:
2e) 3 days

Don't get me wrong...I think this is good an necessary work and I thank the dev team for it and all the other work.  But I do anticipate the encryption contributing to the 'deflationary' nature of the currency

Some sort of lost bitcoin recycling protocol could be implemented in the future to alleviate all of that. Something along the lines of requiring bitcoins to either be transferred at least once over some very extended amount of time (say 2 years), or the bitcoins will be flagged as lost and re-mined. In terms of usability, the client could simply tell the user the time remaining for the oldest bitcoin in their wallet to expire, informing them that they need to make a simple transfer of their coins by then to retain ownership of them.

[mmortal03]

i have a question.  i want to use an very long complex password that i've memorized.  however, i stopped the encryption when i saw just a single password entry window that hides the password itself.  reason being is that if i mis type one character and proceed to ok the encryption i'm screwed, correct?  if correct, why wasn't a "re-type password" window used?

Just did this myself and it does prompt a second time to re-enter the password before creating the new wallet.

thanks.  didn't want to press ok until someone told me exactly what was going to happen next.

Some people had pointed that out when the release candidate came out, but I guess it wasn't fixed.

[BkkCoins]

Some sort of lost bitcoin recycling protocol could be implemented in the future to alleviate all of that. Something along the lines of requiring bitcoins to either be transferred at least once over some very extended amount of time (say 2 years), or the bitcoins will be flagged as lost and re-mined. In terms of usability, the client could simply tell the user the time remaining for the oldest bitcoin in their wallet to expire, informing them that they need to make a simple transfer of their coins by then to retain ownership of them.

Surely the client can just detect when an address may expire and transfer it to a new address automatically since the client doesn't even show what addresses contain what portion of the balance.

The real problem is when users don't use their wallet for a long period of time and then one day open it expecting their bitcoins to still have value. I'm not sure you can demand that users use the client to maintain their wallet value.