5flags, I don't know about that but
I do know that they (blockchain.info) do NOT have access to your private keys. Anybody has the answer to 5flag's question?
Does blockchain.info know your private addresses? I think your whole wallet is encrypted client side. Although I've never looked into wallet encryption, I had assumed the whole thing was encrypted, not just your private keys.
FenixRd, so you're saying that with the private key, public key, and bitcoin address, I can revive my wallet with another client side bitcoin wallet program
if my funds get frozen on blockchain.info due to pressure from law enforcement? This is because your bitcoin wallet is distributed on the bitcoin network and not on blockchain.info because that is just a website and not THE blockchain. Correct?
Thanks,
P.S.
I know and understand why funds have to be frozen, but, sheesh, at least leave a little for the guy to pay his sharks, I mean lawyers with!
5flags question and your response indicates a little confusion over terms. One thing that becomes clearer every day, is the importance of language in these matters. If we aren't working with clear and universally-agreed definitions in terms, we will go in circles and not be sure why, and disagree on things we may actually agree on, because of differing internal definitions.
Firstly, to reiterate and be very clear:
BlockchainInfo is *not* THE blockchain. Much like a coinbase transaction has nothing to do with Coinbase.com save the clever name. (A coinbase is used in place of a TX
IN for the source of the new bitcoin created for a miner's block reward, thus, a coinbase was the source of all coins, get it?) The blockchain is the network's distributed ledger, present in tens or hundreds of thousands of copies, on any server or PC running a full node. BlockchainInfo runs a very fast full node, to facilitate its services, but as far as the network is concerned, its opinion is no more relevant (regarding ownership of coins) than any other node -- which is to say, it verifies and relays properly-formed transactions within the rules of the network, no more, no less. It's service is a really nice web interface to automate things for users and make things graphical and pretty and intuitive. Nothing that is done on BlockchainInfo is something that cannot be done by an individual user, on a local machine, if desired.
The maroon bolded text, then:
There are no private addresses. There is a
private key, which I tend to write as privKey, and it can be displayed however you like, as long as you know how to interpret it. It's a really big number. That's it. Like you'd imagine, there are many ways to write a number. The "standard" ways are either as a hex string, or a Base58Check string, or a QR code containing the B58C string. I don't store my privKeys as any of these, especially not B58C. Hex strings can be anything, but nothing except cryptocurrencies use B58C, and I'm paranoid. If anyone stumbles across (or a trojan searches through) my stuff, they can't readily spot my keys, because they don't look like keys. I can carry a copy of the key to my life savings in my breast pocket and no one is the wiser (not that I generally do this either). But I digress. Anyway, BI does not have private addresses because they don't exist; and, all encryption of privKeys is meant to happen client-side, so theoretically nothing that can occur at BI HQ can compromise your privKeys. If you're really paranoid, though, as I am, you should store your privKeys creatively, and let BI be a watch-only wallet until you need to spend. Then it will ask you for the privKey for that address, and off you go.
Which brings me to the orange: I guess what you're thinking of as "frozen", from an end user perspective, is -- what would happen if LEOs coerced BI into "erasing" your BI account? As in, you went to log in, and no dice. Or, a message that said please contact your local DHS for processing, or something? I'm not entirely sure how much of that would even be possible -- BI has limited information (unless they are saving data that they claim not to be, which you should always assume, though I have no reason to doubt them; frankly, for all we know, the NSA or a similar agency is sponging data too, and it may be irrelevant that BI does not retain certain info itself). But, they do email a long recovery string when you sign up that can be used to uniquely ID an account, and therefore if your emails were compromised (obviously, deleting a webmail message probably doesn't ever equal "gone forever") that could be used to isolate an account. There would be other pretty easy ways too for most users, because those methods are kinda necessary (for 2FA and such) for a secure account against
regular (illegal, vs. "legal") theft. Anyway, so
it's probably possible for you to get forcibly locked out of your BI account. Or even a critical error to corrupt an account, maybe. Idk.
Possible is a big realm.
To your questions, though,
none of this matters if you and only you have your privKeys. Store them in multiple places and encoded or encrypted in a way that only you know. Or in plain hex, or in B58C. With Bitcoin, YOU have a massive amount of control over the security of your funds. It's not particularly difficult to make them so secure that the only way to lose them would be if you suffered a head blow and amnesia (and even that could be planned for, if you wanted). The privKey is the only thing that matters. If you have that, and a way (any way, whether a local QT client, or a new BI account with a burner email, or a secret napkin passed to your lawyer) to transmit it, your funds are yours, until they're someone else's.
-J
