Electrum multisig for long-term cold storage

[o_e_l_e_o]

I just meant that a dedicated air gapped HD wallet is going to offer the same security (if not more) than an air gapped encrypted PC.

It depends on the hardware wallet. If you are using a permanently airgapped device like a Passport, then maybe. If you are using a device which connects to an internet enabled computer like a Trezor or a Ledger, then no.

It also depends on your threat model. Against remote electronic attacks, the security might be similar. Against physical attacks, an airapped laptop is superior. There have been multiple attacks against multiple hardware wallets which have demonstrated seed extraction. I'm not aware of a single successful attack at extracting data from a drive running full disk encryption done properly. If an attacker sees a hardware wallet, they know you have coins worth stealing. If they see an encrypted laptop, they have no idea what is on it. I can even use hidden volumes to decrypt it to decoy "sensitive" data.

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[Yamane_Keto]

Totally with you there. I just meant that a dedicated air gapped HD wallet is going to offer the same security (if not more) than an air gapped encrypted PC.

When we make a general comparison, encryption increases your security, so you cannot say the opposite or the same.

The air gapped system depends on how well you know how to create it properly and use the proper wallet. If you use a closed source wallet inside it, it's like you've done nothing. If you implement it correctly, all you have to worry about is device failure, forgotten seeds/passwords, and physical attacks. Adding a layer of encryption will enhance your security in terms of physical attacks, all you have to do is make sure the seeds are saved correctly and use a multi-signature wallet to reduce the risk of you losing a seed.

Almost maximum security is an encrypted air gapped system with a multi-signature electrum wallet, one of those signatures is a hardware wallet and good seed distribution.

[Cricktor]

I think we diagress a little bit off the topic here. I want to add a few bits of opinion. An airgapped computer with full disk encryption still has its weak spots: the bootsector and bootloader are not encrypted, an attacker with physical access could inject some password stealing malware there. Probably an easier attack vector than passing barriers of an airgapped hardware wallet or hardware wallet in general.

This would be a very targeted attack, kind of an evil maid thing to gain access to the disk encryption passphrase.

Anyway, I wouldn't bother about this too much. If you have to fear something like this, you're likely screwed already.

Next bad thing in computers are the Intel ME and whatever it's called on AMD platforms. My knowledge ist limited here, but AFAIR the ME is kind of a separate computer (or microcontroler) in a computer. To my knowledge beyond the control of the main OS.
Would be even more specialized and targeted attack by this route, but who knows what three letter agencies have access to. Don't want to stirr a soup whose ingredients I don't know, though.

[o_e_l_e_o]

An airgapped computer with full disk encryption still has its weak spots: the bootsector and bootloader are not encrypted, an attacker with physical access could inject some password stealing malware there. Probably an easier attack vector than passing barriers of an airgapped hardware wallet or hardware wallet in general.

There are plenty of mitigations against this, such as UEFI secure boot. And even without these, an attacker would need to know exactly what they are looking for and would need access to your device undetected on multiple occasions, which should be easily prevented. If someone is willing to break in to your house more than once to do this, then they are probably also willing to just hit you with a $5 wrench.

Also, there have been many physical attacks demonstrated against a variety of hardware wallets, which only require access to the device once and while still technical probably require less expertise than compromising the bootloader on a fully encrypted device. One such example: https://blog.ledger.com/Unfixable-Key-Extraction-Attack-on-Trezor/

Anyway, I wouldn't bother about this too much. If you have to fear something like this, you're likely screwed already.

Exactly.

Would be even more specialized and targeted attack by this route, but who knows what three letter agencies have access to. Don't want to stirr a soup whose ingredients I don't know, though.

Who knows what three letter agencies are putting in the chips being supplied to hardware wallet manufacturers?

[dkbit98]

Totally with you there. I just meant that a dedicated air gapped HD wallet is going to offer the same security (if not more) than an air gapped encrypted PC.

This should be true in theory, simply because attack vector for airgapped hardware wallets is usually smaller than for general purpose computers/laptops.
And there is big advantage that hardware wallets can be almost fully open source, that is something very hard to achieve for laptops, but it's not impossible.
I don't see any reason why we can't use both devices and combine them in some good multisig setup.

When we make a general comparison, encryption increases your security, so you cannot say the opposite or the same.

Not all encryptions are always good, and sometimes they can damage your security.
Telegram claims their are encrypting something, but nobody can verify their claims, and we know many examples of broken encryption in past.
I also remember a case of ''encrypted'' phones used by criminals and create by three letter government agency.

[Cricktor]

I would try to avoid whenever possible (sometimes it's unfortunately not) security by obscurity setups. Obscurity hasn't proven to be superior over transparency. Security by transparency is more likely to reveal flaws than by obscurity. And don't try encryption in some home-brewed way because there's too much that will go wrong. Leave decent encryption design and algorithms to encryption experts.