Security flaws of this setup

[Outhue]

If Joe can actually keep is mouth shut though, is he a talkative? That would be a problem, If his hardware wallet, laptop or recovery seed is on him all the time he needs to keep that a secret or he might get jumped one day, also I believe Joe is in a big risk if he is the type that likes connecting his smartphone, laptop or devices to public WiFi, he will surely get hacked somehow, someone who runs a crypto wallet on their phones or laptops must never connect their devices to a public WiFI, it is not safe.

[Forsyth Jones]

How is that possible? Are you comparing brand new top of the line laptops to very old cars?

I'll try to give an example: I just went to the apple.com website and I'll use the following products as a basis:

MacBook Pro 14 M5 | $1,599.00 | R$ 8620.21 - converting to the brazilian national currency (R$ - Real) R$ 8620.21 (Without taxes, because if we import from the USA, the risk of being taxed is very high, possibly up to 60% of the product value plus other taxes).  

Out of curiosity, do you mind tell of you example of the laptop and popular car? You don't need to disclose where you live.

And when you say top-tier laptop, do you mean something like Apple laptop with most expensive option that cost $7000+?

The current minimum wage here is R$1,518 ($281), yes, that's the ridiculous minimum wage in brazil that the average brazilian earns at the end of the month (usually, most people receive their salaries once a month).

Here, the same product sold internally costs ~R$15,000 ($2782) on the most famous marketplaces (buying from the Apple Store Brazil website, the same product can easily cost 70% or even double the price).
For a Brazilian to buy this product, they would have to work for about 10 months just to buy a premium notebook like this (that's if they don't spend on anything else, not even food, meaning you can add more months).

Since the M4 isn't available on Apple Store, I went to Ebay.com and these are the prices:

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/12/05/UTaO1m.png , https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/12/05/UTaWWW.png - To avoid making the post too long and taking up even more of your screen, I've only included the links.

Here in Brazil, Apple products like iPhones and laptops cost on average about 40% - 60% more than products from other brands, even if they are used. A regular non-Apple laptop is a little cheaper than the examples I mentioned, but it doesn't change much.

Here in brazil, a used car, somewhat modern and well-maintained, can easily cost R$15,000 ($2782) if the person is in a hurry to sell it.

As you can see in the image below, I searched for a very popular random car in Brazil, it's from 2008 if I'm not mistaken. You can see that it costs a little over R$15,000.

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/12/05/UTX2Av.png

For Brazilians, a popular car like this isn't seen as an antique; the majority of the population owns cars from between 2005 and 2013, especially in smaller cities. You can ask bitmover and he'll tell you the same.

Sorry for going off-topic, but it's thanks to BTC that I now have more intermediate-to-premium laptops. Just this week I bought a used, but well-maintained laptop for my mother, and I'm going to try to teach her the basics to navigate on Linux.

[LoyceV]

How is that possible? Are you comparing brand new top of the line laptops to very old cars?

I'll try to give an example: I just went to the apple.com website
~
I searched for a very popular random car in Brazil, it's from 2008 if I'm not mistaken.

So you do actually compare an expensive new laptop to a 17 years old car.

I think I can do that here too: the first Apple laptop I found costs €1829. For less than that, I can buy a 2008 Opel Astra, Volvo V30, Peugeot 308 or Citroen C4 Picasso. But I'm not buying either one of those: I wouldn't want an Apple laptop, and those cars are cheap to buy because they're expensive to own (taxes, insurance, fuel consumption and maintenance). In reality, I've bought recent model good quality second hand laptops for less than a full tank of gas. Not Apple, but IBM, Dell, Lenovo or HP. I can recommend anyone involved in Bitcoin to gain some experience with offline signing or just separating insecure software from your real system.

[bitmover]

How is that possible? Are you comparing brand new top of the line laptops to very old cars?

I'll try to give an example: I just went to the apple.com website
~
I searched for a very popular random car in Brazil, it's from 2008 if I'm not mistaken.

So you do actually compare an expensive new laptop to a 17 years old car.

I think I can do that here too: the first Apple laptop I found costs €1829. For less than that, I can buy a 2008 Opel Astra, Volvo V30, Peugeot 308 or Citroen C4 Picasso. But I'm not buying either one of those: I wouldn't want an Apple laptop, and those cars are cheap to buy because they're expensive to own (taxes, insurance, fuel consumption and maintenance). In reality, I've bought recent model good quality second hand laptops for less than a full tank of gas. Not Apple, but IBM, Dell, Lenovo or HP. I can recommend anyone involved in Bitcoin to gain some experience with offline signing or just separating insecure software from your real system.

I think the problem is that you are comparing to an apple laptop.

Why use apple ? You will pay 10x the price of the same hardware...

You can get cheap laptop in amazon for like 250 usd. here in Brazil.
https://a.co/d/fOJagvU

I never had an apple product. Even if I had 10mi in cash ..  just not worth it imo

[Pieq]

Consider a bitcoiner named Joe that has the following setup:

- Joe has a Linux machine.
- This machine is Joe's personal machine where he does everything, from watching movies to E-Banking.
- Joe is the only person that uses this machine, and no one else has access to it.
- Everything is run on his Linux user account `joe94`.
- `joe94` is sudoer.
- Joe installed Bitcoin Core and runs it with the default `bitcoin.conf`.
- Joe runs Electrs Electrum server.
- Joe has a Trezor hardware wallet.
- Joe uses the Trezor Suite app.
- Joe points the Trezor app to the local Electrum (instead of Trezor nodes).
- Joe follows all the "Trezor good practices" like storing his seed phrase only on physical media such as paper, checking the receiving address and sending address for every transaction, etc.
- Joe's computer is a laptop, so he can bring it anywhere and connect it to any random Wi-Fi network he finds on the go.

Would you consider Joe is at risk?

Being at risk is a broad question, but let's assume in this case the risk is having funds stolen from Joe's Trezor wallet:

Joe's machine could be infected by every kind of malware, and in theory it shouldn't be an issue for his funds, so we can cross off machine related issues.

"- Joe's computer is a laptop, so he can bring it anywhere and connect it to any random Wi-Fi network he finds on the go."
Does Joe bring his Trevor device along with him? In that case he could be exposed to an Evil maid attack.
Connecting to random networks is not that big of an issue unless Joe's privacy is a concern.

E-Banking is at risk if the machine is infected, but funds on the Trezor wallet should be safe apart from physical attacks.

[Cricktor]

Does Joe bring his Trevor device along with him? In that case he could be exposed to an Evil maid attack.

By the given prerequisites^{see citation below} you can exclude an Evil Maid Attack because it doesn't sound to me that Joe leaves his laptop alone somewhere where someone else could access it. Same likely applies to Joe's Trezor device. Who would leave that open outside their home when they're not near it anyway?

I would also never take and use my hardware wallet in open public.

I would always recommend to have an encrypted filesystem on mobile devices like laptops where you operate a crypto wallet and e-banking with. A strong encryption passphrase for the filesystem prevents access by unintended persons

- Joe is the only person that uses this machine, and no one else has access to it.
...
- Joe follows all the "Trezor good practices" like storing his seed phrase only on physical media such as paper, checking the receiving address and sending address for every transaction, etc.

Btw, Joe doesn't really need to check the sending address(es) because his wallet can only sign own address(es)^{let's exclude partially signed imported transactions for simplicity}. The crucial part (and frankly that's basic hardware wallet usage 101) is to always check every receiving addresses before you sign a transaction with your hardware wallet. Emphasis on always, never skip this!

[Myleschetty]

Does Joe bring his Trevor device along with him? In that case he could be exposed to an Evil maid attack.

By the given prerequisites^{see citation below} you can exclude an Evil Maid Attack because it doesn't sound to me that Joe leaves his laptop alone somewhere where someone else could access it. Same likely applies to Joe's Trezor device. Who would leave that open outside their home when they're not near it anyway?

I would also never take and use my hardware wallet in open public.

I would always recommend to have an encrypted filesystem on mobile devices like laptops where you operate a crypto wallet and e-banking with. A strong encryption passphrase for the filesystem prevents access by unintended persons

According to what was explained in OP and the significance of what's on the laptop, the evil maid attack is indeed out of the question. A sensible person wouldn't leave his laptop in a public place where a stranger could access it, in my opinion. Unless Joe is being threatened with a gun. Evil twin attacks are something I believe could happen, but if Joe has browser, or  antivirus software like Kaspersky, which provides a security certificate for a website, that is no longer a problem.

[Forsyth Jones]

I think the problem is that you are comparing to an apple laptop.

Why use apple ? You will pay 10x the price of the same hardware...

You can get cheap laptop in amazon for like 250 usd. here in Brazil.
https://a.co/d/fOJagvU

I never had an apple product. Even if I had 10mi in cash ..  just not worth it imo

I mentioned an Apple laptop only as an example, it could be any other brand. Dell, for example, has premium laptops that are just as expensive or with hardware that's sometimes inferior, and even more expensive than Apple laptops.

It's possible to buy a Macbook Air with an M4 chip for half the price on marketplaces (like shopee) compared to the examples below:





Furthermore, the laptop you mentioned has very weak hardware (Intel Celeron). I've had a laptop with that processor and it was practically impossible to do anything. It's not good for work, but maybe for people who just access the internet and edit some texts and spreadsheets, nothing more.

I don't understand this rejection of Apple. It's true that it has closed-source code, but Windows is too, and it's much worse due to the absurd data collection by Windows ReCall and screenshots.

The ideal would be to have a laptop exclusively for Bitcoin, preferably with Linux and the root partition/folder encrypted.

If you have software that can only be run on Windows, such as Adobe software, it's ideal to have one laptop dedicated solely to work/leisure and another just for Bitcoin (With Linux).

[bitmover]

I don't understand this rejection of Apple. It's true that it has closed-source code, but Windows is too, and it's much worse due to the absurd data collection by Windows ReCall and screenshots.

The problem is that they charged 4x the price for the same hardware that is shipped in Windows.

Both are terrible for privacy...

[ABCbits]

I mentioned an Apple laptop only as an example, it could be any other brand. Dell, for example, has premium laptops that are just as expensive or with hardware that's sometimes inferior, and even more expensive than Apple laptops.
--snip--

FWIW, it could be cheaper if you don't need latest processor generation or premium version of the laptop. Here's an example i found from Dell website.



The processor released by Intel in early 2023, while it seems the laptop released in late 2023 or early 2024.

[LoyceV]

Furthermore, the laptop you mentioned has very weak hardware (Intel Celeron). I've had a laptop with that processor and it was practically impossible to do anything.

Even an old Celeron is still great for offline signing, although I'd prefer the Intel N100 now: low power and still decent performance.

FWIW, it could be cheaper if you don't need latest processor generation or premium version of the laptop.

Nobody needs the latest Macbook secure Bitcoin storage. That's like saying you need a $500k car to buy groceries.

I'll post this again:

I can recommend anyone involved in Bitcoin to gain some experience with offline signing or just separating insecure software from your real system.

Whenever you buy a new laptop, don't throw away your old one: anything from the past 10-15 years will be able to run a lightweight Linux distribution.