Using numbers, Roman Numerals to replace letters in seed phrase

[Alpha Marine]

It still doesn't remove the pattern, the dot is still obvious to be use for separate the numbers.

You have to make it to be very different, at least like a HEX code.

It's obvious to you because you've been told. If someone made a post and in his post included a series of numbers, some single digits, some double digits and some in decimals, you won't look at it at first glance and say, "Oh, this is a seed phrase".  It will look like a series of numbers. It is the curiousness of mind that will make you look again. You will first have to figure out that they are alphabet before you figure out that it's a secret phrase.
Which is why I said there's no need for that because the seed phrase should be kept in a place where only you can see. Keeping it protected is better than keeping it encrypted.

[Odogwu-Blockchain]

I just thought one of the possible ways to store seed phrase that someone else wont quickly know it is seed phrase.  I think writing seed phrase with just letters makes it porous and which anyone who sees it will surely know what it is.

We have 26 alphabet;

A represent 1 or i, B represent 2 or ii, C represent 3 or iii, D represent 4 or iv.

I.e BREAD = 2 18 5 1 4
      BIRD    = 2 9 18 4

But the only disadvantage about this pattern, using roman numerals,  it is lengthy and i think it is also time consuming which you need to take your time to figure it out. But it is safer than leaving it letters if it gets expose.

Note: local languages is not exempted in writing seed phrase and password.

No, it would be more confusing when storing seed phrase this way, the example you did was for two words,
How would it be possible with 12 or 24 words seed phrase, it cant be memorized by the owner at all,

Incase of recovering it after a while, it would take hours to couple it back in order to import it in a wallet, sometimes you wont know where you make mistake, it would be so hard to retrace back where mistake was made.

I cant abide by it.  

[Emeraldo]

I just thought one of the possible ways to store seed phrase that someone else wont quickly know it is seed phrase.  I think writing seed phrase with just letters makes it porous and which anyone who sees it will surely know what it is.

We have 26 alphabet;

A represent 1 or i, B represent 2 or ii, C represent 3 or iii, D represent 4 or iv.

I.e BREAD = 2 18 5 1 4
      BIRD    = 2 9 18 4

But the only disadvantage about this pattern, using roman numerals,  it is lengthy and i think it is also time consuming which you need to take your time to figure it out. But it is safer than leaving it letters if it gets expose.

Note: local languages is not exempted in writing seed phrase and password.

What if you make a mistake to have use the wrong roman figure, how would you decode it correctly?
This pattern might sounds special and smart but mistakes can happen and it might not be easy to detect it since you will have to learn the roman figure to a certain number that exceed the 25th figure. Good opinion but I can not do this and lose everything.

[sokani]

~~

It's not too difficult to decode. If anyone close to you saw the length you went through to conceal the message, they would know it must be a valuable piece of information, and they would decode it. IMO, write it down the traditional way, add a passphrase and store in separate locations. Even if the seedphrase gets exposed, your fund cannot be stolen.

[SOKO-DEKE]

Your idea look so good op but i don't think it will be well secure, because as far you represent alphabet with number base on arrangement i don't think will be that difficult for people that smart to discovered it, and if you think of replace the alphabet without the arrangement it very possible that you too may later get confused and that is how you may possible not get access to your wallet again, and if you possibly get it done in that way,what you if you are not more life how will your family get access to your seeds phrase?so the best to deal with seed phrase to to hide it where nobody will have access to it unless the person you tell,and make uses of proper material to write down your seeds phrase against water and fire.i think this should be easy way to save hour seed phrase.

[AVE5]

I just thought one of the possible ways to store seed phrase that someone else wont quickly know it is seed phrase.  I think writing seed phrase with just letters makes it porous and which anyone who sees it will surely know what it is.

If you can trick the readability of your seed phrase where only you can read and understand its meaning, it's a credit to your wallet security "IF" in case someone get reach to it. The "MOST" important to store your seed phrase "BEST" safe is how you can store it where "ONLY" you can get access to it.
So you need to understand that there're also others who might get reach to it and disposes it because they think it's irrelevant and littering the place. So when you can't find the seed phase again at the very point you hide it or you don't have access to it again then you must be in a very high risk of loosing your funds.

[Rockstarguy]

With one who is not familiar with seed phrase, it is possible they may not really understand it. But seeing something like this to some people thry may just overlook it and not have Interest to know what it is, while to some people it can draw their attention which they would want to know what it is all about because it seems strange to them. But the best thing I can say and the most important thing as bitcoiner, investor, whatever, if you have seedphrase try your best as possible to secure it the best,  secure it in a way which other person wont get to see it because, when it is not secure well , no matter how it is written if being found, one may try the possible best to know what is written down what it really contains. The most important thing protect your seed phrase the best you can, this is the best you can do for your seed phrase.

[Cricktor]

If you try to "disguise" or "encrypt" your mnemonic recovery words, there's something wrong in the first place. Your recovery words should be stored in a way that nobody unintended should be able to find, see, copy or steal them.

If you're not sure to hide it that well or if you fear that someone could get access to your recovery words, then you should implement other methods that make it impossible to steal your coins by just knowing only your mnemonic recovery words, e.g. protecting your wallet with an additional mnemonic passphrase. Of course, this mnemonic passphrase has to be stored safely and redundantly at different spots than your recovery words.

As others have already pointed out, your "disguise" is too easy to discover. But if you have a more clever disguise or encryption and bad documentation of it, it's very likely a recipe for later desaster because human memory isn't reliable and you can cut off access or ability to recover your own wallet when you forget your own elaborate "disguise" scheme.

Don't think this hasn't happened in the past.

[Cookdata]

It still doesn't remove the pattern, the dot is still obvious to be use for separate the numbers.

You have to make it to be very different, at least like a HEX code.

It's obvious to you because you've been told. If someone made a post and in his post included a series of numbers, some single digits, some double digits and some in decimals, you won't look at it at first glance and say, "Oh, this is a seed phrase".  It will look like a series of numbers. It is the curiousness of mind that will make you look again. You will first have to figure out that they are alphabet before you figure out that it's a secret phrase.
Which is why I said there's no need for that because the seed phrase should be kept in a place where only you can see. Keeping it protected is better than keeping it encrypted.

If OP should do this, convert the seed words to numerals, then he has defy the laws of BIP39 in the first place. Your seed words are sensitive and carefully chosen. If there is need fit it to be converted to numerals, that's would have been the first thing developers would have done in the first place, these seed are readable for you to understand keep them offline from anywhere far from the internet and not to be as if you are going to be doing another adventure like someone who is going for treasure hunt.

If you are going to be doing this, know that you will also have to print words and alphabet so you don't forget. If you eventually skip this and you forget thr step used to encode the numberals/numbers to words, know that your Bitcoin is far from universe. I just feel an extension of word is better as passohrase than this adventure but if you think you will try it, why not.

[Die_empty]

Which is why I said there's no need for that because the seed phrase should be kept in a place where only you can see. Keeping it protected is better than keeping it encrypted.

Encrypting your seed phrase is not a license or permission to expose it. You still need to keep them in a safe place, protected from the access of any unauthorised person. The advantage is that no matter how silly these processes might look, they at least add another level of security to your seed phrase.  It is better than keeping your seed phrase in its natural form, which could be identified at first glance by an intruder. OP's suggestions might look complicated and not provide absolute protection but someone would have to put an extra effort to decode them.

[OcTradism]

But the only disadvantage about this pattern, using roman numerals,  it is lengthy and i think it is also time consuming which you need to take your time to figure it out. But it is safer than leaving it letters if it gets expose.

Note: local languages is not exempted in writing seed phrase and password.

I don't believe there is only one disadvantage and there are better wallet backups that have been used by many people, a long time and have worked well. It's very unnecessary to innovate a new wallet backup method while you are not sure about its disadvantages and security problems.

If you want to do good wallet backups, read this, and it's enough.
How to backup a seed phrase?

What to avoid ? (DON'Ts)

Seed Backup Threat Model

We already know why we are creating seed backups - to protect against loss of whatever devices (if any) we are storing the keys on for regular use. But what do we need to worry about protecting the backups themselves against?

    Loss due to destruction
    Loss due to complexity / not being able to restore from backup
    Loss to an attacker

[Smartvirus]

Do you still think someone wouldn’t understand that this is clearly letters written in number form, once the numbers are written just the way you did now, with spacing, one would easily dictate that they are letters designated like that most especially if they see that the highest possible number are two digits and also mot exceeding 26, plus the mix of two digits before spacing and one digits also after spacing.

Obviously, it would make someone curious and they would choose to ask if you are under duress and other times, they might just follow their curiosity to trying out whatever comes to mind just to know what it is.
In either case, it’s a layer of security to the owner since, they still need to figure it out and transcribe it to the actual thing in order to be able to import the wallet.

Note: local languages is not exempted in writing seed phrase and password.

Whatever works right.

It’s just okay to think of positive means to your seed phrase’s security and adding a layer of difficulty to what you’ve got. If you aren’t comfortable with leaving it out plain, you could do that. Just don’t forget or miss a transcription or even code it wrong.

[Zaguru12]

Obviously, it would make someone curious and they would choose to ask if you are under duress and other times, they might just follow their curiosity to trying out whatever comes to mind just to know what it is.
In either case, it’s a layer of security to the owner since, they still need to figure it out and transcribe it to the actual thing in order to be able to import the wallet.

My point exactly is if the owner is looking for a additional security layer to its wallet seed phrase it shouldn’t be something that they themselves might actually getting stucked with and could lose the wallet, aside the fact that if anybody gets hold of this regardless of whether they figure it out fast or not even figure it out is a huge security breach, the owner could also mix the words up through this number arrangement and that could be the most painful way of losing one’s wallet. Even if we could say that there is possibility of using a brute force if someone words are gotten it is still a long way again.

For me the best form of second layer to this apart from using a multi sig wallet is to use passphrase as I have actually suggested above. Store this pass phrase somewhere totally different from your seed phrase storage and that will make the wallet not easily accessible. To further derail the hacker a dust amount can be dumped on the wallet with passphrase so that when they recover the wallet with just seed phrase they find something there and not see it empty, this is just like a decoy away from the real wallet.

[Hyphen(-)]

It is possible for one to know it is a seed phrase but not so quickly and it us possible not to even know.

You understand it is a seed phrase because you already know what we are talking about their. Their are so many numbers written out their  like pin , code. Seeing it ssed phrase may be far from the mind.

Just the way this idea comes to you, many people will have this same idea and might have also putting it in practice. It is a good idea and a strong way of making your seed phrase safe, but once someone that knows about Bitcoin and knows about wallet sees the words, and count them to confirm that it is 12 or 24, mate it’s fine because to guess the words is very simple and you will easily lose your funds.

Everybody is coming with different ways of saving seed phrase, but the best method is offline, how did you manage to keep it safe is none of my business because we can have different saving method which include written down in a paper then duplicate it and save in different location; you can as well, you can as well engrave them on some metallic objects that can save you even in fire accidents and so on.

I don’t personally buy the idea of using numeric or Roman numeral to represent your seed phrase for security reason.

[reagansimms]

Here we all know how important it is to keep the seed phrase secure to protect assets. I'm not saying the method you're thinking of will make it easy for others to recognize it, but someone who has a close relationship with Bitcoin Wallet or other coins will very easily dictate that what you write in the form of numbers has an important meaning.
Instead of making things complicated, why not save them in the form of pictures, diagrams or other storage media such as a safe or safe deposit box and if necessary make copies and store them in several different locations.

You might think that changing the basic face of the Seed phrase can increase its security, isn't this long term, then what if you forget or something happens to you. Leave the Seed phrase intact as before, you just need to find a safe place to store it.

[348Judah]

Let's not try to create a vulnerability for ourselves and others could take advantage of it and have access to our fund, using this pattern could be of risk, because you're using a common coding pattern almost everyone is used to, when there are many other ways to safely secure our wallet seeds and private keys.

Don't create a problem when you're trying to solve one, moreover, any means we used in keeping our seed shouldn't be exposed to the public, some may try to depict them and take advantage on us, privacy is necessary and we should avoid third party completely.

[knowngunman]

It is possible for one to know it is a seed phrase but not so quickly and it us possible not to even know.

You understand it is a seed phrase because you already know what we are talking about their. Their are so many numbers written out their  like pin , code. Seeing it ssed phrase may be far from the mind.

I don't think it's that hard to identify a seed phrase when you see one unless you're either new to crypto or you simply have no idea what crypto or passphrase is all about. I don't know about others but whenever I see a combination of letters, words and even numerals, the first thing that normally comes to my mind is passphrase. Of course, I will be confident in my guess if they're in group of twelve, eighteen, twenty four etc. Although, it doesn't make any difference since I won't make attempt to import the seed but what if it falls into the hand of someone that has a different philosophy? You don't need to be told this is a passphrase when you come across one bro, it's always written over it based on it nature of arrangement. So I will agree with Zaguru12, the best thing to do is to keep it save instead of stressing yourself thinking people cannot find out. People are more smarter than you can imagine.

[Sticky Bomb]

I just thought one of the possible ways to store seed phrase that someone else wont quickly know it is seed phrase.  I think writing seed phrase with just letters makes it porous and which anyone who sees it will surely know what it is.

We have 26 alphabet;

A represent 1 or i, B represent 2 or ii, C represent 3 or iii, D represent 4 or iv.

I.e BREAD = 2 18 5 1 4
      BIRD    = 2 9 18 4

Trust me anyone who has the knowledge of Bitcoin would know instinctively that is your seed phrases because you must make use of delimiters to separate one number set from the other else it would be totally unreadable by r even you. and in the end it would be either 12, 15, 18, 21 or 24 number sets and what else does a Bitcoin literate need to know if your seed phrases kept in another form.

Maybe fit more security you can swap certain word positions so it doesn't align properly but there is still better forcing which may be able to combine the seed phrases in many possible ways and be able to arrive at the perfect combination, so to me this your solution doesn't really solve the security concern intended by you.

The safer way might be if you use 12 words and you add another 12 random words making it 24, maybe you can succeed in deceiving the attacker, just maybe. Try to keep your seed phrases very safe and secure, that's the greatest precaution you can take.

[hd49728]

Trust me anyone who has the knowledge of Bitcoin would know instinctively that is your seed phrases because you must make use of delimiters to separate one number set from the other else it would be totally unreadable by r even you. and in the end it would be either 12, 15, 18, 21 or 24 number sets and what else does a Bitcoin literate need to know if your seed phrases kept in another form.

With backups in words or numbers like this method, the backup must be kept safely, privately and also secretly so with this mandatory condition, why do I have to switch from a common method that can help me to recover my wallet even one or two words on the backup are broken by any reason. With the method presented in this thread, if something went wrong with the backup, I would have bigger trouble for wallet recovery.

With words for the backup, there is no need of using delimiters that if use not correctly can cause this wallet backup is terrible and unusable while with words, it's more easily to try some possible words in a corresponding BIP word list.

[Lucius]

Me neither and the things you said I cannot but agree wholly!
In my opinion the best approach would be using an additional passphrase. For example generate a 12/24 word seed and add an additional passphrase there (a phrase that you wouldn't forget no matter what). After that safely store that seed without the passphrase. In this way even if your seeds are exposed there is no way hackers your know there is an additional phrase. I tried it once, the main wallet had balance, and the wallet with additional passphrase had nothing on it.

That's good advice, but I would just like to point out that the passphrase should be unique and strong, and that it's not something you need to remember, but should be stored in a safe place separate from the seed. I think that's much simpler than figuring out some way to protect the seed in case it falls into the wrong hands, which can often result in a person forgetting how exactly they "encrypted" their seed after a long time.