[XMR] Monero - A secure, private, untraceable cryptocurrency

[Brilliantrocket]

Of the 7 devs working on Monero, how many are working on it full time?

Anyone? I'm considering an investment in Monero, and this is important to me.

[smoothie]

Hey everyone,

What security measures do you recommend for your cold storage keys. I was thinking more about measures to prevent hacking/theft of the keys. Should i be paranoid to the point of creating the wallet in an air gap and never look into it until I need it? (Lets not go into the "Ruiu says badBIOS leaps air gaps" territory).

Regarding backup I'm doing the _strongly encrypt your files and stored them in offline and online sources and don't forget the deterministic seed_ routine. If anyone as further thoughts on backup that would be appreciated also.


Remember, rockets are old school. We are going to the moon in a space elevator. Keep calm and get some moar.

Peace!

My suggestion is as follows:

1. Take any machine you have lying around, even your normal workstation. You may find it easier to use an older computer that has no wifi or bluetooth if you're particularly paranoid.
2. Create a Linux or Windows bootable disk, and make sure you have the Monero binaries on the same disk or on a second disk (for Linux make sure you have also downloaded copies of the dependencies you will need, libboost1.55 and miniupnpc for instance).
3. Disconnect the network and/or Internet cables from your machine, physically remove the wifi card or switch the wifi/bluetooth off on a laptop if possible.
4. Boot into your bootable OS, install the dependencies if necessary.
5. Copy the Monero binaries to to a RAM disk (/dev/shm in Linux, Windows bootable ISOs normally have a Z: drive or something)
6. Don't run the Monero daemon. Instead, using the command line, use simplewallet to create a new wallet.
7. When prompted for a name, give it any name, it doesn't really matter.
8. When prompted for a password, type in like 50 - 100 random characters. Don't worry that you don't know the password, just make it LONG.
9. Write down (on paper) your 24 word mnemonic seed.
10. Write down (on your phone, on paper, on another computer, wherever you want) your address and view key.
11. Switch off the computer, remove the battery if there is one, and leave it physically off for a few hours.

There you go - the wallet you've created was created in RAM, and the digital files are now lost forever. If some magical hacker manages to somehow get the data, they will lack the long password to open it. If you need to receive payments, you have the address, and you have the view key if needed. If you need access to it, you have your 24 word seed, and you can now write out several copies of it so that you have an offsite copy (eg. a bank deposit box). Due to the nature of the key you can write it as part of something else - eg. write a fake love letter to your wife so that the 24 words on the left hand side are your key or whatever. Then write a bunch of extra love letters. That way, if your deposit box is ever discovered, it'll be disregarded as unimportant love letters.

The part I did not get clarity on is how you input/generate your 24 word mnemonic seed. Is there a tutorial for this that I missed?

This happens automaticly when you create a new wallet

how do i access it? Perhaps I missed the command to spit it out.

[binaryFate]

Of the 7 devs working on Monero, how many are working on it full time?

Anyone? I'm considering an investment in Monero, and this is important to me.

I wouldn't be surprised if none of them is working full time on Monero. Unlike most shitcoins, there is no premine/ninjamine. They are not sitting on a ton of XMR. Their work is dependant on donations, and at this point I doubt any of them would have completely quited their daily job based on the donations. That is what you get with a fair launch, many forgot what it implies.

Keep in mind bitcoin itself only has what, 2 or 3 fulltime developpers? If bitcoin itself was now a newly created coin, with its current pace of development, it would have no chance to be visible among all the marketing of shiny glitters sparkling everywhere in altcoin land.
You really should forget about this constant hype inputs from "developers" you see in most altcoins: it actually correlates with it being a short term potential pump, and a long term void.

[dewdeded]

Of the 7 devs working on Monero, how many are working on it full time?

Anyone? I'm considering an investment in Monero, and this is important to me.

AFAIK no one full time. Most have of them software development day jobs. (---> quality code)
But they spent like 90% of their avaible free time on Monero. (my guess)

[Febo]

The part I did not get clarity on is how you input/generate your 24 word mnemonic seed. Is there a tutorial for this that I missed?

This happens automaticly when you create a new wallet

how do i access it? Perhaps I missed the command to spit it out.

I did it yesterday just for test, my valets are from pre24menemonicseed time. You just make batch file with this inside:

simplewallet.exe --restore-deterministic-wallet *words*


I first did not put 24 words instead of *words* so was lost for a bit

[Jungian]

Hey everyone,

What security measures do you recommend for your cold storage keys. I was thinking more about measures to prevent hacking/theft of the keys. Should i be paranoid to the point of creating the wallet in an air gap and never look into it until I need it? (Lets not go into the "Ruiu says badBIOS leaps air gaps" territory).

Regarding backup I'm doing the _strongly encrypt your files and stored them in offline and online sources and don't forget the deterministic seed_ routine. If anyone as further thoughts on backup that would be appreciated also.


Remember, rockets are old school. We are going to the moon in a space elevator. Keep calm and get some moar.

Peace!

My suggestion is as follows:

1. Take any machine you have lying around, even your normal workstation. You may find it easier to use an older computer that has no wifi or bluetooth if you're particularly paranoid.
2. Create a Linux or Windows bootable disk, and make sure you have the Monero binaries on the same disk or on a second disk (for Linux make sure you have also downloaded copies of the dependencies you will need, libboost1.55 and miniupnpc for instance).
3. Disconnect the network and/or Internet cables from your machine, physically remove the wifi card or switch the wifi/bluetooth off on a laptop if possible.
4. Boot into your bootable OS, install the dependencies if necessary.
5. Copy the Monero binaries to to a RAM disk (/dev/shm in Linux, Windows bootable ISOs normally have a Z: drive or something)
6. Don't run the Monero daemon. Instead, using the command line, use simplewallet to create a new wallet.
7. When prompted for a name, give it any name, it doesn't really matter.
8. When prompted for a password, type in like 50 - 100 random characters. Don't worry that you don't know the password, just make it LONG.
9. Write down (on paper) your 24 word mnemonic seed.
10. Write down (on your phone, on paper, on another computer, wherever you want) your address and view key.
11. Switch off the computer, remove the battery if there is one, and leave it physically off for a few hours.

There you go - the wallet you've created was created in RAM, and the digital files are now lost forever. If some magical hacker manages to somehow get the data, they will lack the long password to open it. If you need to receive payments, you have the address, and you have the view key if needed. If you need access to it, you have your 24 word seed, and you can now write out several copies of it so that you have an offsite copy (eg. a bank deposit box). Due to the nature of the key you can write it as part of something else - eg. write a fake love letter to your wife so that the 24 words on the left hand side are your key or whatever. Then write a bunch of extra love letters. That way, if your deposit box is ever discovered, it'll be disregarded as unimportant love letters.

The part I did not get clarity on is how you input/generate your 24 word mnemonic seed. Is there a tutorial for this that I missed?

This happens automaticly when you create a new wallet

how do i access it? Perhaps I missed the command to spit it out.

Use the command 'seed' in simplewallet

[othe]

Of the 7 devs working on Monero, how many are working on it full time?

Anyone? I'm considering an investment in Monero, and this is important to me.

AFAIK no one full time. Most have of them software development day jobs. (---> quality code)
But they spent like 90% of their avaible free time on Monero. (my guess)

Several people work "fulltime" on code - that means daily but not 100+ hours per week
Most people who code are only on #monero-dev, not on this forum.
monero core team guys aren´t necessary the people who contribute most of the code see it more as the people organizing the workflow in their freetime.

[smooth]

Of the 7 devs working on Monero, how many are working on it full time?

Anyone? I'm considering an investment in Monero, and this is important to me.

I wouldn't be surprised if none of them is working full time on Monero. Unlike most shitcoins, there is no premine/ninjamine. They are not sitting on a ton of XMR. Their work is dependant on donations, and at this point I doubt any of them would have completely quited their daily job based on the donations. That is what you get with a fair launch, many forgot what it implies.

Full time meaning what exactly? None of us is putting 100% of our time. We all have other activities we do to make a living, though most of those are flexible enough to allow us to make time for the project (contract work, etc.). Several of us are putting in 40+ hours per week, though we can't guarantee that ever unless funding from donations increases substantially (and to be honest we don't really expect that soon, as the Monero economy is objectively still pretty small). We do what we do out of love for the project and community and and that's all.

If you are looking for a "product" with full time developers being paid out of venture capital funds or a premine or an IPO/presale/whatever-they-are-calling-the-give-us-your-money-scam-these-days, there are plenty of those to choose from. This isn't it.

[smoothie]

Hey everyone,

What security measures do you recommend for your cold storage keys. I was thinking more about measures to prevent hacking/theft of the keys. Should i be paranoid to the point of creating the wallet in an air gap and never look into it until I need it? (Lets not go into the "Ruiu says badBIOS leaps air gaps" territory).

Regarding backup I'm doing the _strongly encrypt your files and stored them in offline and online sources and don't forget the deterministic seed_ routine. If anyone as further thoughts on backup that would be appreciated also.


Remember, rockets are old school. We are going to the moon in a space elevator. Keep calm and get some moar.

Peace!

My suggestion is as follows:

1. Take any machine you have lying around, even your normal workstation. You may find it easier to use an older computer that has no wifi or bluetooth if you're particularly paranoid.
2. Create a Linux or Windows bootable disk, and make sure you have the Monero binaries on the same disk or on a second disk (for Linux make sure you have also downloaded copies of the dependencies you will need, libboost1.55 and miniupnpc for instance).
3. Disconnect the network and/or Internet cables from your machine, physically remove the wifi card or switch the wifi/bluetooth off on a laptop if possible.
4. Boot into your bootable OS, install the dependencies if necessary.
5. Copy the Monero binaries to to a RAM disk (/dev/shm in Linux, Windows bootable ISOs normally have a Z: drive or something)
6. Don't run the Monero daemon. Instead, using the command line, use simplewallet to create a new wallet.
7. When prompted for a name, give it any name, it doesn't really matter.
8. When prompted for a password, type in like 50 - 100 random characters. Don't worry that you don't know the password, just make it LONG.
9. Write down (on paper) your 24 word mnemonic seed.
10. Write down (on your phone, on paper, on another computer, wherever you want) your address and view key.
11. Switch off the computer, remove the battery if there is one, and leave it physically off for a few hours.

There you go - the wallet you've created was created in RAM, and the digital files are now lost forever. If some magical hacker manages to somehow get the data, they will lack the long password to open it. If you need to receive payments, you have the address, and you have the view key if needed. If you need access to it, you have your 24 word seed, and you can now write out several copies of it so that you have an offsite copy (eg. a bank deposit box). Due to the nature of the key you can write it as part of something else - eg. write a fake love letter to your wife so that the 24 words on the left hand side are your key or whatever. Then write a bunch of extra love letters. That way, if your deposit box is ever discovered, it'll be disregarded as unimportant love letters.

The part I did not get clarity on is how you input/generate your 24 word mnemonic seed. Is there a tutorial for this that I missed?

This happens automaticly when you create a new wallet

how do i access it? Perhaps I missed the command to spit it out.

Use the command 'seed' in simplewallet

When I run that command I get: Error: The wallet is non-detereministic. Cannot display seed.

When creating the simplewallet was I supposed do this at a certain point? Now I am confused.

[smoothie]

nevermind I figured it out. =)

[GreekBitcoin]

nevermind I figured it out. =)

Was was it??

btw i would also be  interested for a few of physical monero coins in case you are really considering! I saw the discussion at poloniex

[binaryFate]

btw i would also be  interested for a few of physical monero coins in case you are really considering! I saw the discussion at poloniex

I would be very much interested too.

[smoothie]

nevermind I figured it out. =)

Was was it??

btw i would also be  interested for a few of physical monero coins in case you are really considering! I saw the discussion at poloniex

The wallet I was using was created from an older version of monero thus it not being deterministic.

I'm tinkering with the idea of that but I would need to have an efficient way to generate private keys that can fit in a small space. 24 words is way too large to go under the hologram the way I do it currently.

[Jungian]

I had this idea to get Monero on lets talk bitcoin.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=759196.msg8561154

Please join in for the discussion.

[smooth]

nevermind I figured it out. =)

Was was it??

btw i would also be  interested for a few of physical monero coins in case you are really considering! I saw the discussion at poloniex

The wallet I was using was created from an older version of monero thus it not being deterministic.

I'm tinkering with the idea of that but I would need to have an efficient way to generate private keys that can fit in a small space. 24 words is way too large to go under the hologram the way I do it currently.

You certainly don't need the words. That is just one user-friendly way of representing the seed, which is a 256 bit number. You can encode that in hex or base58 or whatever. I'm not sure if that helps you with holograms though, 256 bits is pretty big.

[smoothie]

nevermind I figured it out. =)

Was was it??

btw i would also be  interested for a few of physical monero coins in case you are really considering! I saw the discussion at poloniex

The wallet I was using was created from an older version of monero thus it not being deterministic.

I'm tinkering with the idea of that but I would need to have an efficient way to generate private keys that can fit in a small space. 24 words is way too large to go under the hologram the way I do it currently.

You certainly don't need the words. That is just one user-friendly way of representing the seed, which is a 256 bit number. You can encode that in hex or base58 or whatever. I'm not sure if that helps you with holograms though, 256 bits is pretty big.

Yes I am aware of this.

Currently the minikeys I use are 30 or 31 characters long for Bitcoin and Litecoin.

Not sure if I could get it down closer to that range though. Space is an issue for physical coins especially when it determines how much of the hologram gets put on to coin surface area which adds to its security. Larger area the harder it is to get it off with current attacks. Hence why I've also lasered the edges of some of my coins to make it that much more difficult.

Yes 256 is way too long.

[binaryFate]

nevermind I figured it out. =)

Was was it??

btw i would also be  interested for a few of physical monero coins in case you are really considering! I saw the discussion at poloniex

The wallet I was using was created from an older version of monero thus it not being deterministic.

I'm tinkering with the idea of that but I would need to have an efficient way to generate private keys that can fit in a small space. 24 words is way too large to go under the hologram the way I do it currently.

You certainly don't need the words. That is just one user-friendly way of representing the seed, which is a 256 bit number. You can encode that in hex or base58 or whatever. I'm not sure if that helps you with holograms though, 256 bits is pretty big.

Yes I am aware of this.

Currently the minikeys I use are 30 or 31 characters long for Bitcoin and Litecoin.

Not sure if I could get it down closer to that range though. Space is an issue for physical coins especially when it determines how much of the hologram gets put on to coin surface area which adds to its security. Larger area the harder it is to get it off with current attacks. Hence why I've also lasered the edges of some of my coins to make it that much more difficult.

Yes 256 is way too long.

I don't know how are your minikeys printed inside the coins, but I guess it is likely a standard horizontal multiline text. However the most effective way to pack text on a circular coin is most likely a spiral.

[GBattaglia]

Is there any progress in getting the client to use the blockchain from the HDD as opposed to loading it all in RAM?
Looking forward to when an official GUI is put out. I don't mind the command-line [although this is my first time using a command line wallet],
but I think a GUI would really open doors for adoption.

Good job to the devs and community. 

[owlcatz]

Hey everyone,

What security measures do you recommend for your cold storage keys. I was thinking more about measures to prevent hacking/theft of the keys. Should i be paranoid to the point of creating the wallet in an air gap and never look into it until I need it? (Lets not go into the "Ruiu says badBIOS leaps air gaps" territory).

Regarding backup I'm doing the _strongly encrypt your files and stored them in offline and online sources and don't forget the deterministic seed_ routine. If anyone as further thoughts on backup that would be appreciated also.


Remember, rockets are old school. We are going to the moon in a space elevator. Keep calm and get some moar.

Peace!

My suggestion is as follows:

1. Take any machine you have lying around, even your normal workstation. You may find it easier to use an older computer that has no wifi or bluetooth if you're particularly paranoid.
2. Create a Linux or Windows bootable disk, and make sure you have the Monero binaries on the same disk or on a second disk (for Linux make sure you have also downloaded copies of the dependencies you will need, libboost1.55 and miniupnpc for instance).
3. Disconnect the network and/or Internet cables from your machine, physically remove the wifi card or switch the wifi/bluetooth off on a laptop if possible.
4. Boot into your bootable OS, install the dependencies if necessary.
5. Copy the Monero binaries to to a RAM disk (/dev/shm in Linux, Windows bootable ISOs normally have a Z: drive or something)
6. Don't run the Monero daemon. Instead, using the command line, use simplewallet to create a new wallet.
7. When prompted for a name, give it any name, it doesn't really matter.
8. When prompted for a password, type in like 50 - 100 random characters. Don't worry that you don't know the password, just make it LONG.
9. Write down (on paper) your 24 word mnemonic seed.
10. Write down (on your phone, on paper, on another computer, wherever you want) your address and view key.
11. Switch off the computer, remove the battery if there is one, and leave it physically off for a few hours.

There you go - the wallet you've created was created in RAM, and the digital files are now lost forever. If some magical hacker manages to somehow get the data, they will lack the long password to open it. If you need to receive payments, you have the address, and you have the view key if needed. If you need access to it, you have your 24 word seed, and you can now write out several copies of it so that you have an offsite copy (eg. a bank deposit box). Due to the nature of the key you can write it as part of something else - eg. write a fake love letter to your wife so that the 24 words on the left hand side are your key or whatever. Then write a bunch of extra love letters. That way, if your deposit box is ever discovered, it'll be disregarded as unimportant love letters.

Hi, asked someone to dredge this up from the mountain of posts in this thread, and as someone looking to do exactly the above, I have just a few (hopefully simple) questions.

1.  Where/how do i retrieve my 24 word seed from after the wallet has been created exactly?
2.  What is a viewkey, how do i get it, and how is it used/what is it used for? (sorry new term to me, not sure why)?
3.  Assuming i send XMR to my cold storage address, how can i ever verify the xmr made it, without sweeping the wallet?
4.  How would one go about sweeping the wallet, ie, the procedure to get your wallet back using the 24 words (sorry for the ELI5 request here, but i've had trouble with btc offline wallets, so i don't care to mess anything up.. especially if it's a fairly good chunk of xmr if you get my drift.

Thanks for any/all help. I love this coin, and the people here. good times. its like btc 2.0 IMO...

[owlcatz]

I hope with the BTSX&BTCD implosion coming ahead, more people will finally realize this arms race is not about "fancy" feature. The purpose of a cryptocurrency is not to develop stuff like a "chat" (it's trendy currently apparently), be it a "shadow chat", a "dark chat" or whatever. Even less a "Web 3.0" (sic).

Any cryptocurrency whose success relies only on fancy shiny features is doomed to fail.
Any cryptocurrency whose sustainable success relies on weekly-announced new "surprise" features, is also doomed to fail.
Any cryptocurrency whose sustainable success relies on adding new layers of complexity to reach one of its *original* goal (for instance, providing prooven anonymity), is equally doomed to fail.
Any cryptocurrency that does not have enough to bring on the table compared to bitcoin, is trivially doomed to fail.

These reasons only are sufficient to discard 99.9% of altcoins, including some of the largest market caps seen currently. Once people get tired of being ripped off by crap marketing, they'll listen to the voices of reason.

My advice to anybody arriving in cryptoland to invest more than short term: stick with BTC. If you want to go risky and play the "potential early adopter game", invest in XMR. And no other cryptocurrency than these two, as there is simply no fundamental reason to do so.

This has been my philosophy since early may, spot-on man, thank you!