exploring wallet.dat

[adizzle]

Hello all in my understanding of wallet.dat is that it contains the keypairs belonging to all "addresses" that a wallet eg . bitcoin-qt/core randomly generated upon creation of the wallet.? (100 addresses for qt?)

what I'd like to know is how the bitcoin pros out there find your "specific priv key for a cold storage address 'A'" within your wallet.dat..?

for example...i have read threads where people spoke of etching their "priv keys" on tungsten blocks or other really creative methods of long term unburnable storage of priv key. im assuming they somehow enter into their wallet.dat and identify the specific private key for their address?
can anyone elaborate?

thanks all for your help

[shorena]

Hello all in my understanding of wallet.dat is that it contains the keypairs belonging to all "addresses" that a wallet eg . bitcoin-qt/core randomly generated upon creation of the wallet.? (100 addresses for qt?)

what I'd like to know is how the bitcoin pros out there find your "specific priv key for a cold storage address 'A'" within your wallet.dat..?

for example...i have read threads where people spoke of etching their "priv keys" on tungsten blocks or other really creative methods of long term unburnable storage of priv key. im assuming they somehow enter into their wallet.dat and identify the specific private key for their address?

Nope that would make no sense. The added security of "cold storage" or "paper wallet" is that your private key was never online. Thus it is not one of the private keys from your wallet.dat that you get from bitcoin core. You "just" make up a new private key. There are tools for that ( see https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Paper_wallet ) or you can just make up a key directly (see here https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Private_key for details on the format). Be carefull though! If someone else has the same private key both of you can spend the coins that were send to the address that belongs to that key.

can anyone elaborate?

thanks all for your help

Hope this helps.

[odolvlobo]

With cold storage, you store the private key somewhere safe -- usually it is printed on a piece of paper, but the tungsten bar is an interesting idea. It is never stored in any wallet on any computer or device connected to the internet.

In order to send bitcoins to the cold storage, you send them to the bitcoin address corresponding to the private key. The bitcoin address can be stored anywhere.

To view the amount of BTC stored in the cold storage, you can enter the bitcoin address into blockchain.info (or other similar sites). Some wallets have "read-only" addresses. This is an address with no private key and is used only to monitor the bitcoins stored there.

[Vitsila]

So we need the private key only if we want to "tranfer" bitcoins out of the wallet?

[Shogen]

So we need the private key only if we want to "tranfer" bitcoins out of the wallet?

True.

The address is used for others to send you bitcoin.
The private key is used for you to send your bitcoin to other addresses.

[Snax]

I think the op was talking about how to find your private keys for the addresses in your wallet, but meh...

[Light]

If someone else has the same private key both of you can spend the coins that were send to the address that belongs to that key.

Chance of a collision is extremely low - you'd be more likely to win the lottery 10 times in a row than you would have a collision so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

As far as keyapirs go, all you need is a private key as the private key can determine the address but not the other way around (as Bitcoin uses various trapdoor functions). If you're looking into cold storage I'd suggest using Electrum so you can quickly broadcast txs that you have signed offline (meaning your privkey is safe).

[shorena]

If someone else has the same private key both of you can spend the coins that were send to the address that belongs to that key.

Chance of a collision is extremely low - you'd be more likely to win the lottery 10 times in a row than you would have a collision so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Not sure about the lotteries you play, but I think the chances are even worse.
I wasnt trying to hint at collision, but rather at "be carefull you take proper randomness" since so many "brain wallets" get "hacked". Probably could have been more clear there.

E.g. this address https://blockchain.info/de/address/1JwSSubhmg6iPtRjtyqhUYYH7bZg3Lfy1T
Has the brain wallet seed "correct horse battery staple" because people love XKCD (rightfully so)
https://xkcd.com/936/

There are even JavaScripts that generate you passwords like this http://correcthorsebatterystaple.net/

But this does not allways lead to higher security as shown here: http://www.reddit.com/r/techsnap/comments/18ezb6/correct_horse_battery_staple_really_a_strong/

On the other hand 16 random(!) words might be easier to remember for you than a 20 char random(!) password.

[Light]

Not sure about the lotteries you play, but I think the chances are even worse.
I wasnt trying to hint at collision, but rather at "be carefull you take proper randomness" since so many "brain wallets" get "hacked". Probably could have been more clear there.

On the other hand 16 random(!) words might be easier to remember for you than a 20 char random(!) password.

Probably is - was simply using it to emphasise the improbability of an actual collision.

I think I misinterpreted, I thought you were referring to randomly reproducing a private key that would enables coins to be spent from the same address as one already in use. Brain wallets are most certainly not advisable - they are a good theoretical idea but humans are incapable of randomness. Any text from any book/movie is pretty much bruteforced and the coins stolen (there was a guy who chose a few lines from an obscure poem who lost some coins IIRC).

I would think a password of equivalent length to a brain wallet would be more secure as unlike brain wallets where they can generate the combinations offline without havin gto have your wallet - the password you use is individual to your wallet and hence they would need your wallet and then bruteforce it making it far less viable than simply going through a dictionary list.

[adizzle]

I think the op was talking about how to find your private keys for the addresses in your wallet, but meh...

Yes that is what i was going for..just to let everyone know im a total noob with bitcoin and only have jumped on the bandwagon q4 2013....im currently using ubuntu OS for my core .9.1 wallet and i could not for the life of me find my wallet.dat..

i already encrypted my wallet with a passphrase so im assuming even if i was to find the wallet.dat and open it ..that it would not be readable(by human at least  )

i have been thinking of creating a new wallet to a partition with a windows os, which would make finding my wallet.dat file easier for me and opening it before i encrypt the wallet to see the contents. i guess i was wrong with my previous assumptions (^ top of thread)
so would there be any point of wanting to see the contents of the wallet.dat??? i assumed the privkey for each generated address in my wallet would be there..

the cold storage reference was referring to people etching their Privkeys on stone/metal for longterm personal storage , i assumed they ascertained their privkeys from their wallet.dat file.. however i did not know you can create your own privkeys(thanks for links shorena )

~thanks

[Chemistry1988]

I think the op was talking about how to find your private keys for the addresses in your wallet, but meh...

Yes that is what i was going for..just to let everyone know im a total noob with bitcoin and only have jumped on the bandwagon q4 2013....im currently using ubuntu OS for my core .9.1 wallet and i could not for the life of me find my wallet.dat..

i already encrypted my wallet with a passphrase so im assuming even if i was to find the wallet.dat and open it ..that it would not be readable(by human at least  )

i have been thinking of creating a new wallet to a partition with a windows os, which would make finding my wallet.dat file easier for me and opening it before i encrypt the wallet to see the contents. i guess i was wrong with my previous assumptions (^ top of thread)
so would there be any point of wanting to see the contents of the wallet.dat??? i assumed the privkey for each generated address in my wallet would be there..

the cold storage reference was referring to people etching their Privkeys on stone/metal for longterm personal storage , i assumed they ascertained their privkeys from their wallet.dat file.. however i did not know you can create your own privkeys(thanks for links shorena )

~thanks

Even without encryption, the wallet.dat won't be human-readable by opening it with notepad.
You could use pywallet to read the wallet.dat though.

[shorena]

-snip-
im currently using ubuntu OS for my core .9.1 wallet and i could not for the life of me find my wallet.dat..
-snip-

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Data_directory#Linux

Your wallet.dat should be in

Code:

~/.bitcoin/

~ refers to your user folder which you are usually in anyway when you open the terminal. If you are using the GUI Filemanager folders starting with dots are hidden, so you have to enable "show hiddens files". With the newer Ubuntu versions the bar where you find the option is usually at the top of your screen and not at your window. They might have changed that again though, not sure.

[adizzle]

thanks for your help shorena much obliged