Topic: Are bitcoins still safe even on computers disconnected from the Internet? (Read 2132 times)

How would they upload a key-logger if the computer is disconnected from the internet? I think they would need to have physical access in order to accomplish this.

Cameltoe is always right. 

Nothing is 100% safe I tell ya

i think we dont talk about safe oor unsafe .. i think everythink has a risk ..
somebody can steal your computers and find your wallet pasword and get your BTC .. etc.
anythink can happend ,
somebody already talk about it a while ago .. he ask 'Do you like Bitcoin because it concept or just going to be rich? "
if you love it concept i think you'll enjoy it , and if you are like to be rich .. you have to take the risk

Even a third party software keyboard would likely provide sufficient protection because the computer would not be exposed to the internet.

Also now that I think about it a little bit, I would question the legal standing for the NSA to be able to remotely search a person's computer like this.

I dont believe all devices are infiltrated with some NSA chip, only if your suspected and order something you receive modified device, thats almost certain.

You would need physical access for this to be possible. It should also be somewhat obvious if there is a raspberry PI near your cold storage computer that should not be there. The article in the OP is talking about the NSA using radio waves to get your cold storage wallet file, if they had physical access then they might as well make a physical copy of the hard drive and would be redundant to use this technology.

Yeah with the reversal options i never worry about my paypal tbh

The paranoid would not use a hardware keyboard to enter their password, but would rather use a keyboard that allows you to click on the various letters on a screen (preferably with the letters in some random order) to enter your password.

Why would an attacker even need to upload one? hardware keyloggers are really cheap:
https://www.keelog.com/

There is no question about it, if someone can modify your hardware they can easily steal your data, there are plenty of ways to do this kind of thing. How about a Raspberry Pi with a hardware keylogger connected to your keyboard, a SATA interface connected to your drive and a 3G modem to send back the data, all of that is dirt cheap and freely available. <$100 and you can exfiltrate data from an airgapped machine pretty easily. You could probably make it smaller by using a modified android phone instead for example.

Referring to bolded section, I considered this but quickly dismissed it as it would certainly not be an issue to upload a keylogger and wait.

I don't think it would be an issue. The possibility of this happening is still only theoretical and has not been proven. There are also ways to shield your computer from radio waves relatively  easily.

Also if you have your offline wallet secured with a sufficiently strong password this will not be as much as an issue because even if they got the wallet file they would need to crack your password in order to do anything with it.

I really hope not, but if your hardware is touched your probably in deep sh1t.

my responses do not ignore it at all. again
THE TECHNOLOGY!! does not prevent data loss via NSA spies.

the whole reimbursement and convenience aspect is nothing to do with security or technoogy *think outside the box please*

the reimbursement and convenience is an after the fact effort. which is done by businesses. and as such bitstampt or coinbase COULD add this.

again the insurance and reimbursment is something BUSINESSES should think about as it has nothing to do with the bitcoin-core team,
again the insurance and reimbursment is something related to human social preferences, not something to do with financial security based on hacking.

paypal and credit cards, even with pin numbers and cvs numbers, even with asking for names and addresses still wont stop NSA hacks.

guess you missed the court cases where the contracters where looking at the data to snoop on their neighbours and spouses to blackmail them. and you do realise that bitcoin is a keyword NSA have listed inbetween "al-queda" and "bomb" right?


governments grab your data without a warrent actually.  its been happening since the 1960's of telephone calls. (project echelon). more recently they are doing it with internet, and have microsoft involved processing all your skype calls, etc aswell as your ISP's directly saving all of your data, along with special facilities grabbing data straight from the internet
(GCHQ bude for instance). They even use voice to text technology to log your calls as text to make it nice and easy to search for the keywords. thank google and microsoft for that technology.

computer manufacturers do have the tech in motherboards already, and it does not cost NSA/GCHQ a penny... why? well because dell make customers pay for the technology, because dell sell motherboards to customers. think about it. the transmitter chip is less than half an inch. it needs no aerial not any special markings. you will never know its on your motherboard.

yes since the 1960's you should always have assumed telephone and mobile communication devices were being listened into. but sinc 2000 (well atleast publicly known 2008) you have to also assume any device mobile or desktop, router or houselight may contain this chip.


how can a computer program prevent someone stealing data via your houselight?? .. as you say its exotic, thus cannot be done. hense why the bitcoin-core are not wasting time fixing peoples human/house survellance issues. they are just protecting the blockchain, which IS THEIR JOB

Your response ignores the fact that if your credit card information is stolen and used without your permission then you are protected as a consumer, while if your private key is stolen then your bitcoin is essentially gone. This prevents people from being incentived to taking great measures to protect their credit card information, as the worse case scenario is they suffer a minor inconvenience while waiting for a replacement card while someone who has bitcoin has a vested interest in keeping their private keys safe (as asked about by the OP) because if they are compromised then you are essentially out of luck.

because you and the people rebuttling my reply are not talking about paypal or credit card technology!

paypal and credit cards do not have technology that makes them safer from hackers sniffing your keyboard inputs, nor browser hijacks that can see what you are typing into the website. or to simply send all computer info to an outside source via radio waves

the people rebutting are talking about about insurance policies that those services have. nothing to do with prevention protocols or technology.

so from the protocol and technology side bitcoin, paypal, and credit cards have the same risk of being hijacked through NSA/hacker snooping.

having house insurance or a insured wallet service has nothing to do with the technology and as the rebuttlers point out, paypal does not protect you from being hacked or having your funds taken. they can only re-imburse you. meaning their technology is not any more secure, they simply charge you a huge fee in the smallest of chances that they need to give you funds from this pot of fee's to cover losses.

again ill word it to you.
paypal and credit cards have ZERO technology to PREVENT loss against radio transmitters in your computer equipment. they simply repay you with their profits from fee's AFTER the fact.

the rebuttlers mindset is that having a leather wallet hanging out of their teenagers back pocket for anyone to pickpocket is safe because their moms will give them money if their wallet is stolen.. nothing to do with if leather wallets or having it open for anyone to steal is safe or not.

I don't normal computers can be hacked via radio waves, or most of the banks would have been hacked already. Don't worry its still safe.

Even if you are infected by a malware there is no point unless you connect the device to internet So you are safe once stored on offline pc