Topic: Computers, Phones & Devices CANNOT be used to Keep Wallets - Safety for Dummies - page 3. (Read 5386 times)

You could have a few keys... stash each one with a certain amount of BTC, and scan in only the keys for the amount you need. Or stash everything into one key even... but then an attacker could potentially intercept the one private key when you scan it someday to take some coins out.

This would all need a user-friendly management application, but it's not rocket science.

All methods have their use. If you want to spend the coins, loading them into a card, phone or your local PC makes more sense. For secure and potentially long term storage, paper wins IMO.

So, you believe, ultimately, paper may be better than a credit card and reader? (What about the fact that paper is archaic and people like easy techie shit like plastic cards with info storage?)
I'm thinking, safest and easiest without compromising one for the other.

If it's QR codes you could use either a webcam or scanner to scan them back in. That could be made very user friendly.

Yes, it's some work especially if you have lots of keys, but whether that's worth it all depends on how much your security is worth to you.

And then the method for re-recreating that on the wallet.dat file?
and would this be easy for dummies and convenient, too?

Yes. The original file should be secure-wiped from any devices connected to the internet. You could still keep a copy on an USB stick of course, that's more of a convenience tradeoff...

Where is the original file stored though? Or does it even matter really? If it's not destroyed, then someone else can get to it, even though it's printed, right?

How come nobody has done a video on this?

Nothing you are doing is ultimately "safe". USB drives fail. Or do you own some brand of super USB drive none of us know about?

As I've advocated before, use paper to store your private keys (either as base58 or QR-codes). At least for the big stash / savings wallet.

Most people know how to secure physical things, and although paper decays over time, it does in a predictable way and is not prone to incompatibility issues.

Gee, my USB drives cost...$8!

and they have a whole linux operating system on them

they boot easily to almost any modern computer

and I've got them backed up in multiple places

FUD sucks

Everything can malfunction, including solid state storage, a good strong electrical zap could damage it enough to make recovering the data impossible.

There are new computers that come infected, reported in the news before. So a new computer and old computer are only equally safe if they are formatted after booting from a safe bootdisk.



Non-technical dumb people are going to use whatever OS is installed on the computer. They are not going to want to learn how to install a new OS, even if it's as simple as popping in a DVD to boot (they might even have problems getting it to boot from DVD instead of the HDD), nor are they likely to want to install yet another "mysterious" program like truecrypt/gnupg to encrypt the wallet and even less likely to buy an expensive smart card writer/reader just for this.

   I'm a netdummy so forgive me for speaking illiterate to the illiterate and literate.

   If anything mechanical that utilizes a hard drive of any kind to store data is used to store bitcoin wallet files, it can malfunction. At anytime, something can go wrong.
   Anything that actually has working parts to it, or anything mechanical at all, is not ever going to be a safe storage vehicle for bitcoins. That includes all forms of computers, storage drives, hard drives and mobile phones. Anything that can break or could need repair is not ever going to be a good long term storage device for bitcoins or wallet files.
   
   I propose a special situation for wallet storage. First off, get a computer dedicated for bitcoins. I picked one up for $350 for a laptop. Getting it new is always best, that way you know it's not infected in any way. I know people sometimes pay more than $350 for a real wallet to hold fake money, so I think it's a smart investment.
   Then download Ubuntu onto it, then the Bitcoin client. Keep it offline 99% of the time.
   Next, I'm thinking Truecrypt to encrypt the drive from being hacked. If not, then GnuPG as someone previously suggested. Somehow, this data should be able to be loaded onto a card, while encrypted. That card, containing your wallet file and bitcoins is now safe, I would imagine.
   Also mentioned previously is that GnuPG has card integration with smart readers. This would , I think, by necessity, have to be readable/writable directly onto the wallet file.  If anyone knows whether or not this can be used effectively and easily by their grandparents or children, please speak up.

   This is completely nontechnical, for dummies and smart folks.
If there are flaws, problems, or issues that people find in this, explain away, please. People need a simple, safe way to keep bitcoins, long and short term, and currently, most solutions I have seen are not safe (trusting bitcoins to online wallets), (trusting them to computers and hard drives), and keeping them secured in networks of infinite terms most people could never understand.

   Mainly, it's important to note, that many people have thought it was safe to store bitcoins online. That's probably the very least safest way to store them. Next is on a computer hard drive or mechanical device. Machines fail all the time. Even servers, even though they get backed up, data gets lost all the time. All machines are unsafe for bitcoin storage.