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Topic: does wallet.dat contain private key? (Read 1159 times)

newbie
Activity: 7
Merit: 0
June 20, 2011, 04:26:41 PM
#5
You will probably have to enter a password first, and with that password the wallet can be decrypted. Hence a hacker would need both the wallet and your password, reducing the risk of your wallet getting sloten. Note that it's still possible that you might get infected with a keylogger or similar, but it IS more difficult to get botht the wallet and the password.
hero member
Activity: 590
Merit: 500
June 20, 2011, 04:20:33 PM
#4
the wallet.dat file contains all your public/private keypairs.

every bitcoin address you have has a corresponding keypair (the address is a special representation of the public key) in your wallet.dat file.

so yes, the wallet.dat file will be encrypted.  this should help protect against the wallet-stealing trojan people have been talking about.
newbie
Activity: 27
Merit: 0
June 20, 2011, 04:18:20 PM
#3
I suspect so. Can't think where else it would be.
legendary
Activity: 980
Merit: 1003
I'm not just any shaman, I'm a Sha256man
June 20, 2011, 03:09:47 PM
#2
I wonder this myself
newbie
Activity: 3
Merit: 0
June 20, 2011, 02:57:07 PM
#1
To make BitCoin clients more secure, I've heard that the next native clients will encrypt the private key. Is that separate from the wallet.dat file?
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