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Topic: Easier ways to memorize private key ? (Read 1485 times)

hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 500
January 08, 2014, 09:51:12 PM
#20
It doesn't have to be hard to remember. You just have to be creative. For example: Take the first line of a remeberale song of yours. Take the first two letters of every word and seperate this word by your last name.
Example: my name is Angela Merkel and the Song is http://www.musicsonglyrics.com/phototropic-lyrics-kyuss.html. under light that I have never seen
-> My passphrase would be: unmerkellimerkelthmerkelImerkelhamerkelnemerkelsemerkel

beat that Smiley

A brain wallet can just be a list of dictionary words, not the same as a huge long passphrase. And yes, it has huge entropy
hero member
Activity: 546
Merit: 500
hm
January 08, 2014, 10:33:11 AM
#19
It doesn't have to be hard to remember. You just have to be creative. For example: Take the first line of a remeberale song of yours. Take the first two letters of every word and seperate this word by your last name.
Example: my name is Angela Merkel and the Song is http://www.musicsonglyrics.com/phototropic-lyrics-kyuss.html. under light that I have never seen
-> My passphrase would be: unmerkellimerkelthmerkelImerkelhamerkelnemerkelsemerkel

beat that Smiley
newbie
Activity: 2
Merit: 0
January 08, 2014, 10:30:53 AM
#18
I use a brainwallet. You can generate the keys on several sites e.G. http://brainwallet-generator.com/

But make sure you thrust the site or use a offline generator...
sr. member
Activity: 1097
Merit: 310
Seabet.io | Crypto-Casino
January 08, 2014, 06:46:57 AM
#17
Why that is, is illustrated here:
https://xkcd.com/936/

Well said. I like it  Smiley Always problem is they force us to use "Difficult to use" letters rather than difficulty for guess.
newbie
Activity: 4
Merit: 0
January 08, 2014, 03:38:29 AM
#16
tattoo it at your hand : )
hero member
Activity: 826
Merit: 501
in defi we trust
copper member
Activity: 1380
Merit: 504
THINK IT, BUILD IT, PLAY IT! --- XAYA
January 08, 2014, 03:19:11 AM
#14
easier to remember = less entropy = you gon get robbed

This is not true.

Why that is, is illustrated here:

https://xkcd.com/936/



hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 500
January 07, 2014, 10:09:22 PM
#13
easier to remember = less entropy = you gon get robbed

Eight random dictionary words are sufficient to have enough entropy that you will never get robbed.
member
Activity: 154
Merit: 14
January 07, 2014, 02:16:23 PM
#12
Remember the algorithms that you use plus the key, for example remember "MAD FLYING COW WITH WINGS" then remember SHA512, BASE64 in that order, then just use SHA512(BASE64("MAD FLYING COW WITH WINGS")) as the private key for your wallet.
hero member
Activity: 546
Merit: 500
January 07, 2014, 02:13:21 PM
#11
easier to remember = less entropy = you gon get robbed

err on the side of caution!

To some people, the risk is forgetting their private key or passphrase.

To others, the inherent risk of lower entropy is more of a factor.


Regardless, you have a neat avatar to be stuck with!
hero member
Activity: 793
Merit: 1026
January 07, 2014, 01:03:23 PM
#10
easier to remember = less entropy = you gon get robbed
newbie
Activity: 40
Merit: 0
January 07, 2014, 12:25:47 PM
#9
You can actually reduce a key to 7 or 8 English words (while staying safe from bruteforce attacks for years to come) by generating it using a tool such as NoBrainr.

Like RoxxR said - turn it into a brain wallet - 8 English words you can remember, high entropy.

I see, that's cool.

sr. member
Activity: 299
Merit: 253
January 07, 2014, 11:30:06 AM
#8
You could use whatever you want as a password/key, and have your own private hash function that key maps to 256 bits.

For starters, your key is, 123456, and your hash is to simply sha-2 it once.

That wouldn't be very secure, but you can add complexity as you please.

Your key could also be "use sha-2 eleven times on this string to produce my secret private key", and then your key and your private hash function are the same Smiley
legendary
Activity: 905
Merit: 1000
January 07, 2014, 11:08:14 AM
#7
Why memorize it, when you can write it down?  There are methods and locations to do it that do not reveal that it is a Bitcoin key.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 500
January 07, 2014, 08:55:45 AM
#6
You can actually reduce a key to 7 or 8 English words (while staying safe from bruteforce attacks for years to come) by generating it using a tool such as NoBrainr.

Like RoxxR said - turn it into a brain wallet - 8 English words you can remember, high entropy.
full member
Activity: 209
Merit: 148
January 07, 2014, 04:45:35 AM
#5
You can actually reduce a key to 7 or 8 English words (while staying safe from bruteforce attacks for years to come) by generating it using a tool such as NoBrainr.
sr. member
Activity: 280
Merit: 250
January 07, 2014, 04:26:53 AM
#4
I believe the "easiest" way is converting a randomly generated private key into RFC 1751 (Brainwallet has this feature).  You'll get a string of (24?) short words to memorize.  Pain in the ass, but it works.
sr. member
Activity: 288
Merit: 251
January 07, 2014, 02:52:15 AM
#3
Are you referring to the address or the private key?

The trick is, you can generate or make up the private key yourself. So you can have something that is easy for you to remember, but hard for others to guess or brute force.

The address, however, is different. It's a double hash (sha256+ripemd160) of the public key that corresponds with your private key, and thus totally random. There is no way to have an 'easily memorable' address.

Although.. The concept of FirstBits kinda did this, especially in combination with vanity addresses. Although it had some potential security flaws (one typo in the first few characters = money gone to wrong address) and it doesn't seem to be supported anymore. At least not by blockchain.info and firstbits.net Sad

As for easily reproducable private keys, you may consider a brain wallet. Requires you to remember not the private key or address, but a passphrase (from which the private key and address are deterministically derived).
full member
Activity: 173
Merit: 100
January 07, 2014, 02:37:16 AM
#2
A private key is just a very large number in a very large number space. In this case, every bit counts. We might be able to compress the representation of that number using some fancy algorithms, but it's highly unlikely that we could shorten the private key significantly.
newbie
Activity: 40
Merit: 0
January 07, 2014, 02:22:44 AM
#1
So I've been thinking, and I can't understand why in order to keep your bitcions you have to have written down on a paper an entire 32 character address.

Theoretically couldn't you take the address and put it into some number system that includes all the characters as digits (56 digits) take the number and use it in scientific notation. Then all you would have to do is memorize that address.

Or am I completely missing something ?
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