an old or even damaged, android phone without sim and airplane mode will be enough
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=606238.40
Topic: Ideas on inexpensive, portable laptop to use as Bitcoin Cold Storage? (Read 2020 times)
June 04, 2014, 11:50:41 AM
legendary
Activity: 1302
Merit: 1008
Core dev leaves me neg feedback #abuse #political
June 04, 2014, 10:33:25 AM
Make this yourself: http://www.pi-wallet.com/products/pi-wallet
125 Euro is a bit steep considering you can get a Model B Pi $40. And SD cards aren't that expensive.
A Pi works great for cold storage. I opted for the Raspberry Pi OS and Electrum wallet. I have a watch only copy of the wallet on my PC and signing transactions offline works great. You just need to back up the wallet seed somewhere.
I recommend hiding the seed securely in an image.
June 04, 2014, 10:00:35 AM
Make this yourself: http://www.pi-wallet.com/products/pi-wallet
125 Euro is a bit steep considering you can get a Model B Pi $40. And SD cards aren't that expensive.
A Pi works great for cold storage. I opted for the Raspberry Pi OS and Electrum wallet. I have a watch only copy of the wallet on my PC and signing transactions offline works great. You just need to back up the wallet seed somewhere.
June 04, 2014, 04:04:35 AM
Just like the title says I'm looking to pickup an inexpensive laptop for bitcoin cold storage. Any ideas?
Lightweight, highly portable, good battery life and cheap would be a great combination.
Lightweight, highly portable, good battery life and cheap would be a great combination.
Any laptop would do, just check for a secondhand one.
I can recommend asus brand laptops in general but for your purpose it hardly matters which one you pick.
June 04, 2014, 03:20:11 AM
I'd get an old Android phone. A lot more portable, easy to hide, easy to charge. Just turn off WiFi for security.
Totally agree,
June 03, 2014, 10:43:06 PM
Make this yourself: http://www.pi-wallet.com/products/pi-wallet
125 Euro is a bit steep considering you can get a Model B Pi $40. And SD cards aren't that expensive.
Edit; I'm 1/2 thinking of doing something like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Windows-7-Dell-Latitude-D630-Core-2-Duo-3-6-4-8GHZ-2GB-160GB-WIFI-Cheap-Laptop-/251539725292?pt=Laptops_Nov05&var=&hash=item3a90ef9bec what do you guys think?
I'd like full windows support so I could add multibit if/when they come out with the deterministic HD wallet
I'd like full windows support so I could add multibit if/when they come out with the deterministic HD wallet
Nothing wrong with that computer, you might want to make sure it has the battery life your looking for and whether new batteries are still sold for it. If your set just to run Electrum, then an older Android phone would probably run just fine with it - but yeah you obviously don't get Windows and probably no disk encryption.
June 03, 2014, 07:42:41 PM
Make this yourself: http://www.pi-wallet.com/products/pi-wallet
June 03, 2014, 07:18:24 PM
Just like the title says I'm looking to pickup an inexpensive laptop for bitcoin cold storage. Any ideas?
Lightweight, highly portable, good battery life and cheap would be a great combination.
A smartphone? Lightweight, highly portable, good battery life and cheap would be a great combination.
June 03, 2014, 03:42:19 PM
Take a look at offbit. It allows you to keep your privatekeys offline at all time: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/annrfc-offbit-off-grid-bitcoin-txs-v0001-488915
June 03, 2014, 12:15:41 PM
get a used thinkpad and a 2nd hdd. clone the hdd. if the disk dies you replace it, if it's the laptop ebay will have a replacement by your door the next day even in 4 years.
NOTE: the redundancy if for low stress "just works" ease of work. Allways have a paper backup.
NOTE: the redundancy if for low stress "just works" ease of work. Allways have a paper backup.
June 03, 2014, 11:41:12 AM
"Giving it away? Is there any catch?"
No catch. The ssd is probably the only thing worth any money on it. It's a six year old ultra portable and it's on its last legs and I think the fan is about to give up the ghost which will cost $50 to repair. I'm using it instead of my tablet because the physical keyboard is so much better than a typical touch screen tablet. Also, amazingly the original battery still lasts for around 4 hours. Tosh built a mean laptop back in the day.
No catch. The ssd is probably the only thing worth any money on it. It's a six year old ultra portable and it's on its last legs and I think the fan is about to give up the ghost which will cost $50 to repair. I'm using it instead of my tablet because the physical keyboard is so much better than a typical touch screen tablet. Also, amazingly the original battery still lasts for around 4 hours. Tosh built a mean laptop back in the day.
June 03, 2014, 11:18:22 AM
One potential issue with any laptop/PC, regardless of what OS you run is that the bios could be hacked and unless you physically remove wifi and bluetooth capability you will never know if there is a keylogger etc in place. The good thing about cheap chinese phones as cold storage is that they don't generally support google play but you can side load mycelium from an sd card and disable BT and wifi.
Btw I have a really nice tosh r500 portege (2.2lbs and 12.4" screen, 128gb SSD) that I'm probably going to give away but I won't be back in the US for another month or so. It runs linux pretty well but with w7 the browser can be a little slow.
Btw I have a really nice tosh r500 portege (2.2lbs and 12.4" screen, 128gb SSD) that I'm probably going to give away but I won't be back in the US for another month or so. It runs linux pretty well but with w7 the browser can be a little slow.
Giving it away? Is there any catch?
Edit; I'm 1/2 thinking of doing something like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Windows-7-Dell-Latitude-D630-Core-2-Duo-3-6-4-8GHZ-2GB-160GB-WIFI-Cheap-Laptop-/251539725292?pt=Laptops_Nov05&var=&hash=item3a90ef9bec what do you guys think?
I'd like full windows support so I could add multibit if/when they come out with the deterministic HD wallet
June 03, 2014, 11:13:03 AM
Acer Aspire One AOA150-1447 8.9-Inch Netbook (1.6 GHz Intel Atom N270 Processor, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, XP Home, 6 Cell Battery) Sapphire Blue
6 used from $122.00 1 refurbished from $125.00
http://www.amazon.com/Acer-AOA150-1447-8-9-Inch-Processor-Sapphire/dp/B001EYV9TM
6 used from $122.00 1 refurbished from $125.00
http://www.amazon.com/Acer-AOA150-1447-8-9-Inch-Processor-Sapphire/dp/B001EYV9TM
June 03, 2014, 11:07:03 AM
Just like the title says I'm looking to pickup an inexpensive laptop for bitcoin cold storage. Any ideas?
Lightweight, highly portable, good battery life and cheap would be a great combination.
Lightweight, highly portable, good battery life and cheap would be a great combination.
Cheapest laptops range from 200$ to 500$. They are very slow on running windows (and often come with unsupported XP), so you may want to use Linux if you go for a netbook. Sometimes these netbooks are not so cooperative with installing Linux, so it could cost you an evening or two. Alternatively you could go with the cheapest laptops that are not netbooks, around $400-$500;
June 03, 2014, 11:05:36 AM
One potential issue with any laptop/PC, regardless of what OS you run is that the bios could be hacked and unless you physically remove wifi and bluetooth capability you will never know if there is a keylogger etc in place. The good thing about cheap chinese phones as cold storage is that they don't generally support google play but you can side load mycelium from an sd card and disable BT and wifi.
Btw I have a really nice tosh r500 portege (2.2lbs and 12.4" screen, 128gb SSD) that I'm probably going to give away but I won't be back in the US for another month or so. It runs linux pretty well but with w7 the browser can be a little slow.
Btw I have a really nice tosh r500 portege (2.2lbs and 12.4" screen, 128gb SSD) that I'm probably going to give away but I won't be back in the US for another month or so. It runs linux pretty well but with w7 the browser can be a little slow.
June 03, 2014, 11:03:52 AM
Problem with a raspberry pi is that then I would also need to find a monitor, keyboard and mouse to plug in, in order to do any transactions, which would be nearly impossible to have ready access to that stuff on-the-go. Problem with true paper wallets is well, its too easy to damage, get moldy, ink to smear or just simply lose it etc.
I do like the netbook with removing wifi card and ethernet drivers and your ethernet port "mods".
However, even more interesting is the idea of a phone in airplane mode. Especially if I could get a full disk/OS encryption (I think android tablets have this function? not sure if the phones do?) AND get electrum on it and somehow sign online transactions with it..... Electrum is a must for me.
I do like the netbook with removing wifi card and ethernet drivers and your ethernet port "mods".
However, even more interesting is the idea of a phone in airplane mode. Especially if I could get a full disk/OS encryption (I think android tablets have this function? not sure if the phones do?) AND get electrum on it and somehow sign online transactions with it..... Electrum is a must for me.
June 03, 2014, 10:14:22 AM
Highly portable and cheap computer? Perhaps you should consider purchasing a Raspberri Pi.
June 03, 2014, 10:11:27 AM
Just turn off WiFi for security.
That's not good enough for cold storage. Set a password. Set the phone to Airplane mode, then turn the phone off. Remove the battery, store it separately.Consider the use of a safety deposit box.
the phone? why are you talking about a phone ? arent we discussing laptop storage?
June 03, 2014, 10:09:37 AM
just get a cheap netbook, something that can be had for $100.. that or you can swap out your hard drive from a desktop.
Yeah, a netbook is perfect. Small, cheap, and you can rip the wifi card out.
June 03, 2014, 09:46:10 AM
Just turn off WiFi for security.
That's not good enough for cold storage. Set a password. Set the phone to Airplane mode, then turn the phone off. Remove the battery, store it separately.Consider the use of a safety deposit box.
Jump to: