Topic: MultiBit - page 58. (Read 336309 times)

Hi freemoney,

Yes it would be possible to have a text area on both the import and export so that you can cut and paste between them.
It will have to be in the 'input file/data' section of the two screens.

Will add it onto my TODOs.

I am thinking of beefing up the export format to do exactly you ask and add:
+ bitcoin address of key
+ label
+ whether it is archived or not (when that functionality goes in)
+ provision for watch-only addresses (when that functionality goes in) which are in blockchain.info but MultiBit does not support yet but should.

That way when you import you get all the label details and you can cut and paste just the keys you are interested in.

Because the export format is shared between MultiBit and the Andreas Schildbach's Android Bitcoin wallet there is a bit of tweaking needed to maintain backwards compatibility.

Cheers.

Hi Jim,

I have been thinking a bit more about the export from MultiBit specifically into the blockchain info MyWallet.

MyWallet expects the private keys unencrypted, they need to be pasted into the browser input field. So no file upload is possible nor is it needed.
Currently I have to export the keys in MultiBit to an unencrypted file, view it with an editor and copy the contents to the clipboard to be finally able to import the keys into MyWallet.

I see a security vulnerability here, because I am forced to store the keys unencrypted although it would not be needed.
Moreover, there are a lot of steps to go through.

Could you add an option in the export keys panel to show the keys directly on screen or to copy them to the clipboard instead of storing them to a file?
Maybe this could also be useful in the import keys panel.

Would it also be possible to add a comment after each key which indicates to which address the key belongs?
This way I could selectively import keys for specific addresses into another wallet.

There is a new live release of MultiBit at:

http://multibit.org

Version 0.4.10

Enhancements:
+  Internationalisation: Czech and Bahasa indonesia has been translated 100%.

Scan of release checklist


Note that github.com (that hosts the installers) went down earlier today so if you get any 404s just wait a while and try again later.
It is only early morning on the US Pacific coast where the servers are so I imagine it is a "Monday morning : servers just went down" experience for the github.com staff.

No problem FreeMoney.
The private key export/ import is pretty important so I am quite happy to check.

I suspect it is just that piuk has switched off the advanced functionality in the demo wallet just to keep things simple.

Hi Jim,

I just got your message that you were able to import it in MultiBit and in your MyWallet account.
So I guess the fault is either at my side or a restriction on the MyWallet demo account.

Thank you for checking it.

Sent you a PM with the keyfile.

I think your solution to change the behaviour of 'New wallet' is a good one.

Hi freemoney,

Yes send me the keyfile to [email protected] and I will see if I can load it into my blockchain.info wallet.
Obviously do not use those addresses for anything.

Also, thinking about it, I could change the behaviour of the 'New wallet' so that it did not add a receiving address. It is only really the very first wallet (multibit.wallet) that wants a default receiving address.

If you create a wallet yourself later you can easily add however many receiving addresses you want with the 'New' receiving addresses dialog. That way you can:
1) create wallet
2) add password ie encrypt
3) create new receiving addresses

All the private keys will then only ever be stored to disk encrypted.

This also gets round the annoying feature that if you 'clone' a wallet with an export followed by an import there is always an extra key in there.

Hi Jim,

thanks for your fast response, the answers are fair enough.

I tried out the export keys feature and import the keys in the MyWallet demo account, but it could not read the keyfile.

Is it due to the demo MyWallet account?

If you want, I can send you the keyfile, it contains only unused addresses, so no security vulnerability can arise.

Hi freemoney,

Thanks for trying out the encrypted wallets code.
To answer your queries:

1) It is only a temporary thing to have the multibit.properties in/next to the multibit executable. I have done it just so that people can install the encrypted wallet code with no danger of it messing up their real multibit wallets.

When it gets released generally it will use the same storage regimen as the current live code which is:
   a) The initial wallet (multibit.wallet) is stored in the "user's application data directory"/MultiBit. It will thus have the visibility of all your other user documents.  If you encrypt your user data (say using FileVault on a Mac) it will be encrypted on the disk.
   b) Each user gets their own block chain (which is used by all their wallets). When they first start multibit the blockchain that was installed gets copied to their user data/MultiBit directory.
   c) Each user has their own multibit.properties.

There is a bit of help on where MultiBit stores the user data but I will add in more details.
http://multibit.org/v0.5/help_troubleshooting.html

2) Yes, I know what you are saying. I put an initial receiving address in so that a new user can always get started. When you start up multibit for the first time you want the user to have a wallet with at least one receiving address, but the new user has not had the opportunity to read any help so will not know about security or anything.

I think I will end up with a "New Wallet Wizard" where the user chooses the type of wallet they want to create (from a list of types) and then fills out the required data for that wallet type.

Then you would be able to create an encrypted wallet that was never saved unencrypted.

Also in the future you will be able to "archive" a receiving address and it will never be used (similar to blockchain.info). I don't want to just delete them as if anyone sends bitcoin to an old address they will lose the money. (The private key is only 32 bytes so it is easy to store-but-just-never-use).

It is one step at a time I am afraid to get things implemented and released!

Hopefully this answers your queries.
Let me know if you have any other points that you notice.

:-)

Hi Jim,

great work so far on the encrypted wallets.

I just stumbled on 2 a bit unexpected behaviours when playing around a bit on my MacOS X 10.5.8 with the MultiBit-0.5.3beta client. I do not think it is a bug, but maybe you want to change it anyway:

1) I installed the client with administrator privileges, just using the built-in multibit.wallet which is by default created inside the client folder. When I log in as a different user, I can start the MultiBit client and get access to the default multibit.wallet. Unless the wallet is encrypted, I guess it will let me spend bitcoins (I have not tried it). Even if the wallet is encrypted, any user can inspect the transaction log etc. which I do not like from a privacy point of view.
On the other hand, this behaviour can be useful in e.g. a small enterprise where different people with different computer accounts shall still be able to access the same wallet.
--> I think the default multibit.wallet file should be saved somewhere / somehow different so that only the appropriate user can access the wallet. For locations where the above behaviour is desired, an option might enable it.

I have not tried it to create a second wallet as an alternative user. But how would multibit in this case handle the blockchain file? Will it create a blockchain file for every wallet or will it keep the blockchain in one file for all wallets? Where will the blockchain file be stored? What about the other files that MultiBit creates like properties file etc.?
--> Can you add this to the documentation?

2) By default MultiBit creates every wallet unencrypted and with one first receiving address inside. I consider that even if I encrypt the wallet, at least the first receiving address and its private key was stored unencrypted on the filesystem. Therefore I consider that this first address is vulnerable from a security point of view. So I would not want to ever store bitcoin in this address, since they could get stolen. My current solution is to tag this address with a comment like 'DO NOT STORE BITCOIN HERE', because I can not delete or hide the address at the moment.
--> Is it possible to create wallets without a first receiving address? Or to create them from the start up encrypted (so the add password dialog would be invoked BEFORE the creation of the first receiving address)?

Oh, I understand now. It just sort of points to a silver standard at first! Its ok though!!!!

Hi Sovereign108,

That is quite an observant comment - originally (in the very first release)  it WAS the gold Bitcoin icon. But then I could not tell the difference between the MultiBit I had running and the Satoshi client. Both looked the same in my dock on my Mac.

So I opened it up with Seashore (graphics app). Made it monochrome and fiddled around with the contrast and thought - yeah that will do.

Now of course it is in every installed MultiBit, on the website, twitter account, in the send confirmation dialog etc. Apparently with anything 'iconic' or brand related it is better just to leave well alone and not change things (unless absolutely necessary).

:-)

Multibit's great, but surely the icon should be a nice gold colour! Just an opinion...

Thanks to the efforts of user welyoe there is now a translation of MultiBit for Bahasa Indonesia.

Screenshot:



This will appear in the next live version of MultiBit, which should be out on Monday.

For users of non-Roman script languages (e.g. Chinese, Korean, Japanese) they typically use an Input Method Editor (IME) to enter the correct characters using their keyboard.
For instance you type 'ni hao' and it converts it to 你好 (= 'Hello' in Chinese).

I have been assuming that the Java components in MultiBit 'play nicely' with the operating system's IMEs but can someone confirm this please ? I only use Roman script so do not know.

Thanks.

At the request of user welyoe I have just added Bahasa Indonesia as a target language for MultiBit translation.
If you would like to help him in translating the 400 or so texts remaining please have a look at:

http://translate.multibit.org

Terima kasih.

Yeah, it seems like similar, both languages are close relatives. We are like like brothers, our nations were in one federative republic for a long time - Czechoslovakia. I can speak and understand Slovak but a lot of younger people don't.

Thank you for the translation text!

There is a new test release of MultiBit at:

github.com

Version 0.5.3beta (Encrypted wallets)

Enhancements:
+  Forward port of everything from v0.4.9
+  Czech translation 100% added.


Scan of release checklist


I have bumped the release up to 'beta' as I been using the encrypted wallet code for real for a couple of weeks now.

I had hoped to get all the relevant code into bitcoinj and release the encrypted wallet code as 'live' before the conference but have run out of time. It is not something you want to rush so it will have to be afterwards now. A little longer for user testing will be a good thing in the long run anyhow.

thanks for including it so fast