You can and should edit the title of the original post now. At least just add [Not actually hacked] to it.
Done. Thanks for the help.
Topic: (Not) Hacked and can not recover (solved) (Read 4394 times)
You can and should edit the title of the original post now. At least just add [Not actually hacked] to it.
Done. Thanks for the help.
It doesn't 'change' its address, it shows you a different one for convenience, that's all. As long as you keep wallet.dat you will have all the addresses it ever shows (and 100 more already made btw that you can't see).
I wish I had known that earlier. Perhaps other people will not have to make a thread like this one in the future.
Now that I know, and for the record - - → I was not hacked.
You can and should edit the title of the original post now. At least just add [Not actually hacked] to it.
It doesn't 'change' its address, it shows you a different one for convenience, that's all. As long as you keep wallet.dat you will have all the addresses it ever shows (and 100 more already made btw that you can't see).
I wish I had known that earlier. Perhaps other people will not have to make a thread like this one in the future.
Now that I know, and for the record - - → I was not hacked.
Consider this for a moment: the blockchain is publicly available to everyone, so every transaction done is publicly visible (that is how it can work decentralized).
So if you decide to use only one bitcoin address for all your transactions, once somebody knows your address (like the people that are paying you some coins), that somebody can see all your transactions. It's like making public your whole bank account !
For that reason, you should give different people different bitcoin addresses, unless you want your private transactions known to the whole world.
Of course, you are free to reuse any "old" address. The client keeps track of all your addresses (that's the wallet.dat file). Just beware of the consequences.
Thilo
Its definitely safer to have more than one address. I dont have anything to hide in my transactions, but at the same time having everyone in the world know what I do with my money is not attractive as well.
All they would see would be each other's address and that they had more or less paid the same guy at the same time. They would have to verify it with me, what was going on, unless the guys knew each other's addresses and could connect the address personally to the "other" guy.
That's more than enough. Consider:1) Some guy on the Internet owes me 2 Bitcoins for a Steam game. I give him my address. He knows my forum identity which leads him to my real name and address.
2) I sell my house for 15,000 Bitcoins. I give the buyer my address.
3) The guy on the Internet now knows I control 15,000 Bitcoins and he knows I haven't yet spent them. He has two tough guys show up at my real address with a wrench. Once they compel me to transfer the Bitcoins, chances of recovery are near zero. And I can't even really link the tough guys to the guy who bought the Steam game.
Re-use addresses at your own risk.
Yeah, this is a good example. Thanks.
Re-use addresses at your own risk.
which would be fine—if it were up to me—but the default client is more pushy than a banker and decides it wants to complicate my life for me
gee, thanks, papa bitcoin
here's a hint OP: the satoshi client has so many examples of horrible interface design that i'm getting red in the face just thinking about it
try blockchain.info/wallet
if i were a betting man, i'd say the satoshi client scares off at least 5 people for every 1 that sticks around, and that one still gets pissed off
Ok, but do you understand you weren't hacked?
The client generates new addresses automatically. It's going to do that regardless of whether you get a new wallet or not.
The bitcoins you currently own are in the original wallet file that was in that directory. So do not delete or lose that file.
The client generates new addresses automatically. It's going to do that regardless of whether you get a new wallet or not.
The bitcoins you currently own are in the original wallet file that was in that directory. So do not delete or lose that file.
No. I have been involved with BTC for a while and never heard of a wallet changing its address. My question remains... how do people know where to send money to me ( or anyone else ) if the address is changing?
I looked in the blockchain... and there is no connection with the new address.
It doesn't 'change' its address, it shows you a different one for convenience, that's all. As long as you keep wallet.dat you will have all the addresses it ever shows (and 100 more already made btw that you can't see).
Quote
If you had to tell two different people to send coins to you, you would not want to give them both the same address.
All they would see would be each other's address and that they had more or less paid the same guy at the same time. They would have to verify it with me, what was going on, unless the guys knew each other's addresses and could connect the address personally to the "other" guy.
Consider this for a moment: the blockchain is publicly available to everyone, so every transaction done is publicly visible (that is how it can work decentralized).
So if you decide to use only one bitcoin address for all your transactions, once somebody knows your address (like the people that are paying you some coins), that somebody can see all your transactions. It's like making public your whole bank account !
For that reason, you should give different people different bitcoin addresses, unless you want your private transactions known to the whole world.
Of course, you are free to reuse any "old" address. The client keeps track of all your addresses (that's the wallet.dat file). Just beware of the consequences.
Thilo
All they would see would be each other's address and that they had more or less paid the same guy at the same time. They would have to verify it with me, what was going on, unless the guys knew each other's addresses and could connect the address personally to the "other" guy.
That's more than enough. Consider:1) Some guy on the Internet owes me 2 Bitcoins for a Steam game. I give him my address. He knows my forum identity which leads him to my real name and address.
2) I sell my house for 15,000 Bitcoins. I give the buyer my address.
3) The guy on the Internet now knows I control 15,000 Bitcoins and he knows I haven't yet spent them. He has two tough guys show up at my real address with a wrench. Once they compel me to transfer the Bitcoins, chances of recovery are near zero. And I can't even really link the tough guys to the guy who bought the Steam game.
Re-use addresses at your own risk.
Did you start it with -rescan ?
No, what is that?
If you change the wallet.dat and then you start bitcoin it will automatically rescan it and shows all the btc and transactions of that wallet.
No. I have been involved with BTC for a while and never heard of a wallet changing its address. My question remains... how do people know where to send money to me ( or anyone else ) if the address is changing?
If you had to tell two different people to send coins to you, you would not want to give them both the same address. If you did, each one could see every coin the other sent to you. So the address that you tell other people to send coins to changes constantly. This has no effect on your ability to receive coins.Quote
If you had to tell two different people to send coins to you, you would not want to give them both the same address.
All they would see would be each other's address and that they had more or less paid the same guy at the same time. They would have to verify it with me, what was going on, unless the guys knew each other's addresses and could connect the address personally to the "other" guy.
My other address has never changed.
That adress was never involved in a transaction tracked in the blockchain.
Blockchain.info only sees what is transcribed in the blockchain.
To simplify, the new adress only exists in your client right now. Only when someone assigns coins to it, will it be visible in the blockchain.
Blockchain.info only sees what is transcribed in the blockchain.
To simplify, the new adress only exists in your client right now. Only when someone assigns coins to it, will it be visible in the blockchain.
Quote
That adress was never involved in a transaction tracked in the blockchain.
I knew that it had not had any transactions on it yet because I checked out the blockchain.info site.
I wondered where the address came from. I checked out the blockchain.info site and when there was no connection to the previous address there, I thought someone had hacked me. When I could not change the address, I thought he/she had placed another file on my computer that prevented me from getting rid of the "bogus" bitcoin address. It turned out to be a valid address.
I suppose the older versions of bitcoin did not change around like that.
Thanks.
Did you start it with -rescan ?
No, what is that?
What I did was reload everything, including from the user's folder. I re-downloaded Bitcoin and put the old wallet.dat file in the place of the new one that was just downloaded. I happened to look at the wallet address before I placed the old wallet.dat file there. It was different. (Thanks guys!)
Now the computer is downloading thousands of blocks anew.
I think this thread would be an excellent basis for a "FAQ" of Bitcoin for newbies.
- How to delete a wallet
- How to start up the Bitcoin client with -rescan
- Why Bitcoin addresses change
- Etc...
- How to delete a wallet
- How to start up the Bitcoin client with -rescan
- Why Bitcoin addresses change
- Etc...
Stuff like this NEEDS to be explained/made more clear in the client itself, e.g. have a pop up when the adress changes with some info on why this happened.
I think this thread would be an excellent basis for a "FAQ" of Bitcoin for newbies.
- How to delete a wallet
- How to start up the Bitcoin client with -rescan
- Why Bitcoin addresses change
- Etc...
- How to delete a wallet
- How to start up the Bitcoin client with -rescan
- Why Bitcoin addresses change
- Etc...
That adress was never involved in a transaction tracked in the blockchain.
Blockchain.info only sees what is transcribed in the blockchain.
To simplify, the new adress only exists in your client right now. Only when someone assigns coins to it, will it be visible in the blockchain.
Blockchain.info only sees what is transcribed in the blockchain.
To simplify, the new adress only exists in your client right now. Only when someone assigns coins to it, will it be visible in the blockchain.
Ok, but do you understand you weren't hacked?
The client generates new addresses automatically. It's going to do that regardless of whether you get a new wallet or not.
The bitcoins you currently own are in the original wallet file that was in that directory. So do not delete or lose that file.
The client generates new addresses automatically. It's going to do that regardless of whether you get a new wallet or not.
The bitcoins you currently own are in the original wallet file that was in that directory. So do not delete or lose that file.
No. I have been involved with BTC for a while and never heard of a wallet changing its address. My question remains... how do people know where to send money to me ( or anyone else ) if the address is changing?
I looked in the blockchain... and there is no connection with the new address.
What you see is a fresh new address that has never been used. If someone wants to send you money, give them that address, and you'll get another one. The cool thing is that all of your old addresses are stored in the wallet database, and any money sent to those addresses at any time in the future will be yours, as long as you keep your wallet.dat safe.
Quote
What you see is a fresh new address that has never been used.
First time ever. Why is there no connection online at the blockchain.info site?
Did you start it with -rescan ?
No, what is that?
Did you start it with -rescan ?
No, what is that?
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