Topic: Protecting my offline wallets from physical theft - page 2. (Read 2246 times)

Hard drive failure is the biggest threat. I'd recommend encrypted DVD, and flash disks in several locations, as well as at least one paperwallet hidden somewhere

I'm just wondering about your computer. Is it a desktop? Is it a laptop?

When you talk about physical theft, it brings to mind physical security and access to where you actually have your computer.

In any case, you need redundant encrypted backups as theft is only one problem, and probably not your biggest problem. If some disaster hits, you've got it covered. And regardless, as soon as you can, you should sweep all your coins to a new wallet after anything happens.

If the password is deemed non-secure, and the wallet (private key) that is protected by that password could be available to leaks, then your only choice is to transfer all the BTC from that compromised address to a new, secure one.

If you know the wallet that is protected by that password is still secure on your machine, then you only need to change to a more secure password.

MultiBit separates the private key from other wallet data (which may include transactions, balance, etc.) Only the private key is needed to completely restore a wallet.

No. If the private key is exported without a password, then you'll have the encrypted copy in the wallet, and an unencrypted copy in the multibit.key file.

When you export a private key from MultiBit, you choose to add a password or not depending on what you will do with that file. If you will be transferring it over a network, then you should choose a password. However, if you are merely sending it directly to a printer, you can save it without a password, as long as you make sure it is securely deleted after you have printed it. Then store the printout in a safe.

Mycelium is another client I use that has a unique method of backing up. It creates a PDF file with encrypted private key(s) and displays the (secure) encryption password on the screen only. After you print the PDF file, you write the password on the printout with a pen, then store it in a safe. This method ensures that anyone who intercepts the printout before you have it will be unable to use it without the password that is only shown on the screen of your smartphone.

Add all the passwords you can, different ones. Double or triple rar.

Also no hunting, simply sweep into new wallet.

I've encrypted each wallet and backed them up.

If the password I use to encrypt my wallets is compromised or otherwise deemed non-secure at some point, do I need to hunt down and delete all backed up copies which used that password?

Why is /home/user/MultiBit/multibit.key only 132 bytes when the wallet backups from all of the other clients are over 50 KB?

Multibit asks me if I want to password-protect the exported file when I Export Private Keys.  Is that redundant if I've already added a password via Add Password?

Do that but put them in a encfs file, rar file or truecrypt. Then publish publicly

Currently I have my BTC, LTC, NMC, PPC, and XPM in each of the clients on my Linux computer.  This worries me because if my computer is physically stolen, I would lose access to my coins permanently.  I've read about the various procedures for protecting coins from online attackers, but right now I'd like to protect my coins in the event my computer is stolen.  Should encrypting and backing up each wallet to a series of safe computers somewhere accomplish this?  It's OK if one of the backups is stolen since the backed up wallet is encrypted, right?

The procedure for this in the *-qt clients seems to be Encrypt Wallet and Backup Wallet, and for multibit it seems to be Add Password and Export Private Keys.  Is that correct?