Topic: separate phone for safety reasons? (Read 344 times)

I am not sure but from my experience I think you are wrong.
I don't open weird emails either and it still looks like I was a victim of some sort of hack. You could be browsing on any normal website, click on "play" of any video you wish to see, have a pop up appear and it is already too late.

I keep getting calls from foreign countries. Random people who seem to have my phone nr. This has been happening for a while. Obviously I do not answer.

A few months ago when Roger Federer retired from tennis, I commented on facebook that I would like to attend his last game. I did this with a fake account that is not linked to my real name. Half an hour later I received a phonecall from the UK where that game was played (I do not live there) and the day after I got 2 more. So somehow people on the dark web can even link a fake facebook account to my real name and my real phone number. I'm not an expert but I assume this is based on the IP address being used by both accounts (the real FB account and the fake one)

A month prior to that someone had made a 1000 British pound payment in London with my visa card, that is inside my house and I had used exactly 1 time online. No details were shared with anyone. I was a whole battle with the insurance company to get it back. I had done nothing wrong.
So no I do not feel safe online.

With regards to hackers, I believe that one of the most important safety measures is to make sure that NOBODY knows you invested in BTC or ETH.
Eventually if the word speads, it will catch the attention of bad people. I don't know what they can do to your internet connection, but I believe they have options just by knowing your name and address.

To get a better idea, this website allows you to enter your email address and immediately tells you if there have been security breaches https://haveibeenpwned.com/
Mine has 10 of them, and it also says when and where it happened
Ensuring digital safety is paramount! I recently discovered the importance of a separate phone for added security. Speaking of data protection, I highly recommend checking out Setapp's guide on extracting data from corrupted ZIP files at https://setapp.com/how-to/extract-data-from-corrupted-zip. It's a game-changer for safeguarding valuable information. Kudos to Setapp for empowering users with such invaluable tools!

This video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVOlO_24BCo says around 11:25 that we can receive spam inside the ledger live app.
And if we click on it, it will drain our wallet.

I am absolutely baffled to see that this is possible inside the ledger live app. This is totally unsafe for beginners like me.
I feel like I'm going to make a mistake and have my entire wallet drained.

I find it totally unprofessional that a company like ledger can not protect users from receiving life threatening spam in their app.

I am not sure but from my experience I think you are wrong.
I don't open weird emails either and it still looks like I was a victim of some sort of hack. You could be browsing on any normal website, click on "play" of any video you wish to see, have a pop up appear and it is already too late.

I keep getting calls from foreign countries. Random people who seem to have my phone nr. This has been happening for a while. Obviously I do not answer.

A few months ago when Roger Federer retired from tennis, I commented on facebook that I would like to attend his last game. I did this with a fake account that is not linked to my real name. Half an hour later I received a phonecall from the UK where that game was played (I do not live there) and the day after I got 2 more. So somehow people on the dark web can even link a fake facebook account to my real name and my real phone number. I'm not an expert but I assume this is based on the IP address being used by both accounts (the real FB account and the fake one)

A month prior to that someone had made a 1000 British pound payment in London with my visa card, that is inside my house and I had used exactly 1 time online. No details were shared with anyone. I was a whole battle with the insurance company to get it back. I had done nothing wrong.
So no I do not feel safe online.

With regards to hackers, I believe that one of the most important safety measures is to make sure that NOBODY knows you invested in BTC or ETH.
Eventually if the word speads, it will catch the attention of bad people. I don't know what they can do to your internet connection, but I believe they have options just by knowing your name and address.

To get a better idea, this website allows you to enter your email address and immediately tells you if there have been security breaches https://haveibeenpwned.com/
Mine has 10 of them, and it also says when and where it happened

No issues. Ledger devices use a BIP39 seed phrase, as do almost all current hardware and software wallets. You will have no trouble importing it elsewhere if you need to.

Just note that you should only do this in the situation where your hardware wallet is lost, damaged, broken, etc. Importing your seed phrase in to another wallet is risky, and has the potential to negate all the protection your hardware wallet provides.

Yeah, you are absolutely right.
Thought I was taking it to be as mine, I have a separate printer in my room were only me uses it but in the case of op just as you said writing it down will be the best option maybe as not to be that exposed to other users, or who knows if op has a separate printer in his or her room.

Anyway I have also taken a good lesson from you.
Thanks for the knowledge. I never had this thinking that some printer do stored last document printed. I have to go check if the last memory of what I printed last is still available there in my printer for me to take note, but I have printed several documents so I m not sure if that information will be there till today so is been a while it happens.

This is poor advice.

Firstly, there is no need for the vast majority of users to handle their raw private keys. Doing so is a security risk, as you expose them unencrypted to your device and therefore risk leaking them. Backing up your seed phrase is more than sufficient, given all your private keys can be derived from that seed phrase via very standardized and well published methods.

Secondly, it is preferable to write the seed phrase by hand and not use a printer. Almost all printers you can buy these days have internal storage and will store a copy of the last x documents that they have printed (even if you cannot access this storage), as well as a variety of wireless connections such as WiFi and Bluetooth. All of this presents a variety of unnecessary attack surfaces to your seed phrase, which can all be easily avoided by just writing it down with pen and paper.

Lastly I think you should also try to print out your see phrase, including your private keys to be at the safer side.

I took everything into consideration and the new laptop is on its way.
The current one (history with malware and even 1x online credit card fraud) is 7 years old anyway.
I will use the new one strictly for purchasing crypto and running ledger live.

I will keep using the old laptop for browsing as long as it lives.
If it breaks down in 2025 and all of my crypto assets are on a coldwallet, I can use the new laptop for browsing (correct me if I am wrong)

With regards to hackers, I believe that one of the most important safety measures is to make sure that NOBODY knows you invested in BTC or ETH.
Eventually if the word speads, it will catch the attention of bad people. I don't know what they can do to your internet connection, but I believe they have options just by knowing your name and address.

To get a better idea, this website allows you to enter your email address and immediately tells you if there have been security breaches https://haveibeenpwned.com/
Mine has 10 of them, and it also says when and where it happened

Just getting curious about whether the seed key has a different format or something like that and any compatibility issue with other wallets.

Saying about getting an airgapped device...
Is one automatically exposed to risk of hack and malware when they are connected to the internet?
I think one needs to visit some malicious sites, click random links or share private information before they could be hacked.
I have a backup phone I use for only my wallets and I have my mobile wallet there. I only go online with it to search information or visit my social media handle. I do not click links and I do not install any other things in the phone.
Am I still at risk?
I believe something points the attention of hackers to my device and if I avoid those things that point their attention to my device I am safe.
Am I getting it totally wrong?

Does this mean that in case of an attack of the banks on crypto, they can take down ledger and therefore my BTC?

No. Even if they take down Ledger the company, the coins on your hardware wallet will remain safe. And even if the Ledger servers all get taken offline and their software no longer works, you can pair your hardware wallet with many different pieces of wallet software, such as Electrum, in order to still access your coins. And if your physical hardware wallet is damaged, broken, lost, etc., then you can recover your bitcoin by recovering from your seed phrase.

For security purpose i think laptop would be more preferable than smartphone, maybe will be more preserved and secured than just buying a new smartphone because phone may likely got stolen or easily accessed by friends and relatives.

Does this mean that in case of an attack of the banks on crypto, they can take down ledger and therefore my BTC?

Ledger Nano X is fine but the only problem with this wallet it is a close source.

Is a laptop better than a smartphone? Does it need to have specific characteristics?
Am I missing some things?

Yes.

Your risk is lower if you use the device for nothing except bitcoin, but the risk can only be removed by keeping the device permanently offline. Since you are still using that device to browse social media, use search engines, and visit the random sites that the search engine returns, then your risk is barely reduced, if it all.

[Guide] Secure air-gapped crypto wallet storage method
How to Install Tails OS on USB flash drive for Wallet Purpose

You can set up your multisign wallets to use even on your smartphone with small amount (not your 1 BTC) to use when you are hanging out, travelling but still have your bitcoins to use where you can find stores, services accept it locally.

Since you plan on holding for long-term anyway, why not make it as secure as possible?

I believe something points the attention of hackers to my device and if I avoid those things that point their attention to my device I am safe.
Am I getting it totally wrong?

Is one automatically exposed to risk of hack and malware when they are connected to the internet?

I have a backup phone I use for only my wallets and I have my mobile wallet there. I only go online with it to search information or visit my social media handle. I do not click links and I do not install any other things in the phone.
Am I still at risk?

Saying about getting an airgapped device...

If you are going to be buying a new computer for work and education anyway, then after you have your new one up and running you could use your current one for bitcoin only. Simply format it and get a clean install of your OS on it first.

Buying a new Macbook just for managing 1 BTC is very expensive. And I would need a second one for work anyway.
So I considered buying 1 new laptop for work, and 1 new smartphone just for purchasing BTC. I'm not planning on trading a lot.

I buy a new smartphone (for example Samsung) just to purchase BTC. Most likely in incremental amounts to test it.
When I get to 1 BTC on the exchange, I transfer it to my ledger device via my smartphone which should not be exposed to malware as it is new.

I'm not planning to connect the ledger to the internet a lot. But at some point I will have to, right? For example to check the balance.

The suggestions above regarding having an airgapped device are good suggestions if you are planning to store your bitcoin on a wallet on that device. It sounds like you are not planning to do that, since you have bought a Ledger hardware wallet.

Given that your bitcoin will be safely stored on your Ledger, then having an airgapped computer doesn't really add anything to this set up. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you will be using this computer to actually buy the bitcoin and send it to your hardware wallet? In that case, that computer cannot be airgapped - obviously it will need an internet connection in order to interact with an exchange or another person in order to purchase the bitcoin.

If that's the case then yes, it is good idea to have a clean computer which you only use for bitcoin and not for daily browsing or anything else, since this will minimize the risk of downloading malware. Personally, I would use a laptop, format it, and install a Linux distro of your choice on it rather than a closed source spyware OS like Windows. If you've never used Linux before, then a distro like Linux Mint is a good place to start.

In order to optimize my chances of avoiding scenario 1, I think I need a new smartphone or laptop. Which will be used strictly for management of crypto.

Is a laptop better than a smartphone? Does it need to have specific characteristics?
Am I missing some things?

2) Government lawsuits vs the exchanges, resulting in either confiscation of my BTC or resulting in a total ban of converting currency to BTC. Which would kill the value of BTC. I purchased a ledger device to avoid the scenario of FTX.

Could you give any specific examples? And what is the cost?

I purchased a nano ledger x. It's unopened at this point. Pretty painful to throw it in the garbage bin.

If you want to be completely secure, your separate device should be airgapped. In this way, you can be sure that there wouldn't be any way for hackers to get access to your wallet. Otherwise, your wallet would be always prone to hacking. Also make sure that you use a open-source trustworthy wallet which gives you full access to your keys.
In the case you can't have an air-gapped device for any reason, you can consider using a hardware wallet.