Bitcoin as the ONLY payment option, lol what?

[yeahfree]

I assume the keylogger has much higher chance when using keyboard than when using random clicks on screen. Maybe times changed, but banks are using this I hope for some reason. Nothing is 100%, but combining few things should be safe enough. Much safer than trust in banks and governments.

if i would build a key logger i would log the output, whatever the type of input method would be. a letter A is a letter A, no matter if it would be touch screen, keyboard, or tam tam

Take those three notes just as my personal thoughts. It may be irrelevant. It is not a fact, just my thinking in limited time.

i didn't look into it yet, but i would be very hesitant also. i don't know if it's open source or not, but i can imagine it would be an excellent target device for any hacker to focus on.

Edit: my domestic bitcoin expert just told me that it is possible to export and import the notes in electrum.

thanks, will look into it

[Sherlock]

I am really no expert about the keyboards and if the output is the same. It looks logical as you say it, but then why those virtual keyboards exist? At least I am not making my chances to be hacked higher I hope.

The software wallets as electrum are open source. The trezor I assume are not. I am usually not fan of geek's solutions and the ones from corporations work better.But with Bitcoin it seems to me as en exception and the community does good job with debugging.

I will be happy if you correct me in anything. It is not possble for me to test everything. Now I will make a new cold wallet for the affiliate payments and the old cold wallet will be completely frozen and not touched for ages. But even the new wallet will be portable electrum. So I will probably have no new experience with the wallets. But it is possible and maybe even probable there are some better ones.

[Sherlock]

What is the standalone version for? I could not find any specific info on it. I was thinking this could be used on a flash drive.

Yes flash. I guess memory card can be used too. External harddisk too.

[TheGooner]

Sherlock (or anyone else)

Why do I need to keep so many backups - if I have the original 12 word seed that created the wallet?

As I understand this seed will enable me to recreate the wallet ... as long as I use the same bitcoin software.
And then I thought it would recover the balance of coins.

Are you saying any coins inside the wallet are lost if the wallet and backups are lost - even with the 12 word seed?

[yeahfree]

Sherlock (or anyone else)

Why do I need to keep so many backups - if I have the original 12 word seed that created the wallet?

As I understand this seed will enable me to recreate the wallet ... as long as I use the same bitcoin software.
And then I thought it would recover the balance of coins.

Are you saying any coins inside the wallet are lost if the wallet and backups are lost - even with the 12 word seed?

"this seed will enable me to recreate the wallet ... as long as I use the same bitcoin software." => this is correct. this is what i have exactly been testing today. (install electrum, create wallet, buy 10 euro in bitcoin for my wallet, install electrum on different machine, recover wallet with the see, bitcoins are back in the wallet).
of course this also counts on the same machine, delete your wallet , recover it with the seed, and your bitcoins are back. only thing that went missing after recovering were the "extra's" in my case the description that i added to receive an amount, like "this is a test payment from wallet1 to wallet2".

[Sherlock]

Yes, the balance will be recovered with seed. Just the notes/descriptions of the wallet (it has some special bitcoiner name those notes I can not remember now) disappear.

Well, assuming the seed will be stored in physical form, as printed QR code or piece of paper, at least for me this is:
1. less stable (your house can be flooded, burnt etc. - the computer devices can be better protected than paper)
2. it can be much worse hidden
3. It takes more time to access it from seed

So I for myself prefer as backup less seeds and more encrypted flash drives or so. E.g. I am living in tropical zone and everything made of paper can disappear quickly.

So think about it this way. Yes there are possibilities like carve the seed somewhere and even split it (half carved in the ring of your lover, that thinks it is some poem of love; half carved into onto some stone hidden in rented tomb [It is not my own copyright: I actually known a guy who rented an empty tomb or grave and hid there cash]) or something like that.

The bottom line is that if you want to have the access to your wallet digitalised (which is something many people prefer), there is no point to not store the whole wallet.

[TheGooner]

Yes, the balance will be recovered with seed.

...

So I for myself prefer as backup less seeds and more encrypted flash drives or so. E.g. I am living in tropical zone and everything made of paper can disappear quickly.

...

The bottom line is that if you want to have the access to your wallet digitalised (which is something many people prefer), there is no point to not store the whole wallet.

Thank you for the confirmation that both methods will recover the bitcoin wallet and balance ...
This enables me to have a "belt and braces" approach (two methods for safety) which allows flexibility.

The seed will be stored offsite in a secure facility - providing a tangible and (almost) fail safe FINAL backup.

[Sherlock]

So you are going to hold some bitcoins too

Just for the record there is also third backup method, that is exporting the private keys and addresses. Those can be then imported into any wallet and that is also enough to have full acccess to balance.

[TheGooner]

So you are going to hold some bitcoins too .

Maybe - maybe not - we will see.

But there will be periods when the wallet holds significant value even during a monthly process - as much as 24 hours - or even more if I am travelling internationally and away from my wallet (as I will only do transfers over secure networks not public wifi).

I can see a scenario where partners send coins while I am travelling and there may be a week before my conversion to usable currency. The last thing I want to have to risk is the potential loss of it all if there is a fire / earthquake / virus attack on my machine.

Business insurance covers many things - but I am not sure that loss of bitcoins from an unrecoverable wallet is one of them.


Following on from this discussion, I will keep an onsite backup (which would probably burn), and an offsite backup (that might no longer be viable?), and NOW an offsite seed as well - so with a "belts and braces" approach I can be comfortable that I am able to recover the wallet balance in most foreseeable circumstances.

[Sherlock]

Yes you will be fine like that.

There are more reasons why to have your own wallet, not 3rd party. It was mentioned before, but:
- third party might be more or less vulnerable to UIGEA, as time goes on this will be just worse; remember - one step aside and you will be marked in US system as unwanted intruder or at least your bitcoins can be
- I know only blockchain.info online wallet and electrum so I am not sure how other addresses work; but electrum on default generates more addresses and as they are being filled, the new ones automatically appear
at online wallet you will have maybe just one address per wallet (it is not good for dealing with bettingpartners and it is also not good to maintain your anonymity)
Also when you send all money out of any electrum address the address disappears so you will not be tempted to use it again.
- You have the control over your money with your own wallet; it is not just that it is safer against hacks - it is safer even against "legal hacks" of state; nobody can reach it and nobody knows the owner of the software wallet (this is advantage to hardware wallet as well, because the HW must be bought)

But even when we should use the more complicated solution for wallets, our future bitcoin players will most likely follow the simple solution. This thread is too complicated for John Does.

[elgoog]

using bitcoin QT (Bitcoin Core), it is enough to backup the wallet.dat

[gaffg]

What are best wallets to use?

[Sherlock]

It is impossible to answer honestly. No one who is doing serious business probably had time to try them all. But the worst wallets to use are the ones that are not listed here: https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

I just remembered one US bank that should be usable for Bitcoin transactions: https://www.silvergatebank.com/ (I am not sure if I am not repeating myself here)

[yeahfree]

hi sherlock,
portable version of electrum will be my solution. this way i don't have the electrum software on my computer >99% of the time, which makes me feel a lot more comfortable already. i will keep the seed somewhere on paper probably, for the just in case scenario to be able to recover. i will need to think on a solution for the extra's that won't be recovered, maybe an extra usb stick.
i still had an old usb stick laying around, good enough for testing purposes. i'm going to buy a couple of extra ones.

i also saw that nowadays there are usb sticks with encryption possibilities, http://www.kingston.com/us/usb/encrypted_security
on that datatraveler for instance you can type a pin code, 10 times wrong, it should empty itself. not sure though how 'empty' it will be.
also there are usb sticks that might do these kind of things by software, but i wonder how that would work out if somebody would put it in a linux system, if you can still circumvent that kind of software security. i guess yes, it should be possible to have it still encrypted, but ... difficult to verify anyway, of course i will not keep the usb stick laying around in the open.

you're talking about encrypting the device (usb stick it will be). how do YOU encrypt it?

[Sherlock]

Yes, all good suggestions. For Bitcoins always buy new flash sticks and destroy the unused ones. The portable solution is something that I discovered with trial and error as the best one. Do not forget that f the stick is stolen, there is also I hope strong security at the wallet. Plus if the stick is stolen, you probably should know about it so you have time to create a new wallet and move the bitcoins there!

Now to your question: using veracrypt. If you expect someone will force you by power, you can create there hidden container.

Going to test https://tails.boum.org/ (even safer solution for paranoics, different OS, harder to decrypt, using TOR on default etc.), where Electrum should be already preinstalled. (It is also a USB flash solution for non Win users, since the portable Electrum is so far only for WIN OS).

[yeahfree]

Yes, all good suggestions. For Bitcoins always buy new flash sticks and destroy the unused ones. The portable solution is something that I discovered with trial and error as the best one. Do not forget that f the stick is stolen, there is also I hope strong security at the wallet. Plus if the stick is stolen, you probably should know about it so you have time to create a new wallet and move the bitcoins there!

Now to your question: using veracrypt. If you expect someone will force you by power, you can create there hidden container.

Going to test https://tails.boum.org/ (even safer solution for paranoics, different OS, harder to decrypt, using TOR on default etc.), where Electrum should be already preinstalled. (It is also a USB flash solution for non Win users, since the portable Electrum is so far only for WIN OS).

nice suggestions, thanks a lot! i'm working less and less each day as an affiliate lol
i will try veracrypt.

tails.boum.org, not sure yet, i have seen other solutions like this, installing some linux on usb stick , but linux is far from my comfort zone, and if something would go wrong i wouldn't know where to start.

[hublot]

I've researched offline "vault" devices.

So far I've been able to try www.keepkey.com and its been quite easy to use.

I've also ordered a www.bitcointrezor.com to see which one I prefer, still waiting for it to arrive.

[Sherlock]

Yes. Far from comfort zone is linux and I am afraid next gen Win will be out of comfort zone as well. It will be back into history and we all will be using command prompts.

But if I see some extreme bitcoin hike and I retire/switch away from affilites, I will probably go even this step further.

i'm working less and less each day as an affiliate lol

Those who do not do that will maybe one day wake up and feel that the train has already departed.

[Sherlock]

I've researched offline "vault" devices.

So far I've been able to try www.keepkey.com and its been quite easy to use.

I've also ordered a www.bitcointrezor.com to see which one I prefer, still waiting for it to arrive.

Just for the record, what you call vault devices was so far here in this thread and here https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet called a "hardware vallet". There are so many new terms, so I think it is better to use just one terminology.

[TravG]

I was the same way, now it's my number one choice for certain programs, and it's pretty simple and my debit card has some fairly high limits

If you dont mind, where do you have your Bitcoin wallet? I would love to have a debit card associated with my Bitcoin account.