Silk Road forums

Discussion => Security => Topic started by: mdmamail on April 07, 2012, 01:16 am

Title: How to use strongcoin.com and Electrum mini client
Post by: mdmamail on April 07, 2012, 01:16 am
Strongcoin is a good middle man decoy.  Can also backup the private key, so you can always get at your coins. Electrum is a mini bitcoin client that's pretty awesome, no blockchain downloading and can use it to recover wallets.

Sign in with Tor, or a proxy to strongcoin. Can use a tormail.net email address to sign up. Don't have to confirm email.
Once inside click on "New Account". Fill in the label field only (with anything) and click on "Launch Generator". Can also fill in the "Clue" field to remind you of your password if you really need it. You then choose a password, it fills in all the other fields automatically.

Now under "Your Accounts" you'll see your newly generated address. Click on it, then click "Decode Private Key"
You will get something like this: 5JpyXTwMoWrtXs8nNKX6EWApp11kiYAgSBqrg8Rc8ucLN6RfM5n

Cut + paste both your public bitcoin address and private key to a text file. Encrypt with Truecrypt.
Ex:
1PTsddcSKxWYHriKz96VCySiLwRjDbALbz (public)
5JpyXTwMoWrtXs8nNKX6EWApp11kiYAgSBqrg8Rc8ucLN6RfM5n (priv)

Send and receive bitcoins. You need to know the password to unlock the coins to send. 99.99% of the time this is good enough, you will have no problems. They charge 1% fee, but is still safer than bitcoinfog at least you always have control over coins with the private key.

If for some reason Strongcoin is down or disappears you still have your private bitcoin backup keys.(You also pay no strongcoin fees this way)

Download Electrum the mini bitcoin client
http://ecdsa.org/electrum/
Or http://dre.tx0.org/elecwin.htm

- find your electrum.dat wallet file (~/.electrum/electrum.dat in linux, ~\AppData\Local\Electrum\electrum.dat in windows)
- backup the file, just in case. backup your other wallet.dat file just in case, as you always should :)
- run electrum, disable wallet encryption (at your own risk), create new address (temp address), close program
- open electrum.dat in text editor, find the temp address. It should be the last one in a list of addresses enclosed by []. After the list of addresses, there is a similar list of private keys, they match addresses by index. Last private key matches last address etc.. Use your text editor search/replace functionality to search for this newly generated temp address and replace all instances with your offline address. Next, replace matching temp private key with offline key. Save the file.
- run electrum, your offline key should show up as any other keys, with correct balance. Encrypt and backup the wallet.

You can use Electrum for regular bitcoin client keys.
You may have to prepare your private key to import (offline key) in sipa format (starts with a '5'), together with a matching address (offline address). If your private key is not in correct format, use bitaddress.org to convert it. Strongcoin already gives you the sipa format.

More info on the bitcointalk.org forums there are threads all about both strongcoin and electrum
Title: Re: How to use strongcoin.com and Electrum mini client
Post by: researcher on April 17, 2012, 08:24 pm
Strongcoin is a good mixing service. You don't get the same coins you paid in usually like most other online wallets.

Strongcoin and electrum are both great. But Strongcoin is *not* a mixing service, in fact you're pretty much guaranteed to get coins from the same address that you sent it to. Strongcoin maintains each user's wallet and private keys independently, unlike other wallets like Instawallet where all coins are mixed in the same wallet. In fact, the private key for each Bitcoin address is generated in your browser, and only an encrypted copy of it it sent to the server. This means that only you, with your password can spend the coins on your strongcoin.com Bitcoin addresses, preventing the strongcoin.com operators from ever mixing coins across users.
Title: Re: How to use strongcoin.com and Electrum mini client
Post by: eradicat0r on April 17, 2012, 11:12 pm
when you send from strongcoin it goes to their main address first then they send out coins. It's somewhat mixed. though if you put the private keys in electrum they won't be.

Title: Re: How to use strongcoin.com and Electrum mini client
Post by: researcher on April 17, 2012, 11:54 pm
when you send from strongcoin it goes to their main address first then they send out coins. It's somewhat mixed. though if you put the private keys in electrum they won't be.

Well, this has not been my experience with strongcoin. Any outgoing transactions I've ever made have gone straight from my address to the destination address, with the extra 1% fee going to strongcoin's address in the same transaction.
Title: Re: How to use strongcoin.com and Electrum mini client
Post by: eradicat0r on April 17, 2012, 11:57 pm
i swear there is a thread about this on bitcointalk where the guy explains the mixing service, but maybe you are right. still you would have to be a terrorist, and have the entire NSA after you for them to bother analyzing bitcoin transactions to compare the blockchain and somehow prove it's still the same coins you receives through multiple other middle addresses. DEA took 2 years to bust a paypal operated drug forum.
Title: Re: How to use strongcoin.com and Electrum mini client
Post by: mdmamail on April 18, 2012, 01:48 am
Strongcoin is a good mixing service. You don't get the same coins you paid in usually like most other online wallets.

Strongcoin and electrum are both great. But Strongcoin is *not* a mixing service, in fact you're pretty much guaranteed to get coins from the same address that you sent it to. Strongcoin maintains each user's wallet and private keys independently, unlike other wallets like Instawallet where all coins are mixed in the same wallet. In fact, the private key for each Bitcoin address is generated in your browser, and only an encrypted copy of it it sent to the server. This means that only you, with your password can spend the coins on your strongcoin.com Bitcoin addresses, preventing the strongcoin.com operators from ever mixing coins across users.

You are correct. Edited to show "Middle man service"