Silk Road forums

Discussion => Newbie discussion => Topic started by: visionenergy on April 01, 2013, 04:59 am

Title: how do you encrypt your wallet
Post by: visionenergy on April 01, 2013, 04:59 am
i recently read a post and a person was talking about encripting their wallet.  Does anyone know what he means by that and how you do it?
Title: Re: how do you encrypt your wallet
Post by: p3nd8s on April 01, 2013, 06:20 am
It is an option with some BTC wallet software like Bitcoin QT, the Armory, etc. Obviously you can't encrypt an online wallet like easywallet.org or instawallet.org. For maximum security, I'd just use a paper wallet that was generated on a live CD on a PC that's never connected to the internet. Even if your wallet is encrypted if they have a keylogger on your PC, they will record your password.
To make a paper wallet, go to www.brainwallet.org and save the web page. It is in javascript and can run offline
on any web browser with javascript enabled. Just generate the new wallet offline and print it out.
all you need to save is the private key. When you want to send money, go to transactions and do an offline transaction (historical transactions must be updated online) you can copy and paste from an online computer (blockchain or blockexplorer).

When you get the raw transaction, save the text to a CD. And then put the CD in an online computer and push the transaction through blockchain or blockexplorer. I will write a detailed guide on this soon and post here on the forum for the newbies.
Title: Re: how do you encrypt your wallet
Post by: visionenergy on April 01, 2013, 06:25 am
wow...that just seems like quite a bit to do.  Right now I am using different wallets via blockchain and sending them to SR from there.  Is that not a safe option for storing bitcoins?
Title: Re: how do you encrypt your wallet
Post by: Kinetic on April 01, 2013, 12:10 pm
It's possible that Blockchain could be compromised or somebody could find your credentials and log in as you.

Personally I only ever have a few bitcoins at a time so it's not really an issue for me but if I was holding large amounts then I'd be looking at some of the methods p3nd8s has outlined above.
Title: Re: how do you encrypt your wallet
Post by: smokecrack on April 01, 2013, 12:43 pm
It is an option with some BTC wallet software like Bitcoin QT, the Armory, etc. Obviously you can't encrypt an online wallet like easywallet.org or instawallet.org. For maximum security, I'd just use a paper wallet that was generated on a live CD on a PC that's never connected to the internet. Even if your wallet is encrypted if they have a keylogger on your PC, they will record your password.
To make a paper wallet, go to www.brainwallet.org and save the web page. It is in javascript and can run offline
on any web browser with javascript enabled. Just generate the new wallet offline and print it out.
all you need to save is the private key. When you want to send money, go to transactions and do an offline transaction (historical transactions must be updated online) you can copy and paste from an online computer (blockchain or blockexplorer).

When you get the raw transaction, save the text to a CD. And then put the CD in an online computer and push the transaction through blockchain or blockexplorer. I will write a detailed guide on this soon and post here on the forum for the newbies.

Quote
I wrote up a proof of concept based on brainwallet.py (a brainwallet generator) that automatically does all this. My code is terrible, but it proves the point I was trying to make. A better written piece of code could import thousands of keys incredibly quickly, exhausting entire blocks of passphrase-keyspace.


The brainwallet.py implementation I hacked into the above can be gotten here: [clearnet link removed]

The terrifying thing about this is, you are not only stealing “current” bitcoins, but also future ones. If anyone ever uses any of the passphrases you have “pwned”, you own their bitcoins.

So, tell your friends: Brainwallets are dumb.