4 ms·

What made Instawallet better than Blockchain for an online wallet? why did people use it? what was the selling point??

by dcc1 14y ago

acebarry 14y ago
Burner bitcoin addresses. When you loaded the site you got a fresh wallet with one address. It would help people stay anonymous.
- bdcravens 14y ago
  Looks like the address isn't all that was burning...
GigabyteCoin 14y ago
Who ever said that it was better? No online wallets are secure, nobody should be using them, but unfortunately the bitcoin system is still a bit too complicated for a lot of people.
- adrr 14y ago
  This what i don't get. Banks can secure themselves, large e-commerce sites as well. Do any of these guys run Hardware security modules and use them to manage encryption of the keys?
  - GigabyteCoin 14y ago
    Instawallet's only form of a login was a URL, which Google indexed 1,000s of just last week: http://www.adaptiveglass.com/?p=656 http://www.adaptiveglass.com/?p=656 Honestly, I am curious if the security researcher (who alerted them to this problem and then griped out lack of payment in the article) is the person responsible.
    - smtddr 14y ago
      Ya know, that blog you linked to - I don't like that he's upset he didn't get a reward for his good deed. He should be just happy to do a good deed, IMHO.
      - danielweber 14y ago
        Yeah, if you were expecting a reward, it's not a good deed. I informed some BTC places of security problems a few years ago, and was roundly ignored, although they put the fixes in place, from what I recall. I wasn't upset because I wasn't expecting anything. EDIT Reading that page . . . depending on a URL staying secret as your security? Wow, that is asking for disaster. I don't like to shame people who make security mistakes, but if you are online wallet vendor, shouldn't you have some common sense?
        deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
- acebarry 14y ago
  Instawallet always made it clear that no one should keep anything more than spare change there.
  - GigabyteCoin 14y ago
    I don't think they said that on the homepage, they advertised themselves as a bitcoin wallet. They did say so at one time or another I believe, but that was long long ago.
  - ams6110 14y ago
    Given the recent trends in Bitcoin values, yesterday's spare change was today's real money.
- tlrobinson 14y ago
  It's not that it's impossible to for online wallets to be secure, it's that most of the people implementing them are amateurs when it comes to security. The Bitcoin industry needs bank level security. They're doing some things right (most exchanges offer 2FA), but they've got a long ways to go.
  - wmf 14y ago
    Nobody besides Gox is making enough money to afford real security AFAIK.
haakon 14y ago
When depositing to Instawallet, your money would be stored in a common pool, so upon withdrawal you'd get different coins back. So it functioned as a "mixing service", which helps improve anonymity for those who need that. And it was super easy to use, which made it popular with newbies with little understanding of how foolish it is to give a service like this full control over your money.
- facorreia 14y ago
  From the description, it sounds like a money laundering service.
  - kami8845 14y ago
    No that's already bitcoin itself.
    - stcredzero 14y ago
      "Just use Bitcoin" is a money laundering meme governments should love.
  - gesman 14y ago
    Lol, and i think that's where it's main business came from. Law enforcement hired hackers to screw it and now awaiting at the front door to take a much closer look at everyone who'll start whining about lost funds. :)
    - stcredzero 14y ago
      They'd do much better to subvert it and observe the movement of funds.
      - danielweber 14y ago
        You made me think "if there's a site for online storage of wallets and someone has paid the amount of money needed for decent security for it, it's probably because the government is running it."
jerguismi 14y ago
It wasn't better as in more secure, it was instant and easy. It was a low-security wallet designed for trying out bitcoin.

What made Instawallet better than Blockchain for an online wallet? why did people use it? what was the selling point??

by dcc1 14y ago

What made Instawallet better than Blockchain for an online wallet? why did people use it? what was the selling point??

Burner bitcoin addresses. When you loaded the site you got a fresh wallet with one address. It would help people stay anonymous.

bdcravens 14y ago
Looks like the address isn't all that was burning...

GigabyteCoin 14y ago

Who ever said that it was better? No online wallets are secure, nobody should be using them, but unfortunately the bitcoin system is still a bit too complicated for a lot of people.

adrr 14y ago
This what i don't get. Banks can secure themselves, large e-commerce sites as well. Do any of these guys run Hardware security modules and use them to manage encryption of the keys?
- GigabyteCoin 14y ago
  Instawallet's only form of a login was a URL, which Google indexed 1,000s of just last week: http://www.adaptiveglass.com/?p=656 http://www.adaptiveglass.com/?p=656 Honestly, I am curious if the security researcher (who alerted them to this problem and then griped out lack of payment in the article) is the person responsible.
  - smtddr 14y ago
    Ya know, that blog you linked to - I don't like that he's upset he didn't get a reward for his good deed. He should be just happy to do a good deed, IMHO.
    - danielweber 14y ago
      Yeah, if you were expecting a reward, it's not a good deed. I informed some BTC places of security problems a few years ago, and was roundly ignored, although they put the fixes in place, from what I recall. I wasn't upset because I wasn't expecting anything. EDIT Reading that page . . . depending on a URL staying secret as your security? Wow, that is asking for disaster. I don't like to shame people who make security mistakes, but if you are online wallet vendor, shouldn't you have some common sense?
      - deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
acebarry 14y ago
Instawallet always made it clear that no one should keep anything more than spare change there.
- GigabyteCoin 14y ago
  I don't think they said that on the homepage, they advertised themselves as a bitcoin wallet. They did say so at one time or another I believe, but that was long long ago.
- ams6110 14y ago
  Given the recent trends in Bitcoin values, yesterday's spare change was today's real money.
tlrobinson 14y ago
It's not that it's impossible to for online wallets to be secure, it's that most of the people implementing them are amateurs when it comes to security. The Bitcoin industry needs bank level security. They're doing some things right (most exchanges offer 2FA), but they've got a long ways to go.
- wmf 14y ago
  Nobody besides Gox is making enough money to afford real security AFAIK.

haakon 14y ago

When depositing to Instawallet, your money would be stored in a common pool, so upon withdrawal you'd get different coins back. So it functioned as a "mixing service", which helps improve anonymity for those who need that. And it was super easy to use, which made it popular with newbies with little understanding of how foolish it is to give a service like this full control over your money.

facorreia 14y ago
From the description, it sounds like a money laundering service.
- kami8845 14y ago
  No that's already bitcoin itself.
  - stcredzero 14y ago
    "Just use Bitcoin" is a money laundering meme governments should love.
- gesman 14y ago
  Lol, and i think that's where it's main business came from. Law enforcement hired hackers to screw it and now awaiting at the front door to take a much closer look at everyone who'll start whining about lost funds. :)
  - stcredzero 14y ago
    They'd do much better to subvert it and observe the movement of funds.
    - danielweber 14y ago
      You made me think "if there's a site for online storage of wallets and someone has paid the amount of money needed for decent security for it, it's probably because the government is running it."

jerguismi 14y ago

It wasn't better as in more secure, it was instant and easy. It was a low-security wallet designed for trying out bitcoin.