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I honestly don't understand using a service to store bitcoins when a paper wallet using keypairs with offline-generated addresses is so readily available. One
by ingler 12y ago
I honestly don't understand using a service to store bitcoins when a paper wallet using keypairs with offline-generated addresses is so readily available.
One of the aspects of Bitcoin that gives it value is cutting out third parties for storage.
- TTPrograms 12y agoSo I would imagine you intend to buy and sell coin by hawking your paper wallet on the street corner?
- ingler 12y agoI'll import the keys into the reference client. Or I can create a transaction by hand and inject it into the network.
- gnaritas 12y ago> I honestly don't understand using a service to store bitcoins when a paper wallet using keypairs with offline-generated addresses is so readily available. I honestly don't understand using a bank to store dollars when using a wallet is so readily available. Do you not see the flaw in your thinking? People with large amounts of money don't want the responsibility of securing their own money themselves. Storing Bitcoin's despite what people may say, is not trivial for the average person.
- ingler 12y agoI see no flaw in my thinking. I'm not the average person. Perhaps people should get up to speed before using Bitcoin unless they want to lose their money. Storing btc with a third party is a great way to lose them.
- CamperBob2 12y agoThe whole concept isn't ready for prime time. In my case, I lost a (fortunately) small hoard of BTC when I made the grievous error of backing up my wallet.dat file to a Synology NAS that was also using an open port to run my security camera server. "Use Linux! Windoze is insecure!" they said. Right.
- shutupalready 12y agoWhat happened exactly? How much did you lose (if you don't mind saying)? How long was it before you noticed? Do you think you were (a) individually targeted as a BTC holder, or (b) do you think someone was port scanning the Internet and stumbled onto you? If (a), how did they know you might have BTC? If (b), is it actually commonplace for automated attacks to seek BTC wallets these days?
- CamperBob2 12y agoAbout 4 BTC in my case, but many people lost a lot more. I was definitely not individually targeted, and definitely did not make any of the usual novice mistakes. Since the Synology NAS systems are commonly used as backups for small and medium-level enterprises, they were (and are) exceptionally high value targets. In my case, I had a root exploit in the OS that allowed all kinds of malware to be installed by anyone who cared to scan the Internet at large for systems on port 5000. Most of the publicity centered around trojan miner applications, but the same issue also exposed the entire file system. So, searching the exposed file systems for wallet.dat files was a trivial and obvious free lunch for the crackers, much more so than mining. In retrospect, I think the biggest mistake was using the same port for things like the security camera server that is used for remote administration. Taking the time to learn how to use a nonstandard port would probably have kept this particular system safe. I can't blame Synology, really... just a bad threat assessment on my part. My thinking was that keeping the wallet.dat file off of any Internet-accessible Windows boxes would provide enough "security by obscurity," but we all know how that story usually ends.
- ingler 12y agoThat's why I suggested a paper wallet with offline-generated keypairs. Bitcoin isn't ready for prime time, agreed. But it's still here.