
How to protect your cryptocurrency: An in-depth guide - dcawrey
https://blockgeeks.com/guides/paper-wallet-guide/
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dang
This site is banned for using a well-known upvote-selling and comment-selling
service. Obviously this is a capital offence on HN.

I wish everyone would realize that when they do this, it is obvious in the
data and not worth the risk. Perhaps someone could communicate to the upvote-
and comment-sellers that they're wasting their time?

All: Spam votes and spam comments will get your accounts and sites banned on
HN, so please don't.

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paradite
Out of curiosity, how do you establish the identify association between the
person who submitted the story, the person who manages the site, and the
person who engages with the seller that you mentioned?

To me it looks like they could be unrelated different parties or even
competitors.

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jordanrobinson
Just what I wanted, a modal that blocks the entire page after you've read the
first paragraph, asking me to sign up for something vague.

Surely the conversion on these can't be good?

~~~
thaumaturgy
I browse without cookies enabled most of the time. A very large number of
blog-style sites like this one have become nearly unusable because of these
damned popups. I'd guess I'm seeing them on 2/3 of these sites now.

I'd love to see a uBlock Origin block list for these elements. Hell, I'd pay
for it.

~~~
eco
The Fanboy Annoyances list blocks a lot of these. It should already be in your
3rd Party Filter's list. Just enable it.

Edit: Though it didn't block the one on this article...

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joosters
A great example of why the whole 'be your own bank' feature of cryptocurrency
is not so great a feature after all.

These 'how to protect your coins' guides get longer and longer each time
another weakness in the system is found. Next month's security guide will have
even more steps, and you'd better follow them too...

~~~
ilitirit
I agree that it's complex for the layman, but in reality it's really simple
for anyone familiar with how crypto works. Even if they didn't, I usually just
explain it like this:

Your account number is made up of two parts - one part lets you view and
deposit, the other lets you withdraw. You can give the first part of your
account number to anyone (if you don't mind seeing how much money you have),
but you should keep the second part you keep very safe.

In fact, once people hear that the second part (the private key) allows you to
withdraw, they don't even need to hear the rest.

For many people though, they don't like the idea that people who can deposit
can also view amounts and transactions. I guess that's why cryptos like Monero
are worth looking into.

~~~
joosters
Understanding the difference between private and public keys is not the whole
story. Users need to know about backing these up, but they also need to know
how to clear them off of their computer in the first place.

You can go as far as having your private key carved into a metal plate so
it'll never get destroyed, but if a copy of it happens to still be sitting on
your hard drive, your coins are still at risk. Very few people will know how
to securely purge their computer of this critical data.

Even worse, the 'offline' approach in this guide means downloading random
javascript from different web services that you are just meant to trust with
your private key. It's a disaster.

~~~
ilitirit
I was referring to the idea of a "paper wallet". I don't know of many (any?)
people who store their Bank PINs on their PCs, so I don't see how anything you
mentioned is relevant.

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dabeeeenster
The main issue I have with wallets, which is not really addressed in the
article, is that the wallet formats seem to be continually changing. Will the
software work with your wallet format in 10 years time when you finally want
to cash in your coins? What do you do if it doesn't?

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nannal
Your private keys will always work.

~~~
Retric
Assuming no crypto vulnerabilities are discovered.

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meesterdude
While yes it's prone to various known/unknown attack vectors, and each crypto
has a different surface area (like ethereum's smart contracts) The
public/private key being one of them is unlikely. Computationally, cracking
that takes a monumental amount of computing power that doesn't exist yet.

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meesterdude
I think its fitting that blockgeeks.com has a modal block.

To add insult to injury, filling it out and submitting, it took a good 15
seconds for my submit to be processed and their modal to autoclose.

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joosters
So protecting your coins relies upon trusting the websites WalletGenerator.net
and MyEtherWallet.com ?

~~~
haburka
You download and unzip files from those websites and then run them with the
Internet turned off. You can inspect the source code to make sure it's ok.
This article is targeted at non-technical users so a solution that relies on
downloaded software is good enough. If you'd like a better solution, then I'm
sure some research would serve you well.

~~~
joosters
Realistically, we both know that hardly anyone will check the source code, let
alone be capable of spotting security problems or backdoors. Unplugging your
machine from the network doesn't protect you either - who knows if the
software leaves some temp files around containing your private keys?

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nirmalkant
Excellent piece of work.

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Kardinal
I've been trying to get a hold of one of those cold storage thumb drive
wallets for a month. Everywhere I look is sold out. I guess people really are
catching on to all the advantages you point out in favor of them. Great write
up.

~~~
um_ya
Best I know of, is to just make a Tails linux USB drive. It comes with a
bitcoin wallet built in.

~~~
Arubis
That's an excellent tip, thank you!

