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Board Beginners & Help
Re: Noob question about e-wallet security
by
casascius
on 14/07/2012, 23:32:27 UTC
Ok, this has created more questions:
1) Bitcoins exist in reference to a specific address?
2) Wallets are merely a collection of address(es)?
3) A page of addresses printed from bitaddress.org is a paper version of a wallet?
4) This paper wallet exists independently of any other wallet and is hack/theft proof, unless someone steals the paper?
5) Is a casascius coin essentially a physical wallet?

All statements are true.  #4 should be qualified to point out that if someone gets a copy of the private keys on the paper wallet, they can steal the coins.  Potential vectors for theft include malware on the computer used to print them.  There is no malware risk on Casascius Coins as I used a freshly formatted computer to produce all of the keys, and then repeatedly overwrote all sectors on the hard drive, and that computer had no network access at any step of the way.