Quote from: HCP on August 08, 2017, 05:18:59 AM

No, I'm not. You stated that you have "used WinRar for many several years and it never disappoint me, not even once" as some sort of proof that you can trust it 100%... so I pointed out that this is exactly the type of comment people have made about various services/software over the years... which then turn out to be a scam or buggy and financial and/or data loss occurs. Just because something hasn't "failed" yet, doesn't mean it won't.

My article isn't mainly about using WinRar for cold storage. If you feel WinRar is insecure, or less secure, you have the freedom to go for other encryption software or write your own software.

I've asked several times now, how you can be 100% certain that WinRAR has no backdoors (or unpublicised bugs/flaws) that could allow an attacker to sidestep your encryption and access your private keys. The simple and very objective answer is that you can't be 100% certain of this, as it is closed source. You are putting your faith and trust in the WinRAR devs, just like you claim hardware wallet users are having to put their faith and trust in the hardware wallet manufacturers.

And just like you, we can't be certain that hardware wallets are 100% secure either... because there is no 100% secure system. There will always be attack vectors. Your continued assertion that your method is one example of 100% security without any real supporting proof seems to be showing a certain lack of objectivity.

If WinRar is not safe/secure, then tell me which software is. Or at least tell me or point out to me real-life cases of it being hacked, despite using very strong alphanumeric + symbol passwords.

"I wish when I debate with someone, that person would be objective" and play the ball... not the man. Undecided

You talked about hardware wallet's dummy wallet, as if doing your own encryption will render you incapable of doing the same, as if doing dummy wallet is only a possibility if you rely on a 3rd-party. To me, that is very subjective and not smart at all.

Is that a serious question? Because it should be fairly obvious to "an intelligent man" how one could satisfactorily achieve that with a hardware wallet.

Huh

Why would your total of 100 BTC be shuffled with every transaction?

Huh? I thought you know something about change addresses? If you are using hardware wallet, you should know what I mean.

Why could you not also have 20 addresses with 5 btc each when using a hardware wallet? Huh

Assuming you're spending less than 5 btc as per your example, the wallet would only need one UTXO so "you spend only 5 btc and everyone knows you have at least 5 btc only (instead of 100 btc, because your wallet only needs to use one input from one address)".

For added defense against the wrench attack, you simply create multiple different wallets with one address each... hand over the passphrase to the "exposed" 5 BTC and your dummy wallet.

The bonus is that with a hardware wallet there is exactly ZERO evidence that these multiple wallets even exist... whereas, with your system of 20 different encrypted private keys and an attacker has hacked your email or found your USB/CD with the encrypted files... they can actually see all the different encrypted items in your inbox or on your CD etc. So, I'm not quite sure how you deny the existence of other keys/addresses?

All that hardware wallet can do for cold storage, my method can do the same. This appears to be beyond your comprehension. You speak as if hardware wallet cannot be hacked. That's your subjectivity. And if you feel my method of encrypting all private keys in one place is unsafe, then what is actually stopping you from encrypting each of them separately? Clearly, you do not understand and yet act like you do. Show me real-life cases of any WinRar files getting hacked despite strong passwords (not passwords like "abc" or "123"). Hackers know if you are using hardware wallet, most likely the passphrase you give them will refer to the dummy wallet. There is nothing to stop them from keep using a $5 wrench on you, or on your loved ones.

Obviously to you, those arguing for paper wallet vs hardware wallet must be stupid. And those arguing for digitally-encrypted paper wallet (like me) is even more stupid. I begin to wonder, that if I were to write an article on why I use only hardware wallet for cold storage, you would find the false pleasure to argue why I am also wrong in this. Ultimately you will say no method is 100% safe. And if that is the case, I would like to refer you to the Bible verse Matthew 6:19-21.

Do you realise that a 24 word seed... is effectively like having a 24 character password from an "alphabet" that has 2048 possible characters in it... whereas your proposed password of 20+ characters (we'll even be generous and say 24 character to compare apples to apples) using alphanumerics + symbols gives you a total of 26 upper + 26 lower + 10 numbers + say ~30 symbols... for a total "alphabet" size of ~92 total characters to choose from.

2048²⁴ combinations vs. ~92²⁴ combinations... Tell me again which one is going to be easier to brute force?

I would like to send you a file encrypted with my method and see if you can actually hack it to rest the case.