Quote from: Dorky on August 11, 2017, 02:36:14 AM

1. You are assuming hackers and kidnappers are so stupid that they do not know about dummy wallets. You have wrong assumption.

You seem to have the assumption that all hackers and kidnappers are evil and sadistic enough to keep beating people for the hell of it... just in case you have more money. My point is that with a hardware wallet, there is no actual evidence anywhere how many wallets a person happens to have. They simply don't exist until a passphrase is entered...

However, if an attacker happens to find 20 items in my email account that are all encrypted... what do you think they're going to do if i stop at #1 and say I have nothing else? Perhaps they'll just ignore items 2 through 19?

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2. If you have tons of change addresses, your backup will be very problematic. You don't believe? Try it out. You should pray your hardware wallet will stay fine without glitches, or else you can say sorry to all your savings.

They're ALL able to be regenerated from a simple 12/24 word seed... unlike a bunch of randomly generated keys... ie. one of the main reasons for BIP32 existing in the first place. I can create a thousand addresses... and then have my computer explode into a million pieces... and drop my hardware wallet into the toilet and then microwave it... and you know what? I can recover all of them... I don't even need the hardware wallet to do it.

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Oh, yeah. Don't worry. You have the seeds written down and stored somewhere just in case for recovery. I assume they cannot be eaten, stolen, or destroyed.

Exactly... I can just triple encrypt them and put them in my email, on USB thumbdrive, written down on a piece of paper in my favourite book between pages 57/58, stored on the cloud, stored in a bank vault...

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3. What I mean is that 19 addresses are part of the change addresses as well, or else you will have far more than 20 addresses to look after.

Ummm no... why wouldn't I just have 20 receive addresses? You really don't seem to understand how Hierarchical Deterministic wallets actually work.

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4. You are avoiding the question on how to secure your hardware wallet's seeds/mnemonics/passphrases, which I believe you can never answer satisfactorily.

As I just mentioned above, I can just store it digitally encrypted if I so choose. I am then protected from exposure by the use of dummy wallets. The dummy wallet facility DOES give me the security of ensuring that an attacker can only have confidence of 1 wallet, the default wallet generated from the seed and no passphrase. While they may know how dummy wallets work and may suspect I have hidden wallets, there is nothing they can do to actually prove their existence, regardless of how much they hit my loved ones or me. Unlike having a whole bunch of digitally encrypted items laying around in my email and on thumb drives etc. Do you see the difference? I have plausible deniability because there is no proof of anything existing other than my seed.

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5. If you want to spend, you don't necessarily must use hardware wallets to do the job. Desktop wallets can work fine and they cost $0.

At which point all your security is also 0. You're going to just import your keys into a desktop wallet? Oh that's right... 2nd computer offline... oh wait... how much did that second computer cost again? You're doing well if you found one for less than the price of a hw wallet...

I also never said hardware wallets were compulsory for spending. I said they offer security without compromising convenience.

If I need to move some coins, I can plug the wallet in, sign the transaction, and then broadcast. I don't need to get my encrypted file, decrypt it, transfer an unsigned transaction to offline machine (better make sure that USB stick is clean)... sign transaction... back to online machine and broadcast. And the make sure I've destroyed all evidence of the key on the offline machine... Also, I've found that carrying a 2nd computer with me while travelling is a bit of a nuisance with the limited baggage allowances that airlines give these days Tongue

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Come on. Give me a break. You are here arguing against my method without giving even a single credit to it, as if it is useless. Clearly you are here to argue for the sake of winning an argument and rest assured I will never let you win this argument.

"Without a single credit"?? I've mentioned on multiple occasions, that your method is a viable alternative to hardware wallets... I just don't think it is as secure as you believe it to be (a point you eventually conceded) nor as useful overall as a hardware wallet for the reasons I've outlined... and I certainly never said it was useless.

Quote from: HCP on August 09, 2017, 03:12:22 PM

Like I've been saying all along... your system is pretty much the same as using a hardware wallet

I've taken the liberty of bolding it for your eyes to see Roll Eyes

Quote from: HCP on August 09, 2017, 01:25:36 PM

You mean where I said "Is it "better" than a hardware wallet? A viable alternative sure, but better? I'd say that is somewhat debatable and likely dependent on the use case(s) of a given person"

I'd already bolded that one before... so I've underlined it as well this time...

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A hardware wallet:
1. Doesn't give you 100% control of your keys. Using some source code to derive the keys from the seeds is bullshit as that's not the company's intention.

It's no different to using encryption software to decrypt your keys now is it? Or are you going to do the decryption by hand?

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2. Doesn't protect you from a $5 wrench. Using dummy wallet as excuse is bullshit as we all know what you have is more than just dummy wallet.

How can they? There is no proof. No evidence of how many wallets I have. I could 1 or I could have 10000000. They don't know because there is no tangible evidence of anything past the seed existing, unlike having a series of encrypted items on disk or in email etc. that are visible.

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3. Is a 3rd-party security risk. Denying this is bullshit. Saying/implying it is compulsory to use WinRar for my method is also bullshit.

I never said it wasn't a 3rd party security risk... you claimed your method was better than hw wallet as it didn't rely on a 3rd party... but clearly it does rely on 3rd parties... unless you've gone ahead and written yourself an OS and some encryption software from scratch... I've been trying to point out, since I made the mistake of offending your ego, that NO method is 100% safe. There is always risk.

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4. Doesn't allow unlimited backups, vs my method that allows so.

Pretty sure that there aren't any laws saying that 12/24 word seeds can't be stored in multiple places using multiple methods... but then legal systems around the world can be kinda crazy... so you never know. I'm also fairly sure that the hw wallet manufacturers don't limit purchases to 1 per person... Trezor sells 3 packs if I'm not mistaken.

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5. Requires the same/similar need for encryption/security/backup (of seeds/mnemonics/passphrases). Implying they do not need so is bullshit.

Feel free to show where I have said that seeds don't need to be securely backed up somewhere...

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There is NO such thing as needing hardware wallet to spend the cryptocurrencies easily, conveniently, safely, and securely. Implying that we need hardware wallet to spend is bullshit. In my article, I've said it clearly that hardware wallet is an option (but not the only option) when it's time to spend.

Obviously people are spending cryptocurrencies every day without using hardware wallets... I never said they were required to spend. I stated they offer a level of convenience without sacrificing security, which I believe your method does not.

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You being a smartass, either do not read my article, or read it but have partial understanding of it, try to seek the pleasure of arguing with me. I will not let you win this argument. It is very easy to spot someone arguing for ego, and someone arguing for solution. You argue for ego, because you give NO solution.

No solution for what exactly? How to store bitcoins securely while maintaining convenience? I thought that my solution would be fairly obvious... use a hardware wallet. In my opinion it offers the same level of security in some areas (securing seed), more in others (spending and dummy wallets) and is more convenient (portability, spending)... arguably it could be considered cheaper too, as a hw wallet is cheaper than a 2nd computer for spending or setting it all up offline.

While we're talking about solutions... I'm still waiting to hear how you propose to leave no evidence of multiple encrypted addresses in your email or on your thumbdrive etc and/or how you would implement a dummy wallet solution with your method.

Telling me I'm not creative enough to see it or that "my heart will point the way" doesn't really explain it... and is the sort of answer people resort to when they don't actually have a solution either. Despite what you think, I am genuinely interested in possible solutions to these issues...