Quote from: daemonfox on May 17, 2013, 02:01:58 PM

Wow... and what "good firewall" might you be using? Also, just having a router does not make you any safer... it just adds a couple steps to making a connection to networked equipment.

If you are really looking for security, you need to read more and listen to the people here who aren't flaming you, they are giving you good advice.

For starters, I do the following for my BTC use:

HOT WALLET: I have an active wallet on Blockchain.info that is solely used to payout directly to people I exchange with outside of BTC-e or VirCurEx... this is merely a personal choice as it makes it so I can send BTC from anywhere I have internet and everything has an email alert.

SIMMER DOWN WALLET: I have an encrypted wallet that I use to receive coins from others in exchange for services or donations etc. This wallet is located on a VPS that is ALWAYS OFF until I log in to boot it and unlock the wallet... it takes a while to get the blockchain but I only access it about once a month and track it using the blockchain.info to see if there is anything there before i even bother. This is not that secure by itself but keeping my VPS account secure and the VPS offline unless I am using it addes to it... and it is never much BTC anyways.

LUKE WARM WALLET: There is an encrypted wallet on one my HDDs in my file server at home, but it is not in any typical directory, does not have any other files in the same directory, is hidden, and can only be accessed by my administrator login, of which uses a hashed key as a password which is stored on a USB drive on my keyring. This is used as an intermediary before I send BTC to cold storage. I use this wallet to withdraw from exchanges and as my mining wallet. I try to empty it daily. Also, this server DOES NOT actually host the client I use to unlock and transfer BTC... I have to map to it from my laptop with the Administrator hash key and then I can drop a copy into the client directory, restart it, do my business, encrypt it again then overwrite it back to the server before disconnecting the mapped drive.

COLD STORAGE WALLET: I have a wallet address and privkey pair that I generated with vanitygen... at 45 BILLION difficulty... and I have NEVER used it for anything but receiving BTC. I tested another address and privkey pair by importing it into Blockchain.info and once I confirmed it worked, the harder address and privkey were generated (got mad lucky said it would take 2.5 yrs in oclvanitygen but it popped up on day 4) and tested sending it some BTC... walla Blockchain shows it has value but there is no way to get to it until the day I import it somewhere. I pay myself 30% of my mining intake and transfer that here plus any substantial payment/donations.

LONG TERM INVESTMENT WALLET: I also have a wallet I put my first 5+ BTC in... it is encrypted and exists in a handful of formats... keys printed and mailed to my mother who put it in our family safe deposit box, a copy of the encrypted wallet.dat on a USB that is also encrypted and sits in my safe deposit box at the bank, another USB that is encrypted and sits in my son's dresser with his other personal items he keeps, the encryption password for both USBs was printed (again a hash key), sealed in an envelope and given to my mother in law to put in her safe deposit box, and lastly the UNencrypted wallet.dat was burned to 2 DVDs that are locked away somewhere with my grandmother... i have no clue where as she agreed they would be sent to her personal estate storage and could not be retrieved until her estate is passed to me upon her death (dad was furious rofl that's what you get for alienating yourself from the family DAD... GG).

Anybody got any other methods that you use to keep safe? I know it sounds like a lot of work for some BTC... but I know I won't be posting here with a sob story and 100s if not 1,000s of BTC stolen.

I am not a regular poster, hence my post count, but I could not let this go by unnoticed in a thread about theft. There are a couple of misconceptions in this post that reveal that you have invented these security measures yourself. Please, do not take these practices as advice, and poster: please get informed before giving security advice with respect to bitcoin.

Clarification: your HOT, SIMMER DOWN, LUKEWARM wallets do not offer any different security. They are hot wallets. With respect to your 'cold' wallet: the difficulty in vanitygen is in no way related to the security of your private key. Only how difficult it is to get the first few characters equal to what you gave it. The security of a private key is the same. Also, you cannot really use this cold wallet offline, unless you know how to sign raw transactions. The idea of cold storage is that the private key never touches the internet. Not even temporarily touches a computer that is occasionally connected to the internet. But you still want to use it, right?

I recommend that you have a look into the bitcoin client Armory (https://bitcoinarmory.com/). It can give you easy to use cold storage that is truly safe, and you can make paper backups of your wallets to put in your safety deposit box.