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.
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.
Come again? I am not sure how you think there is no added security in how I keep my wallets... of course the blockchain wallet is base level no added security... that's why it is my outbound wallet and is always empty when I am finished using it.
The second wallet does have an added step to security... in order for someone to use it they would have to sign into my VPS account and boot the instance, or have my private key. Not saying it can't happen, but it is an added step between them and my coins.
How the third wallet is just as hot as the blockchain wallet idk... you can't even search for the wallet, and if you found it, you couldn't move it anywhere useful unless you have my admin password... access denied to anyone other than the local domain admin account. Folder security is not hard so... yeah...
I understand these are all measures OUTSIDE the actual BTC client, but that is exactly where people are getting themselves stolen from... an unsecured platform.
As far as the Cold Storage... I never implied a vanity addresses difficulty increases security... I know it doesn't, never said it did... just detailing how I got the address. The object is not to use this wallet EVER until the day I clean it out... so no, the privkey has never touched the network, and I can send all the coin I want to it without having to sign a single raw transaction... you lost me there... don't know where you were headed with that... since you don't need a privkey to see an addresses balance.
Now, for the "and poster: please get informed before giving security advice with respect to bitcoin" comment... you should really elaborate more when you try to pick apart someones posts... other than recommending a 3rd party service... not once did you provide any type of useful feedback on how I am doing things incorrectly or how to correct them. You basically flamed me, made two statements with no suggestions on why I am wrong nor how to remedy those supposed errors, incorrectly assumed I meant a 45 billion difficulty vanity address was more secure than any other and then advertised a website... not very helpful.
Thank you for exemplifying my signature quote.
