Post
Topic
Board Development & Technical Discussion
Re: [GUIDE] Encoding Bip39 Seed Phrase to Hex Code
by
DireWolfM14
on 09/11/2018, 16:16:00 UTC
It is better to encrypt your keys or seed with a password. Encoding can be reversed (and should never be used "for security purposes" because it is not related to security), encryption can only be reversed if you know the password (or you crack the password but with secure passwords longer than 20 chars this isnt a problem yet). You can use gpg --symmetric --cipher-algo AES256 or openssl to aes encrypt your keys/seed with a password then encode the encrypted string to hex/base64/etc. Encryption will make the string longer but also means that no one can steal your coins if you lose your paper wallet and someone reverse engineers your encoding.

Another idea is to print your encrypted seed/keys on credit card size paper, laminate it and store copies securely in different places.

Edit: Your screenshots show google docs and windows. For anything that requires security please use linux, e.g. tails USB and avoid google services.

All very good suggestions, thank you.

The google doc is merely to share the information, I also recommend against storing private keys or seeds on cloud services.  I use an off-line computer to generate the wallet seeds, and only access the wallets using master public keys on my on-line PC.  

For this particular batch of backups I wanted to avoid encryption because I want my kids to be able to decode the seeds in case I'm no longer around.  The backups will be stored in a safe, to which my kids will receive the combination upon my demise.