Quote from: shorena on December 01, 2014, 09:27:40 AM

Quote from: goldsun on December 01, 2014, 12:36:55 AM

-snip-
Yeah, creating a new wallet and transfer the coins to that one would be good if the wallet file gets in someone elses hand that shouldn't have it. Although as you say, they can't do much without the password or the seed.

So with electrum we don't need to back up the file as long as we have the seed because we can re-create the wallet by typing in the seed. But for other wallets, back up of the wallet file is necessary.

Correct. E.g. I do regular backups of my bitcoin core wallet.dat even though it has 100 pregenerated addresses. Even if one of the backups fail, I still have at least one more that is still recent.

Quote from: goldsun on December 01, 2014, 12:36:55 AM

But would you recomend to put a locker on the whole file? Just in case. Because sometimes even when downloading something, you are not 100% sure if it contains virus or malware or not, even though you can read the comments for the file etc. But I assume a random virus that's not coded to log or steal bitcoins, wouldn't do any harm to a wallet, so ideally it could be safe to operate the wallet while having a virus, am I right?

Id recommend not to download random stuff that might contain a virus, but thats easier said than done. You can encrypt the file, but if your system is infected with a virus it is not safe to operate the wallet regardless of the additional encryption. If the virus is not looking for bitcoin related information, but only for e.g. CC information you might be fine anyway.

What the additional encryption of the folder or file would help with is the following scenario:

You did not use your wallet durring the current session your machine is running, install some sort of malware or get infected by it that somehow tricks you into entering your password, but since it cant find the wallet file it is unable to do anything with it and you have a chance to safe your bitcoin on a different machine.
In a way you allready have a very similar protection machanism with your external disk. As long as its not connected to your machine, a virus is unable to find the files needed and even if you entered the password you could still safe your coins.

Quote from: goldsun on December 01, 2014, 12:36:55 AM

What do you mean about that the next virus could attack my electrum wallet when I am decrypting my folder, if I am using an external harddrive? Because if I do use an external harddrive, I would probably make sure that my coins are safe on another computer, and hopefully that one won't have virus or malware or trojan or anything like that.

What I meant was: if you use your wallet while infected you have to
#1 connect the external drive
#2 decrypt the folder
#3 enter the password
if the virus is sneaky enough so you do not notice it while using your wallet you gain no advantage by adding an extra layer of encryption to your folder/wallet file.

Quote from: goldsun on December 01, 2014, 12:36:55 AM

But if I am connecting my external harddrive to my own computer while it's infected, and I try to decrypt the folder, its no point in having a decryption then because with or without decryption, they will see my password once I type it in.

My point exactly.

Quote from: goldsun on December 01, 2014, 12:36:55 AM

Can a virus or trojan infect an external harddrive when you connect it to a computer thats infected? It sound like it should, so I am not even sure why I am asking tho.

It can yes. Recent revelations show that intelligent agencies are able to infect certain USB devices on a hardware level. Spreading via external devices is an old technique. Before the internet it was the only way for a virus to spread, from floppy to floppy one machine at a time. This behaviour might return to reach offline wallets.

Quote from: goldsun on December 01, 2014, 12:36:55 AM

And another question, would you rather have two electrum wallets with your bitcoins or just one? It would be smarter to have two wallets, but a bit more jobs with saving the seed, even though it's not that hard.

It depends on the amount of bitcoins and how much that is to you. With a small amount of BTC Id be fine with a single wallet. With more than a months salary a cold wallet would be in order. Not necessary two versions of electrum but e.g. armoy cold and hot and an electrum wallet for smaller amounts that are used more often. Since armory is pretty heavy - needs fully synced bitcoin core as well as a database of its own thats eating even more space - you might consider paper or hardware wallets for long term storrage. I also played around with old phones for a while as cold storrage, but I allways had this nagging feeling that they might "call home".

Alright, so it seems like I understand what I need to understand about electrum. Now when you mention armory I am thinking, here we go again lol.

I've heard about armory but when I looked into the armory sectioni here I see a lot of threads about armory not working etc, so it makes me think now that electrum is the way to go.

Can I use electrum for long term if I save the seed and keep my password safe, and having my wallet on an external harddrive? I don't even plan to use my bitcoins to buy anything yet, just to make sure they are there, from time to time. And could I shut of internet when I do this, just for extra security, or will it not work when internet is not on? I assume I then would need to do "offline transactions" but I would just want to see if my coins are there or not.

A trezor would be nice but they cost a bit and if electrum can do the job as good as trazor, then there is not a big difference. But thats what u meant with hardware wallets, right?

And for paper wallets, I kind of like the idea but I think it's hard to make them, not sure why but it seems complicated.

And yeah as u notice, I think it's a bit annoying to use the quote function here lol.