Quote from: DannyHamilton on November 04, 2013, 03:06:04 PM

Quote from: Five Points on November 04, 2013, 04:57:27 AM

it sounds like you can share your public address, and there will be no security breach if you keep the private key to yourself.

That is correct.

Now I'm lost, I thought exposing your public key weakens the integrity of the security mechanism, allowing for the eventual cracking of your private key.

Quote from: DannyHamilton on November 04, 2013, 03:06:04 PM

There is no guarantee that ECDSA will ever be "breached", but there is no guarantee that it won't either. That is the nature of cryptography. A cryptographic function is secure until someone finds a way to make it insecure, then people move to a newer secure function. Fortuntately, as long as it is used properly, bitcoin layers 3 different cryptographic functions between your private key and your public address. It is extremely unlikely that a weakness will be found in all three functions simultaneously. This means there is time to replace a function in the protocol while bitcoins are still protected by the other two functions. Bitcoin can there fore grow and change to adapt to new cryptographic discoveries.

If you say so, I don't know how people expect Bitcoin to thrive when somebody like me is being admonished for learning how to take the proper steps to utilize the full potential of its encryption methods. Most of this stuff would sound like nonsense to a mainstream crowd, let alone having to worry about changing encryption methods down the line when they've invested some of their time to learning how it actually works, if they even learned it at all. Hmmm, no wonder there are banks to take care of all of this for the commoners.

Quote from: DannyHamilton on November 04, 2013, 03:06:04 PM

Describe these "offline transactions"? Explain exactly how ownership of the bitcoins (which reside as an output on the blockchain) will be transfered to another individual using your "offline wallet and something like Armory" without the public key being exposed?

Yeah, I really don't get it myself. The idea I think is so you don't have to use your private key on the hot PC?

Quote from: DannyHamilton on November 04, 2013, 03:06:04 PM

Quote from: Five Points on November 04, 2013, 04:57:27 AM

Another idea: couldn't I just open up a separate offline wallet on my offline PC to send small funds to so that those bitcoins can be used freely?

Send small funds from where?

I was thinking I send a small amount to another Bitcoin wallet, and use that to spend monies. But then I realized after your response that all transactions have to be recorded online.

Quote from: DannyHamilton on November 04, 2013, 03:06:04 PM

Quote from: Five Points on November 04, 2013, 04:57:27 AM

This also preserves the secure state of my offline savings wallet, correct?

That depends. Will you be spending/sending any of the bitcoins that are received at that offline savings wallet? Or will it be exclusively receiving bitcoins. As soon as you try to get any bitcoins out of that offline savings, you are back where we started.

I see what you mean. Which means I'll have to come up with multiple brain wallets to maintain a true offline account. Hopefully, I wouldn't have to do that so many times.

Quote from: DannyHamilton on November 04, 2013, 03:06:04 PM

Which has worked very well for many, many years. What is it about paper money that you don't like?

A paper wallet is basically a bundle of cash, correct? So I would basically be keeping a bundle of cash in my domicile or another residence. Yeah, it's a lot smaller and easier to maintain, but you're still keeping a ton of money in your home. Does anyone do this with conventional money except for drug dealers?

Quote from: DannyHamilton on November 04, 2013, 03:06:04 PM

So, you'd rather that the hoodlums attack you directly to get at your bitcoins than to attack a safe? You prefer to be beaten to a bloody pulp and tortured beyond belief for the sake of some money? Personally, I'd rather they just took my money and moved on. My life, and health are far more valuable to me than any amount of money could ever be.

Well, I would give it up if I had to, that example was under the idea that the safe would be targeted without my presence.

Quote from: DannyHamilton on November 04, 2013, 03:06:04 PM

Quote from: Five Points on November 04, 2013, 04:57:27 AM

or keeping it at a bank deposit, which I thought was the direction we were trying to steer away from with this new paradigm shift.

A paper wallet is absolutely nothing like that. Where did you get that idea?

I have seen people recommend saving paper wallets in bank vaults.

Quote from: DannyHamilton on November 04, 2013, 03:06:04 PM

Quote from: Five Points on November 04, 2013, 04:57:27 AM

Or it could just get lost or destroyed by fire.

And your memory can't get lost or destroyed by fire? or illness? or fall or other injury? Just store two copies in two separate secure locations.

I could always encrypt my brainwallet with an audio message if worst came to worst. Of course, better methodologies can be thought up of compared to coming up with one on the spot in a forum post.

Quote from: DannyHamilton on November 04, 2013, 03:06:04 PM

Quote from: Five Points on November 04, 2013, 04:57:27 AM

As I'll explain later, I think my brainwallet passphrase is going to be amazing,

And I disagree.

People have advocated software seeds that contain 12 English words as being highly secure. C'mon, I can do better than that, is it that hard to believe?

Quote from: DannyHamilton on November 04, 2013, 03:06:04 PM

And you can be 100% that none of them will go against your wishes behind your back and write it down so they don't forget it?

Not if it's easy for them to remember, yet nonsensical for others. Just so I don't give everything away, we would all speak some break-off dialect of some artificial language that only we know. But yes, I see what you're saying. I guess I'll have to come up with something clever in the meantime.

Quote from: DannyHamilton on November 04, 2013, 03:06:04 PM

You're just not like "other people", right?

See above.

Quote from: DannyHamilton on November 04, 2013, 03:06:04 PM

Quote from: Five Points on November 04, 2013, 04:57:27 AM

What I meant originally was that if my passphrase does get hacked, no one will ever be able to support a brainwallet ever again once I've shared my compromised passphrase on the internets.

I suspect you are wrong about that, but I've already indicated that I'm already generally against the idea of a brain wallet in most cases anyhow.

See above.

Quote from: DannyHamilton on November 04, 2013, 03:06:04 PM

Quote from: Five Points on November 04, 2013, 04:57:27 AM

As mentioned earlier, I could use offline transactions, or set up another wallet as a middle man.

Which most likely demonstrates that you have no idea what you are talking about and are just making stuff up in hopes that you can do what you want without someone telling you that it is a bad idea.

Yes, I concede that. But now I have learned a bit more, and can understand where my original plan fails, which is what I wanted to accomplish with this thread. This has all been a great thought experiment so that I can come up with a better plan centered around a brainwallet and/or other methods.

Quote from: DannyHamilton on November 04, 2013, 03:06:04 PM

Quote from: Five Points on November 04, 2013, 04:57:27 AM

One technique I've seen is someone type a bunch of BS letters over 1000 characters long into a brainwallet to generate keys. That seems pretty secure.

No. It really doesn't. That is a bad idea. You want a good idea? Grab a handful of very well balanced dice (perhaps from your local casino?). Roll the dice a bunch of times (until you've rolled at least 62 dice) and then convert from base 6 to get a private key.

How is that a bad idea? Yeah, the dice sounds good, but typing something like this into a brain wallet is bad? :

onthunsoeahtueroah.crhu903409hu0244903gp02g2[93g[hu9[h239g23[9g29j0ud203gf2309g[192[3d0239[23.0,u02u3 (and so on, for as long as you want)

Quote from: DannyHamilton on November 04, 2013, 03:06:04 PM

So you've learned nothing then? You still haven't even bothered to learn the difference between an address and a public key? Why do I even bother if you aren't going to make an effort?

I meant to say public key instead of public address. But yes, I am having a hard time grasping the difference between public key and an address. I'll make sure to study that thoroughly from here on out.

But if you think the mainstream public could understand all the caveats and nuances of Bitcoin's cryptograhy, then you got another thing coming.

Quote from: DannyHamilton on November 04, 2013, 03:06:04 PM

Quote from: Five Points on November 04, 2013, 04:57:27 AM

I guess my only other question is: should I just memorize the friggin' private key?

Sure, you could do that if you like. How will you generate the private key? And will you memorize a new private key every time you spend funds?

It would be a pain to memorize the private key, but it seems like the easiest way without interfacing with layers of garbage each time.

My only question is, if I have the public key: then it's just like entering a password, right? If I get it wrong, no harm, no foul? I could keep going on until I get it.

My worry was entering in an incorrect key and having something horrible happen. If not, then I don't mind memorizing a new key, but I can see how it can get confusing.

Five Points

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