On Thu, 28 Sep 2017 21:39:15 +0000 (UTC) jim bell <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > On Thursday, September 28, 2017, 2:19:19 PM PDT, juan > <[email protected]> wrote: > On Thu, 28 Sep 2017 16:34:32 -0400 > John Newman <[email protected]> wrote: > > > >> I’ve been using electrum on android and Linux for the past 18 > >> months or so, and can only second Juan’s recommendation - > >> it’s worked quite well for me. There’s even a “bitcoin atm” near > >> my house where you can deposit cash and specify a wallet > >> address (or scan a qr code) - although I haven’t used the atm > >> since prices got above 1k/btc, so it’s been a little while ;) > > > > For completness' sake I guess we should mention that one has to > be reasonaby sure that the machine running electrum (or other > client) isn't 'compromised' / has some sort of coin stealing > malware. > Yes, I recall reading on a blog of this potential problem. Do > ordinary anti-virus programs have the ability to detect such problems > before they BECOME real problems? I don't know. I don't think anti-virus are to be trusted really. The two most secure options in this case are using an offline computer, or using a hardware wallet. If using a computer, you install a fresh linux distro, generate keys, and never connect the machine to the internet. You use your internet-connected machine to create transactions but you sign the transactions using the offline computer. That way even if your online computer is hacked, the keys remain safe in the offline computer. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Securing_your_wallet#Cold_wallets Harware wallets use the same setup but the offile computer is replaced with simpler hardware. (You'd have to trust the hardware manufacturer to some degree though, or build your own) https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Hardware_wallet Jim Bell > > > > > Also, best practice is to have most of your funds in cold > storage. > > https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Cold_storage > > >
