Hey, I have a question about securing seed when flying out of the country permanently. If I have a copy on paper and put it in my luggage it will be scanned at the airport and someone can have access to my Bitcoins. I can have a seed card in my pocket but there is also the risk of it falling out. What is a better and safer way to carry the seed away? Maybe just create a backup again upon arrival at the destination?
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In your brain. Memorize your additional passphrase. Do not use the 12 or 24 words only.
Or use border wallets. With sparrow wallet for example. https://www.borderwallets.com
I did this memorizing 2-4 words at a time and it was relatively easy. Say them to yourself multiple times per day until it sticks, then add another 2-4 words.
Now I just say my words to myself once every few days just to ensure that they stay.
no no no, don't memorize the 24 words. You will forget them. That technique, while it is good, it is not 100% safe. The brain changes with age, and for the worst, and also, you could have an accident, some head trauma, that can make you forget everything.
Memorize your passphrase which is like the 25th word. The passphrase can be something more easy to remember for you than the 24 random words because you make it, and still be secure just to cross the border and airports.
Who said I memorized 24 words?
oh it is true I thought you were, because the way you described the technique adding 2-4 words each time. But you didn't say this was to memorize the 24 words.
How to use passpharse to recover 24 words? Do you mean simply encrypt them using some algorithm and passpharse?
Download Sparrow Wallet on your desktop computer and you'll see that when you create new wallet, not only can you select 12/24 words, but you can select an option to add an additional word or set of characters of your own choosing. This word or set of characters does not have to be part of the BIP39 word bank.
the passphrase is your 25th word or 13th word depending if you use 24 or 12 for the seed. It is created when you create your wallet. If your wallet doesn't provide you with a way to enter the passphrase, change your wallet. Memorize your passphrase just to cross the airport. You were worried that they can scan your 24 words at the airport. If they enter those 24 words without your passphrase, they would only see an empty wallet. They can't do anything with it. They would need the 25 words in order to access your sats.
You simply mean a wallet that additionally requires an additional password to recreate the wallet?
A passphrase is optional. It's just a new word, of your choice, added to the end of your 12 or 24 word seedphrase.
A specific 12/24 word seedphrase is for a particular wallet. If you add a passphrase to the end of that, it's a completely different wallet. One person could have a seedphrase with 12 of the same words and another person could have those same 12 words + a passphrase and it would be a completely different wallet. Those two wallets would not be connected in any way whatsoever, even though their private key is almost exactly the same.
I have setup my passphrase to be very long and memorable, but easily reconfigurable (for me) so that if I want a completely new wallet, I just reorganize my passphrase, but still use the same seedphrase.
Example:
Let's say your 12 words are all the same:
goat goat goat goat goat goat goat goat goat goat goat goat
That's one wallet
Now lets create a new wallet:
goat goat goat goat goat goat goat goat goat goat goat goat + janfebmaraprmayjunjulaugsepoctnovdec [this last bit is your passphrase]
This is a completely different wallet and private key
This passphrase is similar to how I've done my own passphrase, but I use something else that is memorable to me. If I used the passphrase above and wanted to reorganize it, I could do something like:
febmaraprmayjunjulaugsepoctnovdecjan
or
decnovoctsepaugjuljunmayaprmarfebjan
and each of those would create ANOTHER completely different wallet/private key
maybe it is interesting to use the goat example part as a passphrase too. You did the goat as representing the seed phrase part right? But we could use that in the passphrase too, it increases the length of the passphrase a lot while you only have to memorize the word goat and the number of times. low cost complexity added. should be always used with a more random string after it.
yes. like sparrow wallet for example it is not required. it is optional.
okay
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Bad advice. If the passphrase is chosen by an human to be easy to remember, chances are that it will be pretty easy to bruteforce given the seed phrase, since there is no rate limits besides the computing power to create a wallet. The entire deal about password managers we use (or should use) today is to create secure passwords because humans suck at it.
My passphrase is >25 characters long, but very easy for me to remember because of how I've structured it.
Good luck cracking that.
There is absolute no way with the current technology to bruteforce a 25+ character passphrase that contain no known words or meaning. The only question is if the way you structured it undermines these assumptions.
You cannot effectively brute force attack a passphrase, can you? You need to contact the node and to check balance each time.
In any case, this was just to pass the airport, and then you could move the funds again to a more secure and backed up passphrase.
Why wouldn't it be effective if you are using one or more local nodes? It is just a database after all. And i think you don't even need to contact a node if you know at least one public address of the wallet.
I don't know. Maybe. I'm not a hacker 😅
There are plenty of ways to make things easy to remember AND secure. Don't let someone else's fear persuade you.
indeed, 12/24 words seeds are easy to remember and secure.
Good tip. Though I wouldn’t recommend this for long periods of time. The amount of times I’ve forgotten my 4 digit card PIN in my life. Fine for short-term, but for most people - wouldn’t say it should be relied upon once you’ve made the trip.
Not everyone has issues with remembering things. To each their own. Find what works for you.
I suppose if you were suffering from amnesia you could carry something to remind you of the phrase/word, like a photograph.
Would not suggest a photo sind a photo is often taken with a smart phone and most of these are automatically backed up to the cloud. Once your seed is in the cloud it is vulnerable to hacking since you have no idea who might have access or where they will end up.
Now that's a good point. Important distinction.
I was thinking of a physical photo, like a kodak print. Not carrying a phone. Physical objects, something like as simple as a piece of fruit. Depends how your memory works and how efficiently you could use a mnemonic device.
At this moment. Time is undefeated.
This
If its just to cross a border you can memorize it. Just make sure you really have it down. When you have arrived in a safe place, write it down again. Don't depend on your memory for longer periods of time.
Simple bring a Bible and circle or underline the words
marking words in any book seems an interesting way
foreign country? have a notebook (paper) with vocabulary on you. It can be in your carryon bag. it's just 1000 words and their translations. Have a system.
it's quite a good idea
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I have been thinking about this for a while and I like the book idea as a backup. The book itself needs to be something that is not going to attract attention. Religious texts and books that are political in nature could get attention travelling in some areas. So I thought that a puzzle book (crossword game) could be used in some fashion.
Now there's an idea... :0
Write it on your dick
That's totally not gonna fit even with 12 words.
Maybe not you, but for me it'll work
;)
https://m.stacker.news/8491
Idea, Find a numbered list of the Bip39 word list. Write down the indices. To the outside it would look like meaninless list of numbers. And/or maybe enclose it something that can't be seen through
Like here:https://www.blockplate.com/pages/bip-39-wordlist Just don't forget what you did :)
https://borderwallets.com
We are now natively supported in Sparrow and Bitcoin Tribe.
Bon voyage :)
You can transform your private key into emojis, into hex colours, etc
This is trickier than people give it credit for because 1) You shouldn't ever type your seed into the computer in case of malware, & 2) the Human brain basically can't be trusted to remember something that long.
At home you should use a metal seed vault that you hide and then memorize a password to the wallet it backs up. Basically, to travel with your seed your job is to leave that at home but make that seed phrase virtual & encrypted with your password so it can be transported or parked online without anyone else being able to read it.
Here's how to do that safely:
That's it, just be damn sure you've memorized your longass password backwards and forwards. And if you know you're going to be using it on the other side, bring that Tails drive to open it under on that side... Because other computers may have malware at that stage.
Good luck!
passphrase
Divide part of the keys and save it as the ending to the contact of your favourite callers on phone
Pretend you’re studying the language of wherever you’re flying to – bring flash cards with your words.
Pack a deck of cards and save the encrypted output to cloud storage: https://www.schneier.com/academic/solitaire/
card deck could get stolen or shuffled though :)
First of all, regardless of your back-up scheme, there should never be a single point of failure. And secondly, no secrets should ever be stored online.
Using a seed + passphrase, consider the following scheme:
#1: Seed on paper @ Country A, Location A #2: Passphrase on paper @ Country A, Location B #3: Seed on paper @ Inside your wallet #4: Passphrase @ Memorised (should be ~6 words taken from BIP-39 list)
If your seed is apprehended in transit or you forget your passphrase, you can still recover the back-ups in country A so you don't lose your funds. Then you can try again.
Once you make it to country B, transfer funds to a completely new wallet as you are no longer able to check-in on the unguarded back-ups left in country A.
If at some point you do go back to country A, destroy the old back-ups for privacy reasons (why I recommended paper).
My solutions: 1) leave the seeds at geographically different locations if it is multisig. 2) Maybe use a seed xor if it is singlesig. 3) Use a small dictionary and underline each word of your seed, then mark the page number somewhere in bitwarden.
In my case I have a small dictionary to avoid having a hand luggage over 7kg, hardware wallets with pass codes anyway, multisig with 2 seeds I don't have in my possession. Also if you go to countries where the law is working, besides India where it was more strict they don't look at your papers anyway, they look at metal things which can be used as weapons. So until now no problem with my hardware wallets protected with a code or passphrase in my 7kg luggage and seeds somewhere else. This works great in Asia, but if you go to Venezuela and you get robbed by someone with a gun there may be better alternative solutions.
Border Wallets gotchu.
https://www.borderwallets.com/
Put it on tails and just carry the usb stick in your pocket, mail another copy to your new address
https://seedxor.com/
Encrypt one and store in cloud, other one on paper in a book.
How do you do this without a coldcard?
https://github.com/Coldcard/firmware/blob/master/docs/seed-xor.md
12 word phrase. memorize it or encode it in the margins of a book or something.
just try not to travel hahahhahaa
Steganography with an image
As you get older, you may forget the seed so a memory isn't the best solution. Of course, if you have several backups and this is one of them, then by all means
yes, should have at least 3 copy for your big stacks:)
Wouldn’t trust this for actual funds or a hot wallet but this tool can let you encrypt legible sentences and change the complete structure of them, with peace of mind.
I’ve not yet used it, but also led to this also being created. Perhaps useful for people that want to encrypt backup files, if cleaning drives. Maybe not for private keys however.
Digital: USB with encrypted zip file (generated on an air-gapped system). Rename it to pdf to pretend it is corrupted and add a random of other stuff.
Analogic: keep a notebook with handwritten stuff and glued piece of texts, create a memorizable schema to recover the seed from it.
Backup: memory.
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Agree with this, make a poem with the words (in order obviously, or in reverse order) and make a copy. And only keep a passphrase in your head.
How would you recommend backing up a passphrase? Seen plenty of horror stories of people forgetting/losing that. Some people are extremely opposed to passphrases for that reason. I'm not, just an observation
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