Private keys

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Galahad
Posts: 18
Joined: Thu Aug 22, 2013 12:16 pm
os: windows

Private keys

Post by Galahad »

Hi. I followed a tutorial to get the namecoind working. I have it working and have created an address successfully.

I was wondering, how do I find my private keys for the address so that I can take them off the pc for security? I don't like the idea of malware stealing my Namecoins. I have the RPC username and password, does this have anything to do with it? Please excuse ignorance on this, closest I've done to this was using the Litecoin application on Windows.

domob
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Re: Private keys

Post by domob »

Welcome to namecoin! :) If you just want to prevent malware stealing your coins, I would suggest to just move the wallet.dat file to some secure storage location (but be sure most of all to backup it first and ensure that you have redundant backups at every time) and remove it from your ordinary computer. Whenever you need to perform operations with namecoin and your wallet, you have to restore it, perform the operations (and hope that during that time no malware is present) and then move it off again. In fact, basically the same things apply for namecoin wallet security as for bitcoin wallet security, so you will find also a lot of good suggestions when you look that up.

You can also take a look at Namecoin-Qt: https://dot-bit.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=998 Even if you don't want to actually use the Qt UI (like me), it has a lot of extension RPC commands that can also be useful to you. First of all, it allows wallet encryption like the more or less recent bitcoin versions do. Furthermore, if you actually want to "literally" get the private key from your wallet, you can use "dumpprivkey" with it - although that won't remove the key from the wallet, so after performing a backup you still have to remove your wallet.dat.
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phelix
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Re: Private keys

Post by phelix »

http://www.namecoinia.org/ You can save the website for offline use.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=220946.0

Have not used it myself or looked at the code but virtualmaster has been around for a while.
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virtual_master
Posts: 541
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Re: Private keys

Post by virtual_master »

Welcome on the Namecoin forum.
If you have a wallet with namecoin addresses start namecoind and in another terminal:
namecoind dumpprivkey [namecoin address]
to find out the private key to a specific address.
If you want to import:
importprivkey [namecoinprivkey]
If you create a brain wallet from a pass-phrase with the stored page from http://www.namecoinia.org/ you can import the private key in your working wallet on your computer to use it easier.
Your passphrase should be long enough and unpredictable then it is very secure.
With the newest client you can encrypt your wallet also.(it is also recommended)
The brainwallet passphrase should function only as recovery backup(when you have a crash on your computer and you loose your wallet) and not for everyday use.
Your computer should be clean. (not recommended to use an internet -cafe or a family PC for this purpose)
As additional security you should use anti-keylogging techniques when you enter your passphrase and wallet password.
If you take this measures then you will be secure 99.99% but whatever you do you will be never 100% secure.
Unfortunatelly they are no such antikeylogger built in features on the bitcoin client and other adapted clients but they are some other solutions which you can find on the internet.
I could build in my brain-wallet version a virtual keyboard.
http://namecoinia.org/
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biolizard89
Posts: 2001
Joined: Tue Jun 05, 2012 6:25 am
os: linux

Re: Private keys

Post by biolizard89 »

phelix wrote:http://www.namecoinia.org/ You can save the website for offline use.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=220946.0

Have not used it myself or looked at the code but virtualmaster has been around for a while.
I would be very nervous about trusting a non-HTTPS site for brainwallets, even if the coder is trustworthy, since it is impossible to verify that the code your browser gets from an HTTP site is actually the code on the server.

There's also the fact that it's hard to conclusively say that a coder is trustworthy if their code hasn't been inspected. (No offense to virtualmaster.)
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virtual_master
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Re: Private keys

Post by virtual_master »

biolizard89 wrote: I would be very nervous about trusting a non-HTTPS site for brainwallets, even if the coder is trustworthy, since it is impossible to verify that the code your browser gets from an HTTP site is actually the code on the server.
That is true. But HTTPS is better only if has a valid certificate otherwise will only annoy users with warnings.
I have planned to make it after some additional improvements but I didn't saw very much interest on it until now.
A signed zip file with the published signature on a trusted place would be also enough.
biolizard89 wrote: There's also the fact that it's hard to conclusively say that a coder is trustworthy if their code hasn't been inspected. (No offense to virtualmaster.)
Sure. But in Javascript you can control it at least relatively easy. There is also software in Bitcoin and Namecoin which is written in Phyton or C++ partly from pseudonymous persons which is much more difficult to control.
http://namecoinia.org/
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Galahad
Posts: 18
Joined: Thu Aug 22, 2013 12:16 pm
os: windows

Re: Private keys

Post by Galahad »

Hi again. Thanks for the information here, I'll backup the wallet.dat.

Since writing this I've been trying to get namecoind to work on Linux Mint. I've put namecoind in the Home directory (Linux Mint) and have written a bitcoin.conf. But when I try to run it I get the error:
Warning: To use namecoind, you must set rpcpassword=<password>
in the configuration file: /home/me/.namecoin/bitcoin.conf
If the file does not exist, create it with owner-readable-only file permissions.
So I've created this already so what's the problem? Here is my bitcoin.conf (private info removed) (I know about filenames being case sensitive).
rpcuser=username
rpcpassword=password
rpcport=8336
daemon=1
Also, where should I place these files? Is there a better folder for them?

Thanks in advance.

biolizard89
Posts: 2001
Joined: Tue Jun 05, 2012 6:25 am
os: linux

Re: Private keys

Post by biolizard89 »

Galahad wrote:Hi again. Thanks for the information here, I'll backup the wallet.dat.

Since writing this I've been trying to get namecoind to work on Linux Mint. I've put namecoind in the Home directory (Linux Mint) and have written a bitcoin.conf. But when I try to run it I get the error:
Warning: To use namecoind, you must set rpcpassword=<password>
in the configuration file: /home/me/.namecoin/bitcoin.conf
If the file does not exist, create it with owner-readable-only file permissions.
So I've created this already so what's the problem? Here is my bitcoin.conf (private info removed) (I know about filenames being case sensitive).
rpcuser=username
rpcpassword=password
rpcport=8336
daemon=1
Also, where should I place these files? Is there a better folder for them?

Thanks in advance.
On Linux Mint, my Namecoin profile folder is /home/[username]/.namecoin . The bitcoin.conf file should be placed there.
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Galahad
Posts: 18
Joined: Thu Aug 22, 2013 12:16 pm
os: windows

Re: Private keys

Post by Galahad »

biolizard89 wrote: On Linux Mint, my Namecoin profile folder is /home/[username]/.namecoin . The bitcoin.conf file should be placed there.
Thanks will check it out later. Final question if I may:

What are the rpc settings and why are they necessary? If I lost these would I loose my coins?

omyno
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Aug 28, 2013 8:43 am

Re: Private keys

Post by omyno »

Galahad wrote: What are the rpc settings and why are they necessary?
RPC allows to call namecoind remotely. For example, there's a Namecoin integration in Bitmessage to fetch IDs.
If I lost these would I loose my coins?
No, the only important file is ~/.namecoin/wallet.dat. Make sure to have a backup of this file.

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