Computer hackers, fraudsters, phishers or unscrupulous acquaintances, there are many dangers that threaten the savings in bitcoin and therefore the paranoia of its users is increasing. In this sense, we ask ourselves: how do the experts ensure their bitcoins, how do they take care of their backs? Today we can answer this question thanks to James Lopp and his methodology.
Jameson Lopp, Bitcoin developer and one of the most active contributors of the bitcoiner community, He made a presentation at Building on Bitcoin event where he delved into a set of eight "home" steps to keep cryptocurrency savings safe from crooks.
Lopp assures that the first step to placing cryptocurrency savings in a safe place is to create an encrypted file or hiding that information through the VeraCrypt application, an open source tool that It allows to encrypt and hide data in a simple way.
After having done this step and the data is encrypted in a secure way, then the user must proceed to place a password to that generated file. In this sense, Lopp recommends using a generator. passwords, a device that allows generating a random key that is not related to birthdays, names of relatives or personal information, data that are not at all safe.
Respect to the random key, the developer recommends using the secret exchange scheme methodology of Shamir, which consists in using a cryptographic algorithm to divide a secret into fragments: for example, a backup of a seed of 12 or 24 words. The result of the procedure implies that several parts share unique fragments of a secret that can only be be deciphered if all parties or some of them agree to rebuild the sec challenge.
These characters can also be distributed among trusted people, such as friends or family, highlights Lopp. However, he recommends that only those people in whom one has absolute confidence be given, as well as that they should be redundant keys for If one of the members loses it or can not participate in a password recovery.
Following up on what was previously done, the developer emphasizes that the encrypted file should be copied to a USB disk drive and even in several of these devices, the which could be stored in travel bags - Faraday bags - that will allow them to be taken to all parts.
Among other recommendations, Lopp states that these passwords should be updated every year to avoid unwanted leakage of information. Also, it is also advisable to write an instruction document with all the steps to recover the data if the person is not present or it is not possible to free your savings.
Lopp advises to take with you the instructions in case in some case the owner forgets to carry out one of the steps for the recovery of password, since in case of losing some data of access the bitcoins could be considered lost. A situation that has happened several times with catastrophic consequences of multi-million dollar savings lost forever.
