![]() ![]() ![]() People come to him and willingly answer personal questions about their password habits. Ethereum's security protocols may be solid on a technical level, but they can't stop someone from figuring out a password simply by asking the owner what it is, or tricking them into dropping clues. In a phishing attack, a hacker attempts to gather information about someone without their consent, commonly through compromised email links and official-looking forms. So the only way to fix that problem, I guess, is to find clever ways to try using that same hash to try and reproduce the complicated output."īy subscribing, you are agreeing to Engadget's Terms and Privacy Policy.Įssentially, you go phishing. And because there's no company interface, there's no one that can help you reset that password if you forget it. "You say, I'm creating a wallet with the password 'banana', and it turns into this mess of a key. "With Ethereum, because it's decentralized, you actually do all this on your own computer and it doesn't even touch the internet," Dougherty told Engadget. However, as Dougherty's clients have discovered, Ethereum's security system is tight. The idea is that it's impossible to reverse-engineer the hash to unlock a user's base password, though a handful of algorithms have been compromised over the years, including MD5 and SHA1. To get specific, Ethereum wallets use a password-based key derivation function, meaning users input a unique password they can (theoretically) remember, and in return, they receive a key that serves as a unique, secure authorization code. There's no customer support hotline for Ethereum, no security questions to answer, no "Forgot password?" link.Ĭryptocurrency security relies on hashing algorithms that transform a traditional password, such as "banana$123," into a unique string of numbers and letters, called a hash. These people are, essentially, shit out of luck. Meanwhile, back at home, Dougherty is the shepherd of a program that's constantly running down ways to break into other people's cryptocurrency wallets.ĭougherty works with folks who have lost, forgotten or incorrectly written down their Ethereum passwords, locking themselves out of their wallets and forfeiting the digital cash that's lurking within. By day, he's a software developer at the University of Wisconsin, building free educational games and conducting research on the ways people play them. The project broadcasts announcements on its Twitter channel and dispenses help via r/Electrum subreddit.Phil Dougherty has a side hustle as a friendly hacker. The documentation also deals with niche use cases such as routing transactions through a Tor network, or setting up a watchtower for your lightning wallet. Some advanced functions - such as configuring multisig wallets, signing transactions, and getting hardware wallets to work on Linux - get their own sections. The official documentation begins with an FAQ, which does a nice job of running through some of the wallet’s interesting features. The website points to two distinct resources one is the official documentation, while the other is an unofficial resource that hosts about two dozen easy-to-follow and well-illustrated guides. In fact, we’d advise anyone interested in using Electrum, irrespective of their experience with cryptocurrencies, to spend some time going through its extensive documentation to familiarize themselves with its peculiarities. However, not all of it is immediately apparent. You can then right-click on any of them to get the option to spend them.įor a thin wallet, Electrum packs quite a lot of functionality. You’ll have to enable the Coins tab from under the view menu to view all the individual UTXOs or unspent transaction outputs. However, you have to enable it first from the Tools menu.Įlectrum also has coin control features, but these too are hidden by default. One of Electrum's most interesting features is the ability to send payments to multiple addresses at the same time, which helps save on transaction fees. The tab also has a slider that you can use to specify the fee for the transaction. Again, you can optionally add a description for the transaction to help you identify it later. To send Bitcoin, switch to the Send tab and enter the address of the wallet you want to send to, either manually or by scanning its QR code. Electrum will also automatically convert the Bitcoin amount into fiat currency. Optionally you can add a description to the transaction and an expiry date for the request. The Receive tab gives you the option to generate a new address, along with a QR code, either of which you can then pass on to the sender. There are separate tabs for sending and receiving Bitcoin, and another to view past transactions. Once you’ve set up the wallet to your liking, the process of transferring funds isn’t all that complicated. (Image credit: Electrum Wallet) Transferring funds ![]()
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