Keep it Safe, Keep it Tight
What?
The method described in this post is a form of 2 factor authentication that enables you to securely store your mnemonic words so that hackers and wrench-wielding robbers will not be able to access your account. It’s important to keep your private keys out of the hands of bad actors.
The method
- Store 12 words offline, in multiple locations
- Store 12 words online, in multiple locations
offline words
It’s important to write the words down on paper instead of using something like a thumb drive or a QR code, the idea is to make it as difficult and annoying as possible to convert this into a digital form that could then be transmitted on the internet.
Write them down on paper and put them in different places such as your house, your car, your friend’s house, your desk at work, relative’s house, etc. If you would like to get more creative then you can hide the words using these methods:
- writing the words on the inside of a book
- circling and indexing words in a dictionary
- laminating 3 pieces of paper together with the words written on the middle sheet, the outside sheets could be a painting or a picture
- writing the words with ink only visible when illuminated by UV light
online words
The 12 online words can be emailed to yourself, put on cloud storage, stored in a private repo, put on an ftp server, or stored on some other online medium. The important thing is to have redundancy so if you lose access to one online platform you will still be able to recover your information from somewhere else. For additional security, enable 2-factor authentication on each online platform you use.
plausible deniability
If you build a transaction history with the account associated with your 12 offline words then there is real plausible deniability if a robber finds them and threatens you with a wrench. If they find your offline words and there is no transaction history then it’s obvious that the words are only one piece of the puzzle. However if those 12 words have transaction history and a small account balance then there is a greater chance they will be satisfied with that.
It’s a lot less likely that someone has both physical access to your offline words as well as access to your online accounts, so this method protects you from hackers and people who stumble across your offline words. Now your information should be safe and easily recoverable!
