Bitcoin wallet Manager

Short version : I’ve lost 42€ to a copycat website of a virtual wallet management website. I would have used that money to buy humlebundles which in turn, fund charities. If you want to do something good today, go buy a bundle or donate to a charity and be careful with your bitcoins and wallets !

Blockchain.info is a bitcoin wallet manager that allows you to store, send and receive bitcoins – the digital currency described in a 2008-published paper by mathematician Satoshi Sakamoto (a pseudonym). Without going too much into detail, let’s just put it this way : bitcoins are an untraceable anonymous currency generated by «mining» (ie. solving extremely complex mathematical problems) with your computer. Bitcoin received lots of press recently because its anonymity features which can be used as part of money laundering schemes, drugs sales and the circulation of other illegal goods. I’ve only ever known to use it to buy hosting space online, domain names, coffee and video games.

A few days ago, I noticed all the bitcoins left in my wallet had been cleaned right out – and I’m going to walk you through how I think it happened, so it doesn’t happen to you (or at least not that way).

The Web is not necessarily a safe place : encryption and good practices are the best guarantee (to an extent) of security. So is always paying attention to what you do. A few days ago I typed in the « blockchain » name in my browser’s adress bar and hit enter – in many contemporary browsers, this will take you to a Google search page using the word you typed in if the URL for the website doesn’t show up from one of your previous visits. I clicked the first link that popped up : I didn’t pay attention at the time but it was an ad link to Blockchain.info, that took me to what looked like the regular page – if for a few differences.