71 lines
3.4 KiB
Markdown
71 lines
3.4 KiB
Markdown
Bitcoin version 0.4.0 is now available for download at:
|
|
http://sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/files/Bitcoin/bitcoin-0.4.0/
|
|
|
|
The main feature in this release is wallet private key encryption;
|
|
you can set a passphrase that must be entered before sending coins.
|
|
See below for more information; if you decide to encrypt your wallet,
|
|
WRITE DOWN YOUR PASSPHRASE AND PUT IT IN A SECURE LOCATION. If you
|
|
forget or lose your wallet passphrase, you lose your bitcoins.
|
|
Previous versions of bitcoin are unable to read encrypted wallets,
|
|
and will crash on startup if the wallet is encrypted.
|
|
|
|
Also note: bitcoin version 0.4 uses a newer version of Berkeley DB
|
|
(bdb version 4.8) than previous versions (bdb 4.7). If you upgrade
|
|
to version 0.4 and then revert back to an earlier version of bitcoin
|
|
the it may be unable to start because bdb 4.7 cannot read bdb 4.8
|
|
"log" files.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Notable bug fixes from version 0.3.24:
|
|
|
|
Fix several bitcoin-becomes-unresponsive bugs due to multithreading
|
|
deadlocks.
|
|
|
|
Optimize database writes for large (lots of inputs) transactions
|
|
(fixes a potential denial-of-service attack)
|
|
|
|
|
|
Wallet Encryption
|
|
|
|
Bitcoin supports native wallet encryption so that people who steal your
|
|
wallet file don't automatically get access to all of your Bitcoins.
|
|
In order to enable this feature, choose "Encrypt Wallet" from the
|
|
Options menu. You will be prompted to enter a passphrase, which
|
|
will be used as the key to encrypt your wallet and will be needed
|
|
every time you wish to send Bitcoins. If you lose this passphrase,
|
|
you will lose access to spend all of the bitcoins in your wallet,
|
|
no one, not even the Bitcoin developers can recover your Bitcoins.
|
|
This means you are responsible for your own security, store your
|
|
passphrase in a secure location and do not forget it.
|
|
|
|
Remember that the encryption built into bitcoin only encrypts the
|
|
actual keys which are required to send your bitcoins, not the full
|
|
wallet. This means that someone who steals your wallet file will
|
|
be able to see all the addresses which belong to you, as well as the
|
|
relevant transactions, you are only protected from someone spending
|
|
your coins.
|
|
|
|
It is recommended that you backup your wallet file before you
|
|
encrypt your wallet. To do this, close the Bitcoin client and
|
|
copy the wallet.dat file from ~/.bitcoin/ on Linux, /Users/(user
|
|
name)/Application Support/Bitcoin/ on Mac OSX, and %APPDATA%/Bitcoin/
|
|
on Windows (that is /Users/(user name)/AppData/Roaming/Bitcoin on
|
|
Windows Vista and 7 and /Documents and Settings/(user name)/Application
|
|
Data/Bitcoin on Windows XP). Once you have copied that file to a
|
|
safe location, reopen the Bitcoin client and Encrypt your wallet.
|
|
If everything goes fine, delete the backup and enjoy your encrypted
|
|
wallet. Note that once you encrypt your wallet, you will never be
|
|
able to go back to a version of the Bitcoin client older than 0.4.
|
|
|
|
Keep in mind that you are always responsible for your own security.
|
|
All it takes is a slightly more advanced wallet-stealing trojan which
|
|
installs a keylogger to steal your wallet passphrase as you enter it
|
|
in addition to your wallet file and you have lost all your Bitcoins.
|
|
Wallet encryption cannot keep you safe if you do not practice
|
|
good security, such as running up-to-date antivirus software, only
|
|
entering your wallet passphrase in the Bitcoin client and using the
|
|
same passphrase only as your wallet passphrase.
|
|
|
|
See the doc/README file in the bitcoin source for technical details
|
|
of wallet encryption.
|