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Bitcoin 0.3.25 BETA
Copyright (c) 2009-2011 Bitcoin Developers
Distributed under the MIT/X11 software license, see the accompanying
file license.txt or http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php.
This product includes software developed by the OpenSSL Project for use in
the OpenSSL Toolkit (http://www.openssl.org/). This product includes
cryptographic software written by Eric Young (eay@cryptsoft.com).
Intro
-----
Bitcoin is a free open source peer-to-peer electronic cash system that is
completely decentralized, without the need for a central server or trusted
parties. Users hold the crypto keys to their own money and transact directly
with each other, with the help of a P2P network to check for double-spending.
Setup
-----
Unpack the files into a directory and run:
bin/32/bitcoin (GUI, 32-bit)
bin/32/bitcoind (headless, 32-bit)
bin/64/bitcoin (GUI, 64-bit)
bin/64/bitcoind (headless, 64-bit)
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, chose "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
password 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 you 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 documentation at the bitcoin wiki:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Main_Page
... for help and more information.
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