What steganography cannot do

Six pages back, this section started with a word search. Since then: photos, sound files, spice jars, letters with a rule, a receipt in a suitcase. Every one of them does the same job, and it is worth saying plainly what that job is and what it isn't, because the gap between the two is where people lose coins.

The job

Steganography makes a thing not look like what it is. A seed phrase becomes a receipt, a photo, a letter. Against a person who doesn't know the thing exists, that is complete protection: they don't look, so they don't find. Against a person who knows it exists but not where, it is partial: they look in the places things get hidden, and a good disguise keeps them looking. That is real value. A burglar, a nosy guest, a casual officer, a thief who grabbed a bag. The glance is where most exposure happens, and hiding stops the glance.

The person it does nothing against

Now the person who knows where to look. They were in the room when you set up the wallet. They saw the receipt and wondered why you kept it. They read this site, know the ciphers are public, and know a seed carries a checksum. They are a relative who was told, or who guessed, or who will inherit the house and go through every drawer. They are an ex. They are someone with a warrant and a copier. They are you, in a lawsuit, ordered to produce.

Against this person every hiding method on this site collapses to the same thing: a search, followed by a computation. Find the receipt, try the 9,132 ciphers, check the checksum, done. Find the photo, run the tool, check the checksum, done. Find the letter, try first letters, every fifth word, the word after each comma, done. The computation is minutes on a laptop. The search is the only cost, and the person who knows where to look has already paid it.

What works against them

A secret that is not in the place they are searching. The BIP-39 passphrase is that secret. It is a word, or a sentence, that the wallet combines with the seed words to derive the keys. The same twelve words with a different passphrase are a different wallet, empty. The same twelve words with no passphrase are a third wallet, also empty, or holding the small decoy balance you put there.

The passphrase changes the attacker's problem from a search to a guess. A search ends when the thing is found. A guess against a strong passphrase does not end. That is the difference between hiding and encrypting, and it is why the 25th word page comes before any of the hiding pages in the reading order.

The passphrase has its own rules, and they matter more than any hiding place:

• It is not stored with the numbers, the photo, the letter or the plate. Not in the same house, if you can manage it.
• It is strong enough that guessing is not a plan. A single dictionary word is a plan.
• It is backed up, because a lost passphrase is a lost wallet, and the backup is as careful as the seed's.
• It has been tested: a restore on a wiped device, with the passphrase, showing the right balance, before any serious amount is sent.

Putting the two together

Each page in this section ends the same way, and the ending is the method:

1. Put a passphrase on the wallet. Keep it in your head, or with a person, or in a second place.
2. Turn the seed words into numbers with a cipher, so the thing you hide has no dictionary.
3. Hide the numbers in something boring, by the method that suits the copy: paper at home, a letter in a drawer, a receipt in a suitcase.
4. Make more than one copy, in more than one place, in a form that lasts. That is the storage section.
5. Test the whole chain backwards, numbers to words to wallet to balance, before you trust it. Then once a year.

Steps 2 and 3 protect you from the glance. Step 1 protects you from the search. Step 4 protects you from fire. Step 5 protects you from yourself.

We will never ask for a seed word or a passphrase, and you should never type one into this site or any tool it links to. Everything here can be practised with the public example (pizza educate fat kiss domain venue …), which opens nothing and never will.

One more thing hiding can't do

It can't tell you it failed. A photo that was re-encoded still opens. A hiding place that was found and photographed is still there. A letter that was read still reads. Encryption fails loudly: the wrong passphrase gives an empty wallet, and you know. Hiding fails silently, which is the strongest reason not to let it be the only layer.

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