As previouslyreported by the Cointelegraph, DarkWallet is an ambitious project that is aiming to provide a higherlevel of anonymity for users and change the way you look at privacy. It haseven been named by Wired magazine as thetop technology that could make Bitcoin “far more anonymous.”
For the pastseveral weeks, Dark Wallet has been undergoing alpha testing as reported by Phil Cohen who notedthat “a totally professional-grade software offering is takingshape.”
Dark WalletAlpha3 (v0.3.1) is currently available for testing onChrome/Chromium browsers only.
Disclaimer:this is an alpha preview version and developers are advising against using realBitcoin during testing. Instead, the recommended method is to perform the trialrun under a testnet account, using tesntnetcoins to prevent losing real money. However, the software does “functionwell enough to allow many to participate in and contribute significantly to thecode development, review, debugging, testing and stable release candidate,”according to the report.
Using testnet to scrutinize Dark Wallet alpha will give users some realhands-on experience in using the wallet at zero cost and with no risk. Ofcourse, bugs are expected, which you can report here if you happento be one of the vigilant testers to spot one.
Installation
Dark Wallet alpha installs easily as an extension for your chrome browser.But beware:
“Do not ad lib upgrades or youcertainly risk losing your contacts, pockets, addresses and coins. I have seenthis happen to several testers who had no backups and thought the “seed” wasall that was needed to restore from scratch. To be clear, the seed is needed torecreate your Dark Wallet identity and you, additionally, must have a backup torestore on top of the recreated identity. By following the upgrade instructionsyou might save yourself from that testing exercise.”
Then, start by setting up a testnet ID before starting to explore theinterface. You can create as many screen names as you want in the spirit ofDark Wallet’s superior anonymity. It’s recommended that regular backups aremade as you would with any other Bitcoin wallet. This can be done with the“Backup all wallets” button on the Identities page. On Linux, it is stored as abackup, encrypted JSON file in the Download directory, which you should copy toa backup drive.
Cloak & Lobby
One ofthe most notable features in the wallet is a secure and anonymous chat roomcalled the Lobby. It allows users to send a “beacon” to contacts to let themknow you’re in the lobby looking for them in Bat-signal fashion. Your identityis displayed as a four word cryptographic signature.