Silk Road forums
Discussion => Security => Topic started by: BenCousins on November 09, 2012, 10:17 am
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so im owndering if i download the blockchain through Tor if i remain anonymous? or if that adresse can somehow be linked to my IP? I know downloading torrents isnt anonymous through Tor and have never downloaded anything through Tor so i was wondering how anonymous you stay?
Can anybody suggest a good place to download the blockchain as the natural way (opening QT) is being slow as fuck and just not loading?
BC
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I think that's the best way to do it. There are some sites that host like 3/4 of the current blockchain or something, but I never actually tried to find them or anything, so maybe they aren't any faster.
You could always try one of the bitcoin programs that isn't a full implementation of the protocol and doesn't need to download the whole thing? Don't know what you're trying to do. I think running bitcoin-qt (or bitcoind) overnight is your best bet. I wouldn't worry about doing it through Tor, since lots of people are bitcoin enthusiasts: that really isn't suspicious, if you ask me.
As for whether you stay anonymous or not when it's through Tor... I really can't say one way or the other. Maybe somebody else knows.
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I think that's the best way to do it. There are some sites that host like 3/4 of the current blockchain or something, but I never actually tried to find them or anything, so maybe they aren't any faster.
You could always try one of the bitcoin programs that isn't a full implementation of the protocol and doesn't need to download the whole thing? Don't know what you're trying to do. I think running bitcoin-qt (or bitcoind) overnight is your best bet. I wouldn't worry about doing it through Tor, since lots of people are bitcoin enthusiasts: that really isn't suspicious, if you ask me.
As for whether you stay anonymous or not when it's through Tor... I really can't say one way or the other. Maybe somebody else knows.
Im trying to setup my BTC wallet properly all my money is currently in SR and the last few weeks has made me realise that this may not be around forever so its best to learn the technoology of keeping BTC on your computer, how to protect it and how to back it up and restore it etc.
Any tips appreciatted guys
BC
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so im owndering if i download the blockchain through Tor if i remain anonymous? or if that adresse can somehow be linked to my IP? I know downloading torrents isnt anonymous through Tor and have never downloaded anything through Tor so i was wondering how anonymous you stay?
Can anybody suggest a good place to download the blockchain as the natural way (opening QT) is being slow as fuck and just not loading?
BC
You can download the blockchain via torrent here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=117982.0
I would reccomend setting up peerblock or another IP-guard program prior to ease your paranoia. Honestly bitcoin is 100% legal, what you do with it determines it's legality, just like cash.
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so im owndering if i download the blockchain through Tor if i remain anonymous? or if that adresse can somehow be linked to my IP? I know downloading torrents isnt anonymous through Tor and have never downloaded anything through Tor so i was wondering how anonymous you stay?
Can anybody suggest a good place to download the blockchain as the natural way (opening QT) is being slow as fuck and just not loading?
BC
You can download the blockchain via torrent here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=117982.0
I would reccomend setting up peerblock or another IP-guard program prior to ease your paranoia. Honestly bitcoin is 100% legal, what you do with it determines it's legality, just like cash.
yes but having a BTC wallet tied to me just strengthens there case when i ask "but what is Sr contstable?
if thats through torrent its not gonna be anonymous is it?
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Never ask what the thing you're accused of doing is. Never permit them to enter your residence. Never permit them to search your vehicle. Never tell them you're guilty. Never tell them you're innocent. Never cooperate in any way, shape, or form other than letting them lead you where they want you to go -- in short, say nothing except "I have nothing to say and would like my lawyer present please."
... at least in America that's what you do. Fuck if I know what you guys over there do. You don't actually need the blockchain to store your BTC in your wallet, you know -- basically your wallet is nothing more than a collection of bitcoin addresses (the equivalent of a PGP public key), and their corresponding secret keys (the equiv of PGP secret keys). Anybody can use the public bitcoin address to send it BTC. Only the person with the secret key can do anything with it after it gets sent to the address though.
The blockchain is just for validating transactions and keeping the entire Bitcoin network up & working right. bitcoin-qt and bitcoind are fully-functional clients, as in they validate transactions and verify everything to keep it nice and kosher. That's what it uses the blockchain for.
So in short... leave it running for a week. You don't need the blockchain. I'm not sure if you can actually send out bitcoins from one of your wallet addresses w/o it or not though.
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Never ask what the thing you're accused of doing is. Never permit them to enter your residence. Never permit them to search your vehicle. Never tell them you're guilty. Never tell them you're innocent. Never cooperate in any way, shape, or form other than letting them lead you where they want you to go -- in short, say nothing except "I have nothing to say and would like my lawyer present please."
... at least in America that's what you do. Fuck if I know what you guys over there do. You don't actually need the blockchain to store your BTC in your wallet, you know -- basically your wallet is nothing more than a collection of bitcoin addresses (the equivalent of a PGP public key), and their corresponding secret keys (the equiv of PGP secret keys). Anybody can use the public bitcoin address to send it BTC. Only the person with the secret key can do anything with it after it gets sent to the address though.
The blockchain is just for validating transactions and keeping the entire Bitcoin network up & working right. bitcoin-qt and bitcoind are fully-functional clients, as in they validate transactions and verify everything to keep it nice and kosher. That's what it uses the blockchain for.
So in short... leave it running for a week. You don't need the blockchain. I'm not sure if you can actually send out bitcoins from one of your wallet addresses w/o it or not though.
Yes i am aware of all that although with a car we have no choice as they can search it on grounds of "suspicion". The more obscure you are the better though. I know you dont need the Blockchain to store bitcoins, however i need the block chain fully loaded to confirm its gone into my account and to resend them on again, and its not loading by just opening it.
So any more tips on acheiving a fully functioning backed up anonymous wallet? I thought the Idea was to not tie yourself to any BTC addressee as that is how traffic analysis is done.
BC
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If you're really having a hard time synching the blockchain, and really don't want to do it unless it's through Tor anonymously -- I think you're best option is to just use Multibit instead. It's supposed to be all setup & synched within minutes, and it'll let you store & send BTC and all of that.
"MultiBit's primary focus is being fast and easy to use, even for people with no technical knowledge. It has a YouTube channel to help you learn the software, and includes helpful features such as an exchange rate ticker. MultiBit supports many languages such as German, Spanish and Greek. MultiBit synchronizes with the network much faster than Bitcoin-Qt and should be ready for you to use within a few minutes. This is a good choice for non technical users who want an easy to use experience, especially if you use a Mac."
Check out multibit.org -- the "official" bitcoin-qt and bitcoind aren't actually doing anything that's useful for you, if I understand what you're interested in accomplishing. You can initiate and receive transactions fine w/o validating the proof-of-work that miners report, which is the biggest part of a "fully functional" client.
Just for clarity: you can't possess or transfer BTC without a bitcoin address. A wallet is just a collection of bitcoin addresses that you have the secret keys for. So you have to be tied to at least one address at some point somehow, since otherwise you have no way of actually having the BTC you want to store.
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If you're really having a hard time synching the blockchain, and really don't want to do it unless it's through Tor anonymously -- I think you're best option is to just use Multibit instead. It's supposed to be all setup & synched within minutes, and it'll let you store & send BTC and all of that.
"MultiBit's primary focus is being fast and easy to use, even for people with no technical knowledge. It has a YouTube channel to help you learn the software, and includes helpful features such as an exchange rate ticker. MultiBit supports many languages such as German, Spanish and Greek. MultiBit synchronizes with the network much faster than Bitcoin-Qt and should be ready for you to use within a few minutes. This is a good choice for non technical users who want an easy to use experience, especially if you use a Mac."
Check out multibit.org -- the "official" bitcoin-qt and bitcoind aren't actually doing anything that's useful for you, if I understand what you're interested in accomplishing. You can initiate and receive transactions fine w/o validating the proof-of-work that miners report, which is the biggest part of a "fully functional" client.
Just for clarity: you can't possess or transfer BTC without a bitcoin address. A wallet is just a collection of bitcoin addresses that you have the secret keys for. So you have to be tied to at least one address at some point somehow, since otherwise you have no way of actually having the BTC you want to store.
I can be tied to it, but hopefully not personally if you know what i mean, nothingn anyone will know about or would be able to identify me with.
yes well my bitcoins wont show up until the whole blockchain has loaded correct? and i cant resend them until they show up?
BC
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Just a heads-up:
If you are downloading the blockchain onto an encrypted drive it will be slow. I've read that it's because you're not really just downloading the blockchain. As well as downloading the chain, your PC is using your HD to verify the transactions it contains. If your disk is encrypted, that process is slow.
Me, I keep my Bitcoin client, set up to be portable and connecting over TOR, on an encrypted USB stick along with the TOR browser bundle. Whenever I need to update the blockchain (let's say I leave it for a while, then I have a week's worth of blocks to catch up on) what I do is copy the entire Bitcoin directory onto my (unencrypted) desktop, run it on there, then when the chain's up to date, copy it back onto my USB stick and securely delete the copy on my desktop.
It is far, far, far quicker this way.
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Just download Proxifier, set your bitcoin client to run through 127.0.0.1:9050, open Tor and run the bitcoin client.
Done
Dank
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yes well my bitcoins wont show up until the whole blockchain has loaded correct? and i cant resend them until they show up?
BC
I don't mean to patronize you or anything like that man, but I think you may have it a little wrong. The BTC aren't actually being "received" by your wallet. What's really going on is that the entire Bitcoin network is notified that a new transaction has taken place, and records the source, destination, and amount basically. Everybody has that information. If you're running a bitcoin-qt, your copy of the blockchain gets that info too. But you don't even have to be running the program to "receive" the BTC you sent to your address.
You could send it from some random internet cafe to an address you know your wallet.dat (the file that represents all of your bitcoin addresses and the secret keys that let you make transactions from those addresses) contains, and walk away for two decades. When you launched your bitcoin client and loaded up that wallet.dat file 20 years from the day you sent your BTC to your address, you'd have them. Even though your wallet hadn't even been "opened" or connected to the internet for 20 years.
So basically, no. You do not need the blockchain for your bitcoins to show up. That's the whole idea to the Bitcoin network -- everybody records the transaction and decides whether it's valid or not, and if you made a legitimate transaction, everybody will record that you received your BTC (the confirmations take some time as you know, but the transaction gets confirmed with or without you).
That's why your wallet.dat is the magic key you don't ever want to lose. It has the private keys that let you make a transaction from your bitcoin address(es). If you lose that, you never get the BTC back. Nobody does. They sit there associated with that address until the earth crumbles or quantum computers brute force the secret key in a century.
Edit: ohhh, I get you now. Yeah. YOUR client won't actually list the BTC as being there for you to send or make a transaction with until your client finishes synching the blockchain. But you can just export the secret key in the client you're using, then import it into any Bitcoin wallet you want. Blockchain.info's wallet, instawallet, whatever -- they should all support importing a secret key. From that key they'll know how to make transactions from the associated public bitcoin address (and the public address is known from the secret key, so you don't have to import that or anything).
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Yeah SS you're right but his client won't "know" about any coins he's got until such time as it has the chain downloaded to the point where the transaction happened.
Ha ha beaten by your ninja edit...
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yes well my bitcoins wont show up until the whole blockchain has loaded correct? and i cant resend them until they show up?
BC
I don't mean to patronize you or anything like that man, but I think you may have it a little wrong. The BTC aren't actually being "received" by your wallet. What's really going on is that the entire Bitcoin network is notified that a new transaction has taken place, and records the source, destination, and amount basically. Everybody has that information. If you're running a bitcoin-qt, your copy of the blockchain gets that info too. But you don't even have to be running the program to "receive" the BTC you sent to your address.
You could send it from some random internet cafe to an address you know your wallet.dat (the file that represents all of your bitcoin addresses and the secret keys that let you make transactions from those addresses) contains, and walk away for two decades. When you launched your bitcoin client and loaded up that wallet.dat file 20 years from the day you sent your BTC to your address, you'd have them. Even though your wallet hadn't even been "opened" or connected to the internet for 20 years.
So basically, no. You do not need the blockchain for your bitcoins to show up. That's the whole idea to the Bitcoin network -- everybody records the transaction and decides whether it's valid or not, and if you made a legitimate transaction, everybody will record that you received your BTC (the confirmations take some time as you know, but the transaction gets confirmed with or without you).
That's why your wallet.dat is the magic key you don't ever want to lose. It has the private keys that let you make a transaction from your bitcoin address(es). If you lose that, you never get the BTC back. Nobody does. They sit there associated with that address until the earth crumbles or quantum computers brute force the secret key in a century.
Edit: ohhh, I get you now. Yeah. YOUR client won't actually list the BTC as being there for you to send or make a transaction with until your client finishes synching the blockchain. But you can just export the secret key in the client you're using, then import it into any Bitcoin wallet you want. Blockchain.info's wallet, instawallet, whatever -- they should all support importing a secret key. From that key they'll know how to make transactions from the associated public bitcoin address (and the public address is known from the secret key, so you don't have to import that or anything).
man im confused now
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Yeah, I totally was only focusing on the first half of his question for that entire pre-edit post, lol. If it wasn't clear, by importing the secret key into blockchain.info (just for example), you won't have to synch. Online wallet services are always synched because they're always running, so no waiting if you go that route when you want to send the coins. And nobody can steal them from the online wallet until you import the key, but after you send the BTC, there's not much left to steal anyway, right.
man im confused now
LOL! Sorry bro. Basically, you had it right the first time. I went off on a tangent. But if you don't want to wait for your client to synch, just export your key, take that exported data and import it into an online wallet service, and voila, instant transaction-ready wallet at your fingertips.
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Yeah, I totally was only focusing on the first half of his question for that entire pre-edit post, lol. If it wasn't clear, by importing the secret key into blockchain.info (just for example), you won't have to synch. Online wallet services are always synched because they're always running, so no waiting if you go that route when you want to send the coins. And nobody can steal them from the online wallet until you import the key, but after you send the BTC, there's not much left to steal anyway, right.
man im confused now
LOL! Sorry bro. Basically, you had it right the first time. I went off on a tangent. But if you don't want to wait for your client to synch, just export your key, take that exported data and import it into an online wallet service, and voila, instant transaction-ready wallet at your fingertips.
secret key = wallet.dat? i thought those oline services could take off with your money at any time....I would prefer a client on my computer
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Yeah, they could. But what I mean is just use your own local bitcoin client to generate the bitcoin address, that way only you have the secret key stuff in your wallet.dat -- and then when you eventually want to make a transaction using one of those addresses, export your secret keys using your local bitcoin client, and then import them into, say, blockchain.info's wallet service (I think blockchain.info is about as safe & trustworthy as it gets, but don't quote me on it). Then right after you import the key, make your transaction, and there won't be anything left to be stolen from you.
Basically, if you're having that rough a time synching your copy of the blockchain... I can't think of anything else that would work out except just sitting back & waiting for it to finish. Just an alternative for you -- feel free to ignore the whole idea :)
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I've heard of people who Torified their bitcoin client. Because of the way bitcoin works, I don't believe it's necessary.
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man im confused now
LOL, it's complex stuff isn't it?
OK so here is my method to achieve what you are after. This is Windows 7.
1. Buy a USB stick with minimum 8GB
2. Download Truecrypt, and install it in portable mode onto the stick
3. Use Truecrypt to create an encrypted volume on the stick, 7GB or so in size. Use the hidden volume option if you want - it gives you some plausible deniability (in the UK they can in theory prosecute you for refusing to tell them your password).
4. Mount the encrypted volume as a particular drive letter such as Z:
5. Into this encrypted volume, download/unpack the TOR Browser Bundle, Bitcoin, and any other apps you like to use to do what you do like Keepass
6. Configure Bitcoin to be portable. Do this by placing the Bitcoin files into a folder on Z:, let's say we call it Z:\MyBitcoinFolder. Then in the root of Z:, create a shortcut to Z:\MyBitcoinFolder\bitcoin.exe and then alter the shortcut properties so its target says Z:\MyBitcoinFolder\bitcoin.exe -datadir=Z:\MyBitcoinFolder\MyBitcoinDataFolder
7. Disconnect from Internet (turn off wireless, unplug ethernet cable etc)
8. Start Bitcoin by double-clicking the shortcut
9. Go into its settings, and tell it to connect via SOCKS4 proxy, IP 127.0.0.1, Port 9050
10. Reconnect to Internet
11. Fire up TOR Browser Bundle
12. Wait for Bitcoin to download the blockchain. This will take time - particularly when you get to the end of the blockchain. (See my earlier post in this thread for a way to do it quicker. You'll have to alter your shortcut if you take my advice in the post above, and you will need shredding software.)
13. Ensure each time you want to use Bitcoin, you mount the Truecrypt volume as Z:, or your shortcut won't work.
Job done.
Now if you want to get really fancy (stop reading here if you are not a geek like I am), you can partition the USB stick to create a small (500MB) partition onto which you can install Liberte Linux. You now have a bootable Liberte partition which contains your GPG and TORified browser etc and all the other advantages Liberte gives you... and your Bitcoin client is in the other, larger partition. Everything on a single USB stick! You need to get a copy of something like EASEUS both to create the partition, and to swap between them being primary and logical each time you want to use one or the other because Windows only recognises 1 partition on a USB stick.
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8. Go into its settings, and tell it to connect via SOCKS4 proxy, IP 121.0.0.1, Port 9050
O.o Pardon, but... wtf is 121.0.0.1? I've only ever seen 127.0.0.1?
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Oops, typo, thanks for picking it up!
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Forget about the blockchain. Use Electrum. You can sync your wallet on multiple devices (they have an Android client too). And learn what a brainwallet is.
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The two biggest reasons to use Electrum:
Electrum doesn't need to download the blockchain. The client connects to one of a network of electrum servers that store the blockchain. The client just sends the signed transactions to the servers to be broadcast to the network. So it starts up and syncs within a few seconds.
It uses a deterministic wallet. Basically it generates your wallet from a 128-bit random seed. If you have this seed recorded, you can regenerate your wallet anytime anywhere. Even better - the 128-bit seed is represented by a string of words. All you have to remember is a 12 word string of random words and your wallet and all your bitcoins is effectively stored in your brain - hence brainwallet. Pretty fucking cool.
So in your case with your concerns, you can have your Electrum client running on a non-persistant VM. Every time you start it you enter in your 12 word seed and generate your wallet. Do your transactions, close it down and poof there is nothing stored anywhere. What's that officer? No, I've never heard of bitcoin officer...
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I've heard of people who Torified their bitcoin client. Because of the way bitcoin works, I don't believe it's necessary.
I don't believe this is correct. As I understand it - it is very important to use bitcoin through tor when you *spend* bitcoins. This is because the node that first registers a bitcoin transaction can be recorded. This could allow an IP address to be associated with the spending of specific bitcoins which might provide evidence for LE. If you look at the site blockchain.info you can see the record of the IP address that originates a transaction along with an attempt to guess its geographic location.
If you simply connect to the network to download the blockchain your IP address is probably also being recorded by some goverment agencies , but since its not associated with any specific bitcoins presumably it would not be of much use beyond showing that you do use the bitcoin software. You can download the blockchain from various places (eg. bitcoincharts.com) and then run your client always through tor if you are really paranoid.
People on here often say 'bitcoins are not illegal' while this is true at the moment, I think its safe to say a pretty large part of the current bitcoin economy involves 'illegal' transactions of one kind or another. Thousands of people are not buying small amounts of bitcoin so they can purchase alpaca socks. You can be sure big brother is collecting all the info they can on bitcoin including every IP address that ever uses it.
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I think it's safer to assume HassleHoff is right about the record keeping and all, but I don't see it as likely that just people who are involved with bitcoin software & the network have tabs kept on them. BTC to USD and USD to BTC transfers, I have no doubt about. But not just the software and stuff. There's a big bitcoin community. I mean seriously, some people are almost religious fanatics about the whole Bitcoin ecosystem. For example, I love this one thread, it's hilarious and wonderful at the same time -- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=12156.0
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I think it's safer to assume HassleHoff is right about the record keeping and all, but I don't see it as likely that just people who are involved with bitcoin software & the network have tabs kept on them. BTC to USD and USD to BTC transfers, I have no doubt about. But not just the software and stuff. There's a big bitcoin community. I mean seriously, some people are almost religious fanatics about the whole Bitcoin ecosystem. For example, I love this one thread, it's hilarious and wonderful at the same time -- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=12156.0
thats some optimistic speculation
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So if I just wauit foir QT to download for a week s longas i tick socks 4 in options im torified? and anonymous?
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So if I just wauit foir QT to download for a week s longas i tick socks 4 in options im torified? and anonymous?
Mm... I don't know. I don't think you need to worry about it until you actually make a transaction -- then your IP will be on file. Prior to that, I don't think anybody is keeping track of who's running what. Each bitcoin client has 8 connections. Each one of those machines in turn has 8 connections. And so on. There are... fuck, I have no idea how many bitcoin clients in the network. Thousands I would think. So that's what, 8 to some undetermined power connections they'd have to keep track of at all times? Nah... I just don't buy it.
When you make a transaction, the IP that reported the transaction gets stamped in the recorded info, so for your peace of mind you'll want to be Tor-anonymous when that happens. I'm not sure if you're 100% protected after doing what you describe though. I would think so, but... I'm not a security expert.
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Forget about the blockchain. Use Electrum. You can sync your wallet on multiple devices (they have an Android client too). And learn what a brainwallet is.
Yes, use electrum. This is insane, downloading the block chain through Tor. Why?
There's torrents available for this anyways on bitcointalk if you absolutely must have a local copy of the entire blockchain
Tip: You can use electrum with strongcoin to backup your private keys and send without paying any strongcoin fees
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howdo i back up my wallet? i remember trying to install electrum once and it wouldnt work
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howdo i back up my wallet? i remember trying to install electrum once and it wouldnt work
The install can be a pain in the ass since Electrum is written entirely in Python and doesn't use a conventional installer. Also You'll need to install python2.7 first.
Backup? You mean your existing wallet or the electrum wallet? You need to generate a new Electrum wallet, after which I'd just transfer the coins over to it and forget the old wallet.
Install electrum, generate a new wallet. It should give you your "seed". WRITE THIS DOWN.
Those 12 or 14 words ARE your backup. Memorize them.
Transfer your btc to your new electrum wallet.
If your computer with the electrum client explodes or something and you need to restore your wallet on a new computer, you install electrum and enter in that 12 word seed and your password. Your old wallet is regenerated. Your backup was in your head.