Bitcoin Forum

If you get jailed for years for whatever reason what is the best way to keep your bitcoins secure for when you (hopefully) get released?

There is currently a lot of bullshit laws in the USA that a red-blooded white man could easily get jailed for.


Discuss.

https://i.imgur.com/4cDar9m.jpg

Id probably do a mutil sig paper wallet where you only need 2 of the 3 keys. you keep one in a safe place and give the other two to people you trust with your life and tell them to put it in a safe or safe deposit box. Or you can just do a plain paper wallet, but I believe the multi sig is actually safer, that means if one paper is compromised then you just need the other 2 to gain access. Basically, one person cant get to the coin.

Or you can do just a plain paper wallet/cold storage.. But given the scenario that you described, id opt for the mutli sig i think..

Encrypted paper wallet. Spread it around. No worries.

Do you know that Abe Lincoln is jacking off in a FleshLight and Ronald Reagan is holding a dildo. ROFL

Best solution to your dilemma is to leave the USA.

I think the best solution to this is to store a backup of your wallet in a cloud based storage service that is not associated with your identity (just make sure to properly encrypt the file and to make the process to decrypt the file one that can be done with a password that you can memorize). You would likely want to make sure that your storage service is paid for at least 2x the max amount of time you would expect to be gone for.

If you store your keys in any other way, then you face the possibility that your keys will be seized if/when you are arrested. Even if law enforcement cannot use the keys to send funds (they are properly encrypted) they can still keep them from you, making it a moot point that they can't spend the coins.

If you give your keys to a trusted group of people (via multisig or otherwise) you would face the possibility that law enforcement could seize the keys from them (or they could give them up voluntarily if threatened by law enforcement).  

Encrypted paper wallet or you take some time to remember the private key using some tactics.

This is why a paper wallet would not work for this situation. The paper wallet could simply be taken from you and destroyed so you would have no way of spending the coins on it (unless you had memorized the private key)

Put your private keys encrypted in the cloud, with a password you won't forget by a few years, and with copies in various solid services that probably will survive few years.

Or make a paper wallet and hide the same way you would hide a precious treasure

So this is only a problem for red blooded white men?

As how to safely store btc has been discussed many times.  I don't think that is actually what's being asked here.

What about if when you die?  I'm all set.  No matter what happens to me my btc lives on.

OP seems to be racist, perhaps not worth to reply here.

If you are able to memorize 64 hexadecimal chars you should be fine. You just keep the private key in your brain.

Paper wallets handed out to family and very close friends, use password.  Could also bury one somewhere.

This.

Just make sure you wrap the paper inside plastic.

Encrypted a paper wallet is the best way

Print it on metal plates, and hide it where nobody will suspect its a private key for BTC,
you just need to memorize the places where you hide it.

armory wallet has the best options I think  8) 8)

LoL!  ;D

How would you keep anything else safe if you got locked up? Bitcoin is porbably easier to secure than you're regular finances or posessions. Put em on a USB stick or a paper wallet.


Poor White Americans. I really feel for their persecution.


LOL I totally didn't notice that.

Option A: BIP38 paper wallet. Spread multiple copies out amongst family across the country and internationally if you have people you trust.

Option B: Stamp out the encrypted private key on a piece of metal and bury that somewhere safe where you can retrieve it years later.

Do both if you feel like it, why not be as safe as possible?

Crazy Option C: Get the encrypted private key tattooed on you but change 1 digit that only you know of.

1. Print QR code. Engrave in rock. Etch in glass. Whatever.
2. Hide.

That's how most people will do it. 1 is easy. 2 can get a little complicated.

I don't think this would work very well. What if the government were to talk to your family/friends, find that you have given them papers to keep, then get search warrants to seize anything you have given your associates?

Ok let's say they do manage to grab the paper wallets from your family. They still don't have the password, they can't spend the funds. Unless they manage to coerce it from you.

Bonus: If you destroy the public key and ONLY save the encrypted private key of your paper wallet, Gov won't be able to figure out your bitcoin address.

its interesting that even though bitcoin is a new paradigm in terms of currency, most replies offer up old world solutions. Nothing wrong with that but somewhere out there is an elegant solution that matches the innovation of bitcoin. and whoever comes up with it will be sitting pretty.

This is one major reason I use a brainwallet. Even if I lose everything (except my mind and then I won't care), I still have my bitcoins.

The original brainwallet site:

https://brainwallet.github.io/ (https://brainwallet.github.io/)

I made a copy of the web page and double checked all the code. I actually use this now (still only offline though in case of malware or someone hacks my web site). You can also use it as a double check.

http://www.paganmind.com/_Brainwallet.htm (http://www.paganmind.com/_Brainwallet.htm)

You could also do a SHA-256 at several websites of your brainwallet phrase, for instance:

http://www.xorbin.com/tools/sha256-hash-calculator (http://www.xorbin.com/tools/sha256-hash-calculator)
You still need to convert from HEX to BASE58 with Checksum to get your private key though, but you can verify that the secret exponent is still okay.

Make sure you only recover your private key while offline!!!!!

I guess its true...Certain govt entities who shall remain nameless do have a presence on this site LOL...WTF?  :-X

Encrypted paper wallet. Spread it around. No worries.   ;)

Even if the government couldn't spend your bitcoin they could still prevent you from spending it, so you would be in he same situation as if they did spent it.

Heard about this:

A brain wallet with secret phrase stored in blockchain, you only need to remember a block number and a specific way to generate that phrase

For example, find block 315475, take the first transaction which includes more than 20 "to" address, take no.7 character of each address, from first address to twentieth address, make a 20 character phrase, then generate the brain wallet using that phrase and an offline webpage

There are many ways to pickup character from each address, not necessary to be always 7th character, if you design it carefully, it is impossible for others to guess the phrase or brute force it while extremely easy for you to remember it

As Andreas A has said it's virtually impossible to secure digital data and we only have a few decades trying to do that.  We are however very good at physical security as we have centuries of experience with it.

I would never rely on anything digital to back up my btc.

Also please note that it has been said that one problem of mine is that I pass for white.

I would appreciate a link to that speech where he said that. :)

I believe it's in the following video which is also on his website.  Bitcoin Cryptocurrency Crash Course
This crash course is 1:12 long :P and I have no idea at what point he mentions it.  I'm only 99% certain this is the correct video.  This talk is from last summer in silicon valley.  Being it was from last year some things are a bit outdated like regulatory uncertainty which also led him to say he wouldn't recommend it as an investment.  Meanwhile he says that it was almost all his investment.  This was before the congressional meetings last year and the subsequent bubble.  I gave this video to a certified financial planner as part of an intro I made for him about btc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP9-lAYngi4

Multisig with other parties in foreign jurisdictions

What are some places which are not likely to move or disappear no matter what happens in the world?

1. Certain monuments, maybe, but those are public.
2. Large trees in the forest, but those are still public.
3. Your great grand parents final resting place, semi public.
4. One or two houses you know the people who live there own, (best if relative).
5. An estate attorney you trust. (could also be any other profession, but attorneys know this as it is their business.)
6. Some secret hiding place that you need to scuba dive to, (like some ship wreck) buried in the see 50 meters deep.

dont get me wrong I love Andreas, but for some reason he looks
like a crazy vampire in that speech.

https://i.imgur.com/aK0lhr0.jpg

Seems like a good question but I would say that the best location is one that is easy to remember
(or a brainwallet but goodluck remembering it if its not a complex sequence might be less secure and you need to trust your memory for X years)  
Public locations seem the best but it would be hard to hide it there then claim it later so perhaps having a few copies in different locations would be best say a Cave, Near your old school, near a playground since those areas rarely get redeveloped etc.

I thought about creating a service, like boomerang for gmail: Person signs a transaction from A->B, but doesn't broadcast it. My server will broadcast the transaction only if you don't check in for the last 30 days. If you get thrown in jail (or die), no one would suspect that transaction is yours.

  interesting idea.

Multisig paper wallet would be safest in my opinion. Then store multiple copies in separate safety deposit boxes :)

They are all very easy methods I think, but not without danger of loss.
Summary of methods so far:

• multi sig paper wallet
• plain paper wallet/cold storage
• encrypted paper wallet
• cloud based storage service
• Private keys encrypted in the cloud, with a password you won't forget by a few years,
• memorize 64 hexadecimal chars, keep the private key in your brain.
• QR tattoo

Shall we discuss the fact that you're a racist asshole?

Wouldn't a Dead Man's Switch work for that purpose? But those are mostly for emails only. If there was an email-to-broadcast-tx service, that would work with almost all those dead man's switches or even google inactive account manager.

thats blasphemy!


 :P

no it's not, he admits it himself. 

If I had to get my Bitcoins over a timespan of imprisonment:

Saving Bitcoins:
1) calculate x = sha256(my full name + birth date + name of the primary school I went to + something simple to memorize) or something like that
2) run a program which does nothing other than repeating "x = sha256(x)" until I push the "stop" key
3) wait as long as possible
4) just before going to jail, stop the program by pressing the "stop" key. After stopping the program, I take the current "x" value as the private key and tranfer all my Bitcoins to the corresponding public key.
4b) Memorizing approximately how many x=sha256(x) steps it took might help later

Restoring Bitcoins:
1) extract all Bitcoin addresses from the blockchain
2) calculate x = sha256(my full name + birth date + name of the primary school I went to + something simple to memorize) or what I've choosen
3) run a programm which does "x = sha256(x)" until the corresponding public key matches an address in the block chain (Memorizing 4b could accelerate the task because calculating a public key from a private key requires some extra power)
4) restore my savings

The police/district attorney could easily get warrants to search safe deposit boxes that you own, and the chances of them doing this to your boxes would be much greater if you are charged with a more serious crime.

I think whatever method you use, you must be able to access your funds using only your head and nothing more then your head.

so many ways to be selected!

I agree there is far too many ways you could keep them secure, it really is just a case of looking into each option to select the best option not only for you but that is proven to be nearly 100% safe while you are away for such long periods of time.

There's a way :
encrypt your wallet.dat with good password > archive wallet.dat to zip with password > upload .zip to cloud storage (please choose secure & still avalaible even you dissapear for long time) > done

Or maybe you want to remember your private keys  ;D

Do you mean "less than 3% of inmates are ever raped in jail"?

Or "less than 3% of inmates admit to being raped in jail"?

Hmm that may be a valid point.

"It was conservatively estimated by the Department of Justice (DOJ) that approximately 1 in 10 inmates were assaulted in 2012, and as prison populations continue to grow, it can be assumed that this number has only increased in the past two years."

source: http://lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/crime/rape-part-sentence/

3% may not be accurate. If they're "conservatively estimating" 1 in 10 are being "sexually assaulted" in some way, it's probably 15-20% in reality.

But be aware that "sexual assault" includes things like touching and molestation, not necessarily full on rape.

BIP38 is easier, and currently takes anywhere from a minute to 10 minutes on existing implementations, to encrypt/decrypt keys.

I've been looking at customized PBKDF's... like the one used in RAR, or TrueCrypt or VeraCrypt. Those are practically un-brute-force-able.

If it takes a modern computer a few seconds to derive the 256-bit AES key ... it's going to take forever for someone to just go from A to Z even if the password was only 10 characters, more is better.

I wouldn't be surprised if that number was much higher.  Think about how many prisoners would like to openly admit something like that had happened to them.  I could be wrong and maybe it is just used as a fear tactic but I wouldn't be surprised to learn the real numbers are much higher in such a dysfunctional environment. 

What will you do when the jews come for your bitcoins and guns, white man?

Holy shit! How did this become a NSFW thread? I opened this up on a city bus and the woman sitting next to me moved to another seat. LOL

I'd rather walk then be on a city bus.

Tell me that again after walking 6 miles up and down California street in San Francisco.

http://images.dpchallenge.com/images_challenge/1000-1999/1003/800/Copyrighted_Image_Reuse_Prohibited_778313.jpg

May I suggest it's unwise to link users to a site where they enter their password to check its security.
No tech-savvy person would ever enter their real password on such a site, but that's not who this post was for.
What's worse is that that site is not even ssl protected, meaning anyone can read a plaintext password you enter over the wire. Nasty. Seriously, remove that link...

That's why Brainwallet was invented.
https://bitaddress.org

Just remember though that there are hackers out there pre compiling brainwallet passphrases into rainbow tables
so you need to make sure you use a very good pass phrase of 15 chars, uppercase lowercase numbers and special chars.

Maybe you had some BO  ;D
Anyways a brainwallet combined with some cold storage and I guess finding a place that you can keep it stored safely while in prison seem to be the main requirements to get it secure.

The question is people have the foresight to do it before they get arrested lol.

Simple. Don't get arrested. (Easier said than done, but millions of people manage to do it.)

There was an article today that talked about how ~1/3 of American adults have been arrested in their lifetimes, but a large number of those people are not even charged with any crime.

The only real way to keep your BTC safe in the event you get arrested and/or get sent to jail/prison is to use a brainwallet. Any other method would result in the possibility of the private key be stolen/found, and your privacy is significantly reduced if you are sent to jail/get arrested.

I've been arrested (drunk and disorderly, pissed in my old cat collecting neighbors front door mail slot) but they charged me and let me go when I sobered up.

 I dunno, the QR on ur stink hole is a pretty good hiding spot. After a few years in prison it might be a little hard to read though.

If 100 million people got arrested, then there are 200 million people that don't get arrested. (Only counting 'murikans.)

Of course, I'm a bit biased as I'm almost pretty sure that I won't get arrested. I've gotten into some very hairy situations, but so far, I've not been arrested.

If I live to be a hundred, I'm more than a third of my way there. Fingers crossed.

It helps that you get involved or be a part of law enforcement, but that's not a guarantee. (I'm an officer in the armed forces of my country.) (Yes, I've read about the ones that shot up their base.)

This kind of question differs in answers, most bitcoin would be save in a web wallet such as coinbase, as all you need is your phone and password.

It would be a good hiding spot, but would also be a hard place to use a phone/camera to take a picture of your QR private key when you get out of jail.

I just open multisig paper wallet.Then store multiple copies in separate safety deposit boxes with a password that i will never forget in my life..

I would keep identifer/password/private key written on a paper and put it in bank locker. Easy win situation.

Doesn't give anyone your wallet password. It is the best way to keep your Bitcoin secure.

Keeping your private keys and all login credentials safe inside a Metal-safe is what I practice :)

No worries about anything.

bump

Simply memorize your passphrase or private key until you return.

That assumes that a person still retains a rational mind or good memory after X years in there
But when in doubt it never hurts to have alternative ways to remember it such as a digital archive or something of the sort.

This is a very good point. Even if you ignore the fact that most people do not have the mental capacity to be able to memorize a random set of letters/numbers the size of a private key. It has been shows that many inmates leave jail/prison in a worse state then they entered, and many become more violent and are prone to more criminal activity then when they went in.

Brain wallets do not work, if the password has ever been on the internet ANYWHERE.



Here is my attempt.

Buy the following:

1 - 2" diameter X 4" long steel pipe nipple (threaded on both ends)
2 - 2" diameter threaded end caps.
1 - 1/8 thick X 1" wide X 4" long flat steel
1 - Set of metal punches. Lowercase and Capitals 0-9 (Yes this will cost you some money)

Stamp your private key into piece of flat steel. Insert stamped plate into pipe, tighten on both ends caps to make it water and air tight.

Get a long narrow planters shovel and head to the graveyard at night. Pretend like you are on your hands preying at your grandfathers grave and slice a small circle of grass out and set it aside. Dig an 8 inch deep hole drop in pipe, fill in hole with dirt, replace grass patch. It will grow back within a week or so. No one is going to be digging up a graveyard looking for bitcoins.

Once out of jail, buy a metal detector and at night go to your grandfathers grave to retrieve steel pipe.  

BONUS: Make the private key BIP38 encrypted and put the password in a second pipe. Bury this one above the grave closest to the exit of the graveyard. You will definitely need that before leaving.  

This will stay in tact for 100+ years and will be easy to remember because no one forgets where their grandfather is buried. (Providing you knew him as a young boy)

Well there is that but after having your mind go bored to death in there without any thing to do people can go insane in there.
But then again prison should be used to correct and reform people to reenter society not make them more batty then when they first went inside of it. Good old rehabilitation, but back to keeping bitcoins secure that digital copy in and of itself is useful to keep certain that you remember it and don't forget for any reason while there. The steel pipe in a graveyard sounds like a good one too.

What online "cloud" service is likely to still be online five years from now?  Ten years?

Microsofts?  Googles?

What's the issue with placing your wallet.dat in a winrar container and password protect it and upload it to the "cloud"?

Cloud services have not even been around for this long. Also email services (which are close to cloud services) tend to delete your account/emails if you do not login every so often.

Tell my mom about it and withdraw them for cash bail. Freedom is more important than anything.

Employ image steganography to encode the private key into some random image and upload to imgur and share it. Nobody would think of looking there.

You can tell one of your friendly members about your wallet and how to use it :)

nLockTime transactions do that now - they allow you to sign a transaction that cannot be accepted onto the network before a certain block height. If you decide you don't want that transaction to go through, move the coins to a new address, and issue a new nLockTime transaction.

keep your bitcoin in a client, remember password. EZ pZ

I don't see how this would protect your coins if you were in jail. All this would do is move your coins to another address for you while you are locked up. This has nothing to do with protecting your coins nor with you being able to access them after you get out.

bump

get an elaborate tattoo on your body that has your public and private key hidden in the  tattoo, only you will know how to solve the tattoo, not even the artist will know the meaning behind the images he is creating.

Paper wallet(s) (plain text private keys). Store them as a blank file, and TrueCrypt it. My stuff is already TrueCrypted. If I were to get a no-knock for whatever reason tomorrow my entire funds would be secure. You can additionally publicly store the truecrypted file on any hosting site, write to CDs, SD cards, USB sticks in case your property gets seized. Also, you could enigma/encode your private keys and post the encrypted messages on Twitter, Facebook, Email, etc. Some place where they will always exist. Maybe even write the message in a solved Block via a transaction. When you want the encoded message, just remember which block. A random garbled message isn't likely to make people think it's an encrypted bitcoin private key.

Also 4th and 5th Amendment. Plus "Oh, I'm sorry judge. I can't remember my password..."

Also soak that metal sheet in cosmoline. That stuff can preserve metal for many generations.

The part you are missing is about saving the file somewhere that is not associated with your identity. The police could potentially seize any account that is associated with your identity. They could also compel facebook/twitter ect. to take down your posts with this file (if the accounts are associated with your identity). In this scenario your money would be safe, but you would also not have access to it once you got out.

Tattoo your wallet passphrase and private keys on the inside of you anus.

I know, it is a tough tattoo but were else is tit gonna be secure whilst your in prison? You know you ass is gonna be searched time and time again, probably by your cell mate Bubba, so why not hide it in plain sight...

Good question.

1. No internet access in prison ( I assume). Storage in the cloud or email account is out of the question. They time out, cease operating, or have technical issue, and everything is erased or lost.

2. Paper wallet. Paper burns, melts when wet, and degrades fast over time. Spot of mold in the right place and its hooped.

Encrypted wallet.dats placed into encrypted archive. This archive, then placed in another encrypted archive.  One could put these encrypted archives onto cds and flash drives. Bury some, give some to relatives, buy a safety deposit box in a bank, etc.  This is not full proof either. A strong magnet can corrupt cds and memory. Example: your relative hides the cd behind his stereo speaker.

Then you would have to memorize three good passwords. What happens if you get bonked on the head in prison? So, you have to hide these three passwords somewhere safe before you go in. You place them in an encrypted archive .... yadda yadda yadda .....

Then you have to remember one good password to get access to your previous three passwords. It goes on and on. But it could work. LOL.

Just store them in your head with Pagan Mind Wallet (http://www.paganmind.com/_BrainWallet.html)

So funny that your bitcoins could not be discovered and collected if you suddenly disappear. I never thought of this usage of Bitcoin as a safe storage for treasure. Whatever it is absolutely safe or not, it is safer than depositing money in banks. 

How safe are your butts if you suddenly got lasso'd up and thrown in the slammer?

All your computer equipment is now (hopefully) in your families possession.

Cloud storage will likely vanish or just auto-delete after one or two years of no logins

wat do

http://nigeriaspirit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/handcuffed_man.jpg

Well you could transfer them to a brain wallet, that is safe - meaning the passphrase really is complex - that way only you can access the coins, whatever happens. They could take your computer and everything.. Your coins would be safe. Another method would be memorizing an Electrum seed!

I like the idea of memorizing your seed. The issue with this however is that it is not guaranteed that electrum would be around when you get out of jail so you would risk that your private keys would permanently be lost.

This really only leaves using a brain wallet. This is really the only way that you can be sure that your bitcoin is safe, assuming that you are able to use a sufficiently secure pass phrase.

bump

This is probably what Mark Karpeles is doing :P He can easily have a bunch of bitcoins stashed somewhere safe for when things calm down for him, he can take it out, cash out the coins and still be a multimillionaire.

RAR 5+ with 100% recovery record. Store. Encrypted.

up

Cool.. Can you explain it more?

I actually solved that problem of electrum not being around by writing a stand alone python script.
Anyone can use it and copy it.  you can find it here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=612143.0

Emboss them on stainless steel strips.  

This machine is DYMO M1011, basically pretty much obsolete - but not for this job.

Put copies of the strips in a container, put container in safe locations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRWEJfUFdOg

here is the machine and the tapes from the mft's website, but old ones are for sale on ebay.

http://www.dymo.com/SearchDisplay?pageSize=12&pageView=list&catalogId=10551&facet=ads_f16001_ntk_cs%3A%22ind-embossing-non-adhesive-stainless-steel-tag-1-2-in%22&beginIndex=0&langId=-1&storeId=20051

http://www.dymo.com/en-US/view-all-labels/dymo-embosser-labels/dymo-embosser-labels/ind-embossing-non-adhesive-stainless-steel-tag-1-2-in

babby's first bitcoin

Give the backup of btc address to your wife/husband or the people who you trust  completely.

why don't you just sell it?or tell someone you trusted to hold it.but i recommend you store in bank.

It's simple:
Keep your private key stored on an NFC tag implanted in your hand. Duh.

https://dangerousthings.com/shop/xnt-ntag216-2x12mm-glass-tag/

I see issues...

Car accident, lost limb
Infection, illness, death
Airport scanners
xrays

Firstly, how likely is it that you're going to lose your hand? Secondly, if you die, you can't use your bitcoin anyways. Third, airport scanners don't erase data. Forth, why does it matter if people know it's in your hand if it's encrypted? It's not like they're going to cut it out of your hand unless you're some form of international terrorist.

Yes issue, Johnny dies.

1. not likely but it is a risk
2. i am married, wife will need to know about my bitcoins anyway so why store in my dead hand
3. airport scanners aren't going to erase data, but my nfc will show up and i am then exposed to the govt and their endless questions about what i have stuffed in my ass or hand or whatever
4. xrays, well the last thing i want is a russian kidnapping my ass, finding out i have an nfc stuffed up me somewhere and me convincing them not to cut off my appendage because it is encrypted and i will never reveal my secret bip blah blah blah

If Hitler were alive today he'd listen to Slayer and have at least half of his savings in bitcoin

Create your own black hole key encryption. whatever the hell that means.

Just keep it in your secret email and dropbox. You will forget on how to get back your wallet if you make it too complicated...

A tattoo is a good idea, it's just the suggested location that might not work tking into account that it's prison you're going to (if you're pretty enough).

OP opens the thread depicting a Zionist White House conspiracy with Hitler standing two rows behind Ronald Reagan. You may already be an accomplice :-\

Why bother going to the trouble and going threw the worry about will you be able to get your Bitcoins when/if you get out of your fema camp. Give your coins to somebody you love, but i guess you thought about that>?? Greedy then you should get a (uv tattoo) randomised only you know will do the trick. Personally a family member would have mine.

GreenAddress online wallet: https://greenaddress.it/en/ (https://greenaddress.it/en/)
You gotta keep in mind your mnemonic ( 12 words ) and pin ( 4 numbers ) but it's enough to recover your funds when you go out of jail.

Or use Electrum in a similar way. You download the wallet, keep in mind your passphrase ( seed ) and then delete the wallet from your PC.

Any paper sheet and any hardware support like HD or USB drive could be seized by your government, so your brain ( remembering seeds or mnemonic ) is the safest place to store your Bitcoins... In this case if they wanna know your passphrase they have to break your head in two...  ;D

Maybe Hal heard that this was in the pipeline...

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22429934.000?cmpid=NLC|

Which is why he erred to the safe side and had his brainwallet put in cold storage.

Yup and if you want random parts of your body chopped off, put subdermal NFC chips in them.

In this case , 1 of the 10 keys mutilsig might be much better

Classic slashdot meme right there.... and very true.... except, technically you can jump through a few hoops and even make this attack difficult. Setup a dead mans switch/trigger to send the coins to an ntimelock or wallet that you don't have immediate access to and cannot get immediate access to.

Easy here:

You gives copies of half of the private key for a wallet and the other half you sign up for one of those email dead switches - after 60 days of not being around or something similar it emails out the rest of the code.

That's good, they'd think you were lying about not having access and just beat you to death. The good news is they wouldn't have the money. lol

I guess they should love you too :)

3 people have access to my coins anytime they want.  They will never touch them unless something happens to me.

Since I use Electrum , I guess I will just keep the seed on my head to recover the wallet later ? :o

When you are being tortured you can prove to them that your money has been transferred or ntimelock'd with the public ledger.

Hum, maybe, but I'm not sure someone willing to beat you for your money would be reasonable or intelligent enough to understand. I think I'd rather have the money available to give them on the off chance they would let me go.

This is why Truecrypt and its decedents used encrypted containers so one could give up a one of the passwords revealing some of the keys or hidden information and there would be no way of knowing if their were other containers within.

This same practice could be used with Bitcoin were you give up some of your private keys when tortured.

That might be the solution. Have a stash of btc to give up if you need to.

IMO this is still too big of a risk. When you are being tortured, you are much more likely to give up information, so if you are asked if you gave up all your private keys/information then you will be more likely to tell the truth 

I think this thread is exactly why Bitcoin hasn't taken off yet. There is no good answer to how to protect your coins.

Sadly the only solution that will come along is.... you guessed it....... trusted third parties with insurance.

To damn funny.

You think this traditional banking is secure? Even if you ignore the institutionalized theft you have significantly more amortized security costs.

I am not saying it is a good solution, but it will ultimately be the solution for the masses. Nobody is going to mull over for weeks on end on how to keep their bitcoin hoard safe. They will deposit them with a third party that has insurance and let them worry about it.

Average guy will gladly pay a fee to have someone else protect his coins. pretty obvious

I agree that usability is crucial, but with more bitcoin hardware wallets being developed security will be trivial for the masses.  

Trezor and the HW.1 chip still aren't quite there as far as usability for our grandmothers but https://mycelium.com/bitcoincard and future competitors may be.

There isn't one path going forward either.

Many people will simply deal with the risks of theft from taxes or legal threats with using a service like circle and coinbase because they can at least  avoid the risks of inflation and quantitative easing seen in fiat.

I've been thinking about launching a service that is akin to offshore paper wallets. But ... maybe I'd have to be a bank of some sort. Otherwise I just operate on reputation alone. Maybe later. I don't know.

Banks generally operate on reputation alone (although they also often rely on the reputation of the government insurance that backs deposits as well).

To damn funny or not to damn funny, that is the question.

Average guy will pay fee, forget password, lose 2FA key, throw hissy fit, accuse you of stealing when you won't give coins back on the strength of an all caps ungrammatical email.

Damn funny ;D

As part of the service, I will require identification in high resolution, as that is the only way I can verify you, IN PERSON. Which means you have to come fly here to my location and we meet.

If you are trusting me with your coins (probably more than 100 BTC) then you should have no problem trusting me with your IDs.

I'll have a part of the clause that if Tom Cruise shows up at my door step with your credentials (your passport and your driver's license etc) and your face (Mission Impossible), then I won't be held liable. The whole exchange will be recorded in 1080p HD so if the real you suddenly appear, "hey, I thought that guy was you."

I can safely store your cold wallet in a highly secure location. Just not secure enough against the IMF or James Bond or any other highly trained secret agent. (For reals, I have a private vault inside a military base.)

Again, I haven't found any customers, so ...

Yeah, there's FDIC for the US and PDIC for the Philippines, but they only cover a certain amount per depositor (and not per account.)

Why are you trying to promote centralized cold storage? Even if you have good intentions and honest it is still an insecure proposal. People really should store their assets in multisig cold storage where no other party can manipulate or spend their currency.

It really isn't that hard to do this either with devices like entropy . Here is more information for people :

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=858604

I could offer to hold one part of your multi-sig cold storage. It makes no difference to me.

I'm not trying to promote anything. It's only as insecure as if anyone can get to me. If you believe your government can get to you (or some other adversary can get to you), then you have an option to hide your stash away somewhere else.

People do this all the time, in the form of bank accounts in a different country. The ones who haven't discovered bitcoin anyway.

You can do this on your own. Hide your private keys in a place no one else will find them. Under a rock. Up on the tree. ... ... Anywhere you can hide a micro SD card or a credit card sized piece of paper (or plastic or metal.)

Essentially, what I could be offering are tutorial services (or classes), and when the student has figure out enough about bitcoin, about computer security, about paper wallets, about cold storage. ... Then they can leave me and go do it themselves.

Or give me 1 key from their 4-of-9 multi sig wallet to keep.

This all sounds good, we need more tutorials and better education.

I think it's like, how I used to store all my money and savings in a Savings Bank Account... Because, well, I felt then, that I could trust the bank.

If my money is not being actively used in a business, as capital for example, or it is not lent to someone else, like a personal loan, then I keep what's left with me, in cash. Or in bitcoin. It took some time, but when I finally learned enough, then I took charge of safekeeping my own money.

I only keep enough in the bank well below their insured maximum value. (In my case, that's 500,000 PHP or only 11,000 USD.) It hasn't been tested yet, but I believe that it's per person, per bank. And not per account.

I have several accounts, in different banks, for different purposes. But the ones in the same bank are all collectively insured for only a certain amount. I don't see the bank closing any time soon, but so did a lot of people in some European country, like, last year I think. Cyprus?

But back to the original topic or question: If I suddenly die or disappear, the banks would freeze my money, take a chunk out for taxes, and wait several weeks or months before handing it over to my beneficiaries.

The small envelope in the safe would have the private keys and instructions on how to use bitcoin.

Wouldn't the Trezor unit be the best option here? Store the bitcoins in there with the passphrase and seed memorized. Leave the unit somewhere safe in your house.

Then when you come out, even if Trezor has shut down and your house has been demolished, you could go to a site like Electrum or similar and input the seed and passphrase and bingo, your coins are in your new wallet?

A trezor can easily be seized by law enforcement. This will make it difficult/impossible for you to be able to spend money even if the trezor keeps your bitcoin "secure"

I'm a bitcoin newbie but I think your statement is wrong.

If law enforcement seize your Trezor and you are sent to jail, when you come out, you can enter your seed and passphrase into Electrum (or similar product if Trezor/Electrum goes offline) and your wallet will reappear. Then you are free to spend bitcoins.

The Trezor has a further advantage of plausible deniability, where you can keep 1 or 2 bitcoins in one wallet on the Trezor, and the bulk of your stash with another seed and passphrase on the same Trezor.

That way if you are compelled to give up the wallet, you can give the one with just a few coins it in to law enforcement. The rest of your stash will be ready for you when you are released

My limited understanding of the Bitcoin technology is that BIP0032 wallet technology allows you to easily migrate between various products / hardware / offline wallets etc. without losing your coins. Your only worry would be whether BIP0032 technology would still be supported when you came out of jail, but I suppose if the stash you are trying to recover is big enough, you could probably pay a literate computer guy to build you a custom BIP32 wallet and recover your funds when you are paroled in the year 2030. The stash might be worth 10 times what it was when you went in so it would be worth the fees.

This is as per my limited understanding of the technology and the extensive reading I've done, so feel free to shred my assumptions to bits.

I think that first rule should be to never keep confident info on your personal computer.
Second rulče is to share such secure info with your spouse or someone you trust.
In this case, you don't need to worry about loosing your bitcoin if you have to go to jail :)
Your bTC will wait for you when you come back!

tatoo your bitcoin adress

Is that Neo on the bench?

1) Open a public lamp post (in a residential zone)
2) Save wallet.dat or private key in a thermos bottle
3) hard duke on the public lamp post
4) done for 15 years (or more)

...

1) Go to a 30th tree (on road or on a forest)
2) Mined
3) Save wallet.dat or private key to a plastic tupperware
4) close the hole

Well, they changed out my utility poles including street lighting lately, so glad I didn't lose a wallet that way, and the tree idea has certain pitfalls also... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Job_%28film%29

some good ideas ITT

Prepare for the worst people.

I'm a little curious on this statement
There is currently a lot of bullshit laws in the USA that a red-blooded white man could easily get jailed for.

It's not that hard
I would simply make a brain wallet (remembering Electrum seed can be hard for years ...)
or simply Make a encrypted Paper wallet and save it so no body find it , once I come out from jail , I enjoy being rich :o If I had a little amount of money ... well I won't worth to hide it

Yeah sounds like the easiest solution to it!  :P

The longer Bitcoin is around the more believable the concept of a Bitcoiner being sent to jail or prison.

get a 'paper wallet' made of plastic. memorize pass and tell your mum (only person you can trust)
make small incision in ballsack. insert wallet. restitch.  ;D

>mfw reading this thread

https://i.imgur.com/J2f8zdx.jpg

Geocaching: Put the coins on multiple truecrypted flash drives, then bury them in different locations in the woods.

NOTHING else is secure, period. Forget all this multi-sig bullshit when it comes to longterm storage ..

Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad   ;)

Actually if you really can remember it , that is the best and safest way to do it
Or the multisig idea sounds good enough
But instead of giving it to , two different people , keep one in your bank , one if safe deposit(secret) and last one to a friend (highly tusted)

TATTOO WALLET WOULD BE A GREAT SOLUTION  ;D ;D

You have the option of the brain wallet that has a lot of advantages when you are cut of the real world for a long time as many posts said. I think it is the best way to keep some bitcoins if things get really messy.

My option would be to make a brain wallet and deposit there my Bitcoin, hopefully i would not forget the passphrase..  :P

bump

I've got my ledger wallet in a safe place, and I trust my wife, so if I need to access my btc she could do it for me. I've also shown her where it is so if she needs to move out the house she can retrieve it for me. Basically, I trust my wife.

I've got lots of valuable stuff I know she will look after for me if I have to "go away"

I basically did the same exact thing with my Trezor seed. I have written a 2 page paper where I explained everything to my wife in the case something God forbids was to happen to me.

I don't know, but I think this is the best thing. With the brain wallet, if you die tomorrow in a plane crash, your bitcoins go with you. Basically you have to tell someone of trust!

I think backup wallet and keep save in Mega cloud,best cloud in internet
Or like somebody adviced here leave  USA and go Canada,Canada is friendly for Native American and crypto

Umm. I'm Canadian and part native. We like to show off to the world that were great to our first people's and always have dancers at public events n stuff, but if you know anything about our history, about policy even today, or have ever visited a reserve up north... You would not say that. Native people in Canada make the poorest blacks in the USA look like Danish Royalty.

Basically the image of Canada as a progressive humanitarian nation is a sham. We are just America's bitch.

You may use a deep cold storage. You need to open a safe deposit box and putting a USB stick containing an encrypted wallet file in it. The public (sending) addresses can be used any time to send additional bitcoins to the wallet, but spending the bitcoins would require physical access to the box (in addition to knowledge of the encryption password).

We treat Canada pretty well. I would say it's more like, Canada is the USA's wife. As long as she keeps the house clean and spreads her legs when ever we want then we don't have to smack her around. We don't get involved in what she's doing if she doesn't stick her nose in adult business and understands her place.

Natives in the US are currently getting 200 years of revenge. It's pretty funny to watch all the pale faces flock to Indian casinos all over the country and dump their wallets every weekend. We brought Anglo diseases to this territory 200 years ago, infected them and raped their women. They're spreading the gambling disease all over the country and raping our wallets. LOL

Nice post. I also thought about still lately

- The problem with storing encrypted wallet is places like dropbox or some other service. We are never sure when that service may shutdown
- Also if you store the paper wallet somewhere, there is always chance it could be destroyed or broken it.
- Problem with brainwallets is that you need a complex enough passphrase which you could forget

Here is my solution

- Store the encrypted private key into namecoin with your name as key. We can sure to get back namecoin blocks even if other centralized storage services shutdown

Make a paper wallet & bury it or leave it with a loved one until you get out. If you don't want to do either of these then get your public & private keys tattooed on your body, maybe on the inside of your biceps or something.

I would keep encrypted backups online and with trusted family member(I wont give them the password).

If i was in your place i will keep them in paper wallet and hide it under locker

Never share your private data or passwords with anybody else.
Don't have this info on computer or on the paper.
Protect your wallet with additional security, more complicated password etc.
If you follow this rules your bitcoin funds will be safe :)

Paper wallet or a offline wallet on a harddrive in a safe

How many bitcoins do you think ole jew boy Charlie Shrem has tucked away for when he's let out of prison?

You were not the only person who didn't notice that.  The guns drew all of my attention.

sdp.

i believe it would be a hardware wallet to keep your bitcoins safe as it is impossible to hack it you just need to hide the wallet

well you can easily print a few copies of a paper wallet and bury it underground somewhere im pretty sure no one would ever find it

It would be good enough to keep them in your desktop Wallet.

hide your paper wallet in a safe

i doubt that there is a completely secure way to keep your bitcoins safe

I didn't thought about going to jail, but if you go you will have a lot of free time to learn the passphrase of your wallet. I thought about how to remember without printing a copy, my best option was writing them on a book, or underline the same words on a book if its possible.

something sofisticated and high hi-tech that it is connected with you with a chip under the skin, this chip is connected to a safe box, that it will open if you die or if commanded

in the safe box there are your bitcoin in a paper wallet or usb stick

Offline wallet is probably best option. You may hide it in some encrypted place or your granddad's basement. yeah. noone would care to look for that.

Just leave some kind of clue to your relatives or the beneficiaries of you Will, for them to find it... I wonder how many Bitcoin has been lost, because people left a piece of paper

somewhere and their relatives did not know that it was loaded with money. That piece of paper should have a note attached, saying "To whomever are reading this... This piece of

paper are worth a lot of money, go to www.*********.com and find out how you can claim this." Point them to some sort of resource, where they will be able to find out more

about Bitcoin... And remember to tell them to keep the Private key safe.  ::)

Biochips are under developments and research now, so I think it would probably be a thing in the future. Also, those biochips would certainly be a form of security when it comes to financial talks.