Bitcoin Forum

As some of you know, I won a hardware wallet in a recent competition here in Bitcoin Talk. That was 4 months ago. The wallet was dispatched promptly following the announcement of the results, but I have only just received it. The wallet was contained in a (probably) sealed box supplied by the manufacturer, and double bagged for dispatch. I received the package in a Royal Mail bag which declared that the packaging had been damaged before entering the UK.Both of the bags had been ripped open and not resealed, and the security tab on the box was missing.

My suspicion is that the package was picked up in a scan, and sent for analysis to check for possible money laundering. Sending a loaded wallet is obviously a way to transfer funds with them being recorded on the blockchain. I haven't used any hardware wallets, so I'm wondering how easy it is for government agencies to check for stored Bitcoin in the wallet.

An awful lot more trouble than it's worth. If it was a Ledger you'd only have a few attempts to crack the pin before it's bricked. If it's a Trezor each failed attempt takes longer before you can try again until it stretches out to months between attempts.

I would assume the average customs agent knows nothing about how hardware wallets work so it's possible they tried. If they did then it's a pointless exercise.

It's just as likely a clueless and dishonest employee somewhere had a fiddle too.

What, that's actually a thing? Isn't the unopened package/ anti-tampering seal already a guarantee the wallet is brand new?

You didn't write which hardware wallet it was, but if it was a Ledger or Trezor it would be a much better option if it was sent directly from the EU, because then such problems would certainly not occur.

It is very likely that US customs inspected the package, perhaps precisely because of the suspicion of illegal money transfer, but it is also possible that this was done by anyone in the supply chain in order to modify the device. As for checking whether crypto is in the hardware wallet, each such device has protection in the form of PIN and possible additional passphrase protection, so it's not easy to peek into someone's wallet. For example, the Ledger will reset to the factory settings if the wrong PIN is entered three times in a row.

In recent years, in some countries of the world, customs have been supervising not only postal packages containing electronic equipment, but also personal electronic items such as mobile phones or laptops.

https://www.businessinsider.com/can-us-border-agents-search-your-phone-at-the-airport-2017-2

I think whatever hardware wallet brand it is, it's possible to check if it was used, right? If there's a wallet already been created there, the seal would be ripped, and the box opened already. If the government is using the customs to check for possible devices like that, they should know that it's easier to just send BTC instead of a physical device in which they could seize it, right? I'm just thinking of the possibilities as well.

It's probably too late but congratulations on winning the competition, Jet Cash!

This is something we do not hear every day, thanks for sharing it with us. I think there are two possibilities here. the first one according to what you said, was checked by the customs to see if there was some huge amount of BTC inside that hardware wallet and might using it for money laundering. the second one is someone might want to see if that wallet is holding a huge amount of BTC so that they can get it with some force and will think of a way to get it from you. In this case, I think it's not safe to send our own wallet in this way.

Thanks for the congrats.

The wallet is a keep key, and I can't check on anything atm, as I am in a supermarket car park waiting for an Amazon delivery. The indications are that the product was brand new on dispatch, and I take the point about a possible compromising of the security. Maybe I should do a factory reset before I start to use it. When I get the chance, I'l move a small amount onto it - maybe 0.1 Bitcoin . I'll start a review thread, and tell people what I think about the concept, and its ease of use for digital nomads.At the moment I've got mildly positive opinions, and I hope that will be justified.

Does anyone approve the possibility of bitcoin theft by US custom officials?

Hardware are visible and hence are always prone to being searched by authorities. A hardware wallet being sent by mail internationally would of course attract attention. They could be one of the easiest way to launder money or fund terrorism. This also revealed your identity and location and probably might have been added you on the surveillance list. MI5 field operatives might be roaming around your house.

I don't want to ruin your fun with a new device, but KeepKey it is not something that has made many people happy. I've never used it personally, so I can't speak from personal experience, but from everything I've read so far I haven't found too many satisfied users. Maybe your personal experience will be different because you haven't used any other hardware wallet so far so you can't make a comparison.

Yes, the Keepkey is a worthless black bricklet (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5226098.0)

Wow, that's some intense stuff! I don't know if it's okay for them to do such checks, to be honest...
I also had a bad situation with a hardware wallet and customs, but a different one.
When I won the newest Ledger wallet from Bitcasino.io, it was also stopped at the customs. My package wasn't damaged, but it was stopped at the customs on the grounds of needing to pay taxes. I would not have needed to pay them if Ledger did not pack Ledger Nano S along with Ledger Nano X 'as a token of appreciation', and the sum reached this ridiculously low limit of tax-free price. I was living abroad back then, so I arranged for my sister to take it for me. Anyway, the customs officers claimed that the price stated by Ledger officially in the bill is too low to be true, and that such wallets cost more and thus she has to pay even more taxes (and even without this 'extra taxes' thing it was $20 for what cost $130). Which is ridiculous, and they clearly just wanted a bribe (unfortunately, corruption is a big thing in my country). Instead, we decided not to collect it from the customs due to unfairness of the situation. It then arrived back to Europe to Ledger, and I arranged for my friend in the EU to take it, and then she got it to me through personal travel to my home country (this way the limit on the price is 10 times higher, so it wasn't stopped at the customs at all). Customs suck, apparently especially so when it's crypto wallets, 'cause after a while I had other things arriving from abroad without any problems.

I'm not too bothered about the police of MI5 checking on me. Although I am experimenting as a digital nomad, this doesn't mean that I reject the laws and infrastructure of the country. Good luck if they want to check on me though, as it was delivered to a friends address, and he relies on his daughter ( at a different address) for any computing stuff that he needs to do.

Thanks for the comments on Keep Key, and it sounds as if I should start with just 0.01 Bitcoin. :) My node is out of sync at the moment, so it might be a while before I can do the transfer, or maybe I will experiment with an out of sync node just for the knowledge.

Well that is interesting. I thought I would read the getting started manual, but Morrisons has blocked the keep key site. Morrisons is the supermarket providing the WiFi, and they seem to be anti Bitcoin and crypto. They do allow me to access Bitcoin Talk however.

Breaking into a hardware wallet to investigate potential money laundering is such a strange thing to do. Why would anyone send a wallet with bitcoins instead of sending a Bitcoin transaction? It's so unsecure, because you'll have to trust that the other party didn't copy the private key. And if the seals aren't broken, there's a really low chance that someone already put some coins in it.

So, either whoever did this wanted to steal coins, or these customs officials are just dumb and have an urge to check every piece of electronics. I wonder if they check every USB stick or a Blu-ray disc, because those can have bitcoins on them too.

Our customs also have been reported doing the same thing, there were package that is broken when it was receive telling the receiver that it was broken when they got and never do anything on it.

But this? I just think they opened it hoping for something else but wasn't expecting what's inside, coz if they do they will surely withdraw all the funds you got on that hardware wallet.

If they suspected it for something, or was seize that time, they should be contacting the receiver and tell that they are going to check it. Am I right? or they have the right to check on it without anyone knowing?

I think there're missed up in some place and the person that actually tampered with the package really knows little about how crypto wallets operate because with my experience in this space, i don't think anyone will load fund on hardware wallet and shipped it to another location. It might be one of the shipment agent trying to be smart by trying his luck if he'll be able to access the wallet and cater away with the fund

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions, and this is what I believe happened.

The wallet was sent P2p, and not from a recognised supplier. I suspect this raised a red flag, and customs decided to investigate. The local depot didn't have the resources for this, so they sent it away for analysis. The bankers virus probably slowed down this process, which is why it ended up taking 4 months to deliver. I understand that it is easy to send Bitcoin via the blockchain, but this leaves a permanent record. Using a loaded wallet for a money transfer is closer to a cash payment, and doesn't leave any record of the transaction. Maybe wallets with viewable balances, but secure withdrawals will become the cash of the future.

I think the wallet is interesting, especially as it has a possible integration with shape shift, and this could be useful for me when selling domain names. I'm really pleased to have received this for experimentation, and I'll let you guys know how I get on with it. I set it up on a different computer, and see if somebody here will sell a small amount of crypto to load on it. For various reasons, this may take me a week or so to set up though.

That's the fact why they investigate it deeply. Usually when customs find something suspicious then they have right to open when its p2p. I have ordered Ledger package (Ledger-s+Ledger-X) from Amazon and I received it sealed. I am currently working on Middle East (KSA). But I have sent a Ledger-s to a friend in my native country but there wasn't any problems on the customs. Obviously it was sent p2p, when one of my colleague went vacation I have sent with him. Hope when I will go then there will not be problem on the customs. Just for info, Bitcoin is fully illegal in my country.

What competition? By Trezor/Ledger? I would be suspicious if it wasn't by the manufacturer.

Assume that wallet is compromised. Throw it away.


Hard if you have a strong passphrase, https://wiki.trezor.io/Passphrase

You should have just read my post, there is one interesting link that says that it is quite legal for customs officers to check every electronic device that may contain information or in this case cryptocurrencies that are illegally taken out of the country, or vice versa.

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If it was a newbie I wouldn't say anything, but Hero and Legendary members who write blindly without being able to read a few posts :-\

Have you thought about writing your story to manufacturer and ask what to do next? Imagine that your hardware was not checked by government, but was modded by a unfair post worker, that just scanned the parcel, saw a hardware and installed something into it?

This is a question of hardware reputation. The best way for manufacturer is to send you new, unopened device, or make a step-by-step how to check yours and restore it to default settings or something.

You say "when you got a chance to..." means you havent done anything with it? Write an email to manufacturer. It will take you not more than 5min, but might save your funds :)

Interesting, that's the most probable scenario that happened in the customs. But, it would be nice for them to repack things up since they haven't found anything critically suspicious on the package. Though it raises a red flag, but It's sure have undergone meticulous process before you recieved the package right?



I haven't tried using hardware wallet as well, but base on this story, I have just learned that such scenario is very possible to happen not only for you, but for anyone else in the future including me. So, I agree with this initiative.

@Jet Cash there’s an article from December 2019 which says that Kraken easily cracked Keep Key wallet, though I’m assuming that this bug should have been fixed by now. Also I’ll agree with what @Lucius has said, and I too would recommend you to try another hardware wallet, as keep key wallet is not worth the hassle.

Source:

https://www.coinspeaker.com/kraken-cracked-keepkey-hardware-wallet-extracted-seed-mnemonic-phrase/

I actually did a quick scroll down, I didn't see that. Sorry for missing it. 8)

Plus what I want to know/see is the actual topic where the competition was held.

This is stupid. You only need to know 24 backup words or 12 or 1 with brain wallet. Nobody needs to bring hardware wallet who want to move bitcoin to another country.

Indeed. I see bigger chance it was mistaken for an USB stick or similar and they were looking if it doesn't contain anything illegal or maybe they've tried to see if it's not something else than it looks (just a shell containing drugs or I don't know what).

OP, keep in mind that there aren't that many who know what Bitcoin is and even less who know what a hardware wallet it.
Also, OP, you may want to read this (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5226098) about KeepKey before you try too hard to work with it.

Be it legally checked through customs or not, I would personally not trust that HW anymore. My advise is.. just keep it aside. IMO it's not worth it to risk. Although the hardware wallet might've been unboxed at customs, is there really any assurance the HW hasn't been tampered with along its way or even beforehand?

I'm especially paranoid when it comes to blockchain stuff; I was a little in doubt even when I received my Nano S directly from their factory. I'd be extra paranoid if the package I had received was open. Chances of receiving a hardware wallet that has been physically tampered with are very very low, but I would not take any chance tbh.

I didn't think of that. You wouldn't mistake it for a usb stick, but it could be a small ssd. I looked at the customs declaration, and it describes the content as electronic documents, and that could have got them interested.

I'm not too bothered about it being stolen, or somebody trying to crack it, as I think I keep my systems fairly secure. I'm probably going to use Kali as the OS with it for various reasons not related to the wallet. I like the association with Shape Shift, and I hope that I can use it to help me sell domain names for a variety of cryptos, and to convert those to Bitcoin for long term savings.

Part of the initialisation process is to upgrade the software, and hopefully that would clear any tampering. I think it unlikely that the device has been modified though, and I can't see the customs being very excited by anything that I do.

This might be the case, may be the agencies suspected it moght be a means of sending laundered fund and decided to do some digging but it is nearly impossible to really break into a wallet they don't have a key to if at all the wallet was pre-loaded with funds. Or looking at it from another angle, it might be a delivery agent try to play smart and not really the government 

That is very strange but you are being paranoid. Sending something physically is counterproductive. Why would you launder money with a wallet? It takes longer to get there and it might get lost or something. If you laundering money you are laundering lots of money. Do you really think someone would risk that much money sending a physical copy of a wallet? That is just silly. Much better to use an exchange or mixer or guess what? Not even bother at all. Drugs are bought every day and sent all over the world. They can't track everything. If they did then no parcel would ever get anywhere. People seem to think law enforcement have some sort of magic powers. They don't. They just like you and me.

If you want to launder money you do not do it through currency. Not even crypto. Your source of income doesn't need to be traced. If the government see's you are spending more money then you could possibly earn they will ask questions. When people launder money they have fronts. They "invest" in bogus companies that don't exist or even some that do exist but are a front for something else. This is why KYC annoys me so much.
People don't use methods that require the kind of KYC they demand from us innocent folk. They buy property and do all sorts of things to spread the money.

I promise you that law enforcement agencies have better things to do. They looking to catch people laundering millions of $$ worth of stolen assets. It doesn't matter the form.

As the sender of this wallet, I'm obviously a bit annoyed by the fucking w/of the package.  I haven't read through all the comments 100% yet, so I'm curious to see what everyone has had to say about this, but I have never heard of anything like this before.  Very weird.

And that's a bunch of bullshit, as is the experience Jet Cash went through.  Taking a hardware wallet on a plane or having it sent somewhere?  So what?  If you wanted to move huge amounts of money, you could just send bitcoin to someone in another country instead of flying it over.  There's no need for any government agency to know how much you've got on that wallet (and it's a damn good thing they'd have a hard time figuring it out themselves with just the wallet to work with).

Good to see you active here again, Jet Cash.  I'd wondered where you've been lately.

Damn JC is out of his long hybernation.


Yea, I'm personally betting that this is the case too. Smuggling drugs by hiding them on various items is something that's pretty much always on the news lol, so this is them probably just taking things more seriously(though I'm definitely not a fan of the rummaging). Not to mention that a KeepKey is significantly larger than a Ledger and a Trezor too, and it looks somewhat like a container.

https://themerkle.com/wp-content/uploads-new/2016/03/keepkey-ledger-trezor-1280x720.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/nB8iknM.png
image source (https://themerkle.com/keepkey-vs-trezor-vs-ledger-nano/)

Thanks for all the replies, and maybe it is time for a summary to bring back the thread focus.

I'm a Bitcoin maximalist, and I only use the wallet in a full node. I'm aware that this is a bit of a limited perspective, and that is why I was pleased to be awarded a hardware wallet. There are many wallets available now, and I don't know much about them, so this is a great chance for me to get some hands on experience of the concept. I'm particularly pleased with this one, as it is integrated with ShapeShift, and it would appear that I can use the wallet to accept a variety of cryptos and convert them into a long term Bitcoin holding. This is great for my domain name sales business. It is also important to state thart there are no coin transfers associated with this prize. I am also grateful to ChiBitCTy for his help in this matter.

The interesting topics ( to me ) that have come out of this thread are
- The use of a hardware wallet to create an effective physical coin for cryptos.
- The government interest in cross border transfers of cryptos
- The use of a hardware wallet for coin transfers without using the internet.

When I have sorted out the system I want to use, I'll start a few threads about this. They will be a bit different from the normal as they will have a nomadic perspective.

That sometimes happens, but not all countries do that. Maybe your hardware wallet is under suspicion of American customs. So before
sending to you, the hardware wallets are first checked by American customs. Then the seal is open, maybe your hardware wallets package
is considered dangerous or suspicious. But if I receive a package in such circumstances, obviously I will not use. Because of fear of hardware
wallets, I have installed the recorder and my privacy is threatened.

I really feel that they are pissing into the wind with actions like this. Why would someone use a well known Bitcoin hardware wallet to launder money? It would be much easier just to send someone your Bitcoin address and then to transfer the money to them... why send that to someone on a hardware wallet?  ::)  (Alternatively... you could transfer bitcoins to a paper wallet and then just break up the private key and send sections of it with different electronic media to someone.. eg. Voice note / WhatsApp / email / online chat etc.)

Do you know if your seed words was generated and possibly exposed to them or did you generate it yourself when you configured the wallet for the first time?

even if off-chain transfer of bitcoin were the goal and some illegal activities were involved, there still is no reason to use a hardware wallet to do the transfer because it would become apparent that bitcoin is being transferred and that also leaves a trace!
a much simpler way is to use a piece of paper. the key could be encrypted with a strong password using customized encryption technique and the encrypted key and the password are communicated separately. easy peasy...

I don't think that's possible to do legally. They also don't check how much money you have in your online banking application, right?
What I mean is that they look for how much cash you carry. You can have as much as you want in bank.
And for Bitcoin, that has to be converted into a country's currency to count as funds.

However, let's say you are right and they care about your bitcoins. Do they know what a hardware wallet is? Highly unlikely. But let's say they know. You can enter wrong pin 3 times ("stress because of police") and you recover some other time from the seed. They cannot know if you have 1$ there or billions.

I don't think it's very likely anyone would send a physical device to transfer funds that way. A blockchain transaction doesn't reveal if the transaction was to another wallet of your own, or to someone on another continent.
By sending a wallet without making a transaction, the receiver knows the sender can still access the coins, and even if that's the plan, sending the mnemonic seed split into several parts via different encrypted channels is much easier than sending the actual device. I've used something similar to receive mnemonic seeds for my Fork claiming service.


I would consider the device compromised now. Don't trust it anymore.

I would if I could receive pounds anonymously, but I can't.

I had things stolen from packages sent from EU to Australia and back. I haven't sent any contraband but still someone had opened my mail and took out some things that were more bulky than a standard piece of paper. I bet they were looking for jewelry.

They also like to check electronics because people have sent narcotics and stuff hidden in battery compartments of electronic devices.

If the wallet was new and they had some idea about the way it works they could have written down the seed and hope someone will ignore the broken seal and still deposit onto it.

Yes, it is but the OP said the hardware wallet was sealed with box supplied by the manufacturer, definitely there is a name or description on the sealed box which indicates the package contains bitcoin wallet which the reason why the custom first seized it because most government agency believe everything that have to do with crypto is always involved with money laundering and the wallet was said to be a loaded wallet.

There's totally a very low chance of this happening due to the points you raised, but idk man, I'd personally rather not risk it instead and not bring my personal hardware wallet with me when traveling. Just transfer a decent amount to a mobile wallet and you should be good. Again, though very unlikely, I don't think something like this is outside the realm of possibility. They may not know what a hardware wallet is right now, but it doesn't mean they will remain ignorant forever.

I had taken a part in mew competition, and won ledger (+some other goodies), i received mine without any trouble (although parcel was bit fiddled with), the other guy i met online said his parcel was seized.

Sending the seed would rather be a better option than sending the actual hardware wallet, but both of you knowing the passphrase and seed is not a good way to transact, you are also correct that the hardware wallet is already compromised, as it is written, you should only use a hardware wallet that you are the first to set up.

I have one and it was also delivered late, I think, for a month. And I just found out it was in our local post office, I just don't get why they didn't send a notification. Though, I'm glad it is still well packed and sealed.

Hello

I am really sorry that this happened with you , it is not really an easy thing to go and use the Bitcoins from your hardware wallet , unfortunately I was researching about the current situation of cryptocurrencies in the UK and found this direct statement.



Since they are not considered legal tenders therefore you cannot actually go and register a complain. BUT !

You can very easily file a complain in the company which delivered the mail , you have to understand that even though they did not actually make a law protecting cryptocurrencies , what happened to you was a Violation of personal belonging , therefore the company itself is entitled to look further into it .

Plus I don't think that there was any problem regarding the government agencies , this might very easily be a work of a dishonest employee .

Government agencies won't just come forward and look into it , If they did then for sure you would have received a letter of some sort , if they thought it was problematic then most probably not a letter but police itself.

I do think you should register a complain still .

OMG. I wasn’t really ready to know this, hits hard. I don’t make use of hardware and I don’t think it’s something I am interested in making use of, maybe due to my level for now. I have been making use of other wallets and they are doing the job for me, I have always done everything possible to keep my wallets safe so that I am not going to be complaining at any time. If I’m going to buy a hardware and they will be checking it like this, then what’s the need? The government will really do anything to piss you off at anytime.

I remember when I was planning to by ASICs by 2015, I stopped that idea as packages need to clear customs checking and I may need to pay customs duties. As I was not doing financial well at those times, I dropped total mining idea if I would have tried, who knows, my package as well might have seized by customs officers for transporting some "alien" thing.

Don't you think it not bad to demand reason why the hardware wallet is in that state when it was given to you. I am very sure the delivery man will be able to tell you if it was tampered with or routinely picked and checked by the custom to clear your doubt. I am sure every country have rules regarding goods that can be ship into a country and if the hardware wallet does not fall in any of the category, then I do not see any reason why it should be checked except someone that knows what it is tried to have access in order to check if it has coin

Go purchase a hardware wallet anyway. I think this is a very rare occurrence as this has been the only such incident that I've read online. Once you see such complaints being frequently posted on r/TREZOR and on r/ledgerwallet, then I think we should be hugely concerned.

We don't see such incidents regularly. This is something rare. In my perspective there are two things that could have happened.

1. The US customs knew it was a hardware wallet
In this case, either they would have detected it for some money laundering as you said or some official would have wanted to steal cryptocurrency inside it.

2. The US customs didn't knew it was a hardware wallet
The would thought it for some data storage device with some precious data or something and may be they would have wanted to check the data inside it.

In any case, it's completely wrong to tamper a product without any approval.

They most likely didn't know what it was as the content of the invoice was not specific;
I can imagine an overzealous employee investigating the package out of curiosity and flagging it on discovery of what it contained or a dubious one at that who thought this was an early retirement plan. It's mostly safety procedure and as long as anything apart from he package is damaged, that should be fine.

Money laundering by hardware wallets just not stands.
First there are electronic ways of sending a wallet, so why bother with international mailing procedures?
Secondly, with wallet transfers, the original owner still has control over the key. Receiver still has to make a transaction to make sure he is the only one in control.

That was really an awful experience for sure that your package have been opened up and did not get backed from being sealed after they have done a thorough investigation. Well, it is the job at the customs to check packages that can be potential for money laundering, illegal exportation and other related stuffs that must be check at the customs before dispatching to enter the country's vicinity to ensure the national security.

But, I think it is an irresponsible act that they leave the package hanging after the analysis and have something on the original package missing. It is their right to check up for potential risks but they must at least turn it back to its original look before dispatching it since it was delivered on a nice packaging. Whether what the reason is all about, they must have return it on its original phase after doing the analysis because it is improper to just release it knowing that you have tampered the package and the security tab was already missing.

My head is wrapping around all the posts in this thread. I think two different events are being conflated here. First we have the fact that the hardware wallet was sent in a package, inspected, and sent to the recipient. There's another facade with the idea that it was in his luggage and taken away from him (which is not what happened). I have the feeling US customs checking is stringent but when they're checking things like electronics there is little they can check without knowing the passwords and PINs. Which brings me to two questions:

1. Will they take away any kind of electronics in packages if they suspect it has something suspicious in it?
2. Does the same apply if it's in luggage?

It is best to just take the time to memorize the seed words of your actual wallet. It's not really that difficult. If you can't do that, there are other methods you could use to hide the words in plain sight - for instance you could scatter them within the text of an email or online document in a way that only you know how to retrieve. This way you could reset the wallet each time you need to go through customs. In many countries immigration and customs agents have the authority to search electronic devices. If they ever demanded to see the contents you can then show them a wallet with 0 BTC.

I'd like to reemphasise that this is a brand new item that had not been initialised, and therefor had no coins or seeds associated with it.

I have a Lenovo M58 computer that was left out in the rain, and I will experiment with reviving this, and if possible I will install Kali and the shape shift software. The computer has been drying out over the last month, and if I can find a USB keyboard, I'll experiment with it during the next few days.

I hope that my experience will not discourage members to continue to run contests, and to allow the international awarding of prizes. At the end of the day, I've got a great product to test, and the inconveniences have been fairly minor.

as long as it was powered off at the timeit will likely be OK. just let it dry for an extended amount ot time as you have done. mechanical drives and battery would not be trustable but other that that should be fine. i regularly wash cases, motherboards and keyboards by hand or in dishwashers when i refurbish junker PCs for donations or just to keep as backup machines.

toss a cheapie SDD in, maybe oil the fans if you can get to them. waterlogged optical drives are hit and miss but they are dirt chap anyway.

but again i dont like trusting (laptop) battery packs that have gone through stuff like that. damn thing can burn underwater ffs

EDIT: this is a desktop? then replace the mechanical drive, check or toss new fans in, replace the cr232 battery. good to go.

unless that liquid was corrosive or something. but flood damage (fresh or grey water) is usually OKish. however some floodwater carries some really nasty pathogens (sewage! eeew) and chemicals, bleh

of course salt water is death to electronics usually.

It is a small desktop computer with an SSD, and it hasn't been powered up since it was left out in the rain. I think the guy was going to dump it anyway, as he has bought a new machine. I haven't found a USB keyboard so far, and I'm not sure if it has bluetooth. I've got a bluetooth keyboard to use with my mobile.

I guess the answer is to power it up, and see if I can do some basic exploring with just a mouse.

rainwater shoudnt have hurt it at all and after a month of drying i would just fire it up and see. again, just may need a new cr2032 cmos battery (likely dead now) and it might come up to the bios screen on boot complaining and such or not recognize the drive to boot due to bios setting going wonky. reset to default and away you go. fans now are largely sealed bearings so probably unaffected.

ive resurrected computers and other electronics that were completely submerged for days.

edit: get a wired keyboard for testing if possible. i ran into a system that the bios didnt recognize a wireless keyboard that used usb receiver dongle (microsoft keyboard no less).

I wonder why such interceptions would be done without appriopriate approval. If you had millions of dollars in it, it would be said that it is money laundering which can be done in a more smarter way. i do no think this is ideal. there is no sense of privacy anymore in advanced societies because of the damages caused by a few in the society. it ain't right.

I think I entered in this giveaway when it was going on and said "why not!" since it was a free one.
But If I knew keepkey was literally a piece of shite, I wouldnt even want it from all the hassle with it passing thru so many hands before it reached to your own.

What do you think of the air gapped wallets?
There are a few:
https://www.ellipal.com/blogs/news/what-is-air-gapped-security
https://7labs.io/tips-tricks/coldcard-btc-hardware-wallet.html

Discussion about them on an old reddit post from two years ago(there's got to be a more recent reddit about them):
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/7cd32v/100_secure_airgapped_coldwallet
Medium's say on the subject:
https://medium.com/airgap-it/what-is-airgap-74456b4844fb

Some state they still aren't as safe as one might think :-\
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324744819_BeatCoin_Leaking_Private_Keys_from_Air-Gapped_Cryptocurrency_Wallets

They have been made to believe that anything that has to do with Bitcoin is a scam, so when they see hardware or anyone talking about cryptocurrency, what they hear is scam :o. I am not surprised that they are going to try to break in your hardware wallet to see what’s inside of it. I just hope they didn’t end up ruining some very important things on it.

I can remember a guy that was stopped and his phone was checked, and when they saw a cryptocurrency mobile wallet app on it, they arrested him and took him to the station to question him on why he’s making use of a cryptocurrency wallet. Ridiculous.

Sorry I haven't progressed this project. I've had a few good things happen ( minor, but useful ), and I had to reduce my computer activity. I've had a few computer crashes that caused me some problems. No mine, but sites that I needed to use. The DVLA foe example when I paid for the road tax on my van, and a pet food emporium that double charged me when their till crashed. I get the feeling that programmers are no longer testing their work these days, and just hope for the best, and fix any errors that appear.

I'll probably test the hydrated Lenovo on main electricity this week, and replace the OS, which is probably Windows 10. I'll still thinking of using Ka;i with the wallet. Mainly to allow me to use the computer for pen testing. if it is successful, then I'll look at installing a Raspberry Pi in the van to replace it. That should be easier on the power requirements. The Lenovo has an SSD in it, but it isn't large enough to run a node.

That was such an unfair decision by the US customs. As the US customs, they should probably know most of the the stuffs that is possible to be shipped and be on transactions.

We never know that some of the people might be knowledgeable about the these kind of wallets and took it into custody knowing that they would have some profit from it.

Well there are protocols that the personnel had to obey. Since the hardware wallet may be seem suspicious to them the  try to unpack the package. This is one of my specualtion after it has been seen in the scanner. The problem is that they were not able to inform the owner after it has been seized. The government should be transparent in case like this. There is nothing to hide their doings.

another case would be that crew were bable yo learn totolearn bitcoin and are sile
nt

We can not do anything if our hardware wallet is taken by US customs, they do have strict rules and have authority for that.
Although this is not fair to you as a hardware wallet owner, you must accept the risk. Actually not all hardware wallet is
taken by US customs, the possibility of your hardware wallet is suspected for some reason.

Sorry for a late response, but here goes.

I ordered a Trezor One in 2016 and had it shipped internationally from Czech Republic to Sweden. When it reached the Swedish border, the package was seized and controlled. The custom opened my package and examined it. Later it was re-sealed with Swedish Custom tape, along with a letter saying this package has been examined by the Swedish Custom.

I know SatoshiLabs tells you to make sure no-one has tampered with your wallet, and don't use it if it has. But I felt quite confident after installed a new bios along with generating a new wallet.

I've been using this wallet ever since, with only me in control.

Regarding your second point, merely being able to make a transaction would not ensure the receiver that he has exclusive control over the wallet, so the best practice would be to create a new wallet (that has new keys, of course) and to transfer the value from the compromised wallet to the new wallet.  Of course, you would not have to create a new wallet if you already have another wallet that you know that you are the exclusive owner of the private keys, but you still need to remove all value from that potentially compromised wallet because the sender may well still have an ability to access the private keys, too (best to assume so).

Honestly i wouldn't suggest you use it.  Obviously awful and unacceptable but unfortunately this seems to be happening a lot especially whenever Bitcoin or crypto is in the news. I guess its largely based on luck based on who is at the customs checkpoint at the time. But yea its not worth the risk of putting your money into it in case someone has tapered with it or such and such.  If you do however decide to use it ensure that at the very least you reboot it and create an new seed word, dont use any seed word or keys that some may have pre-installed.

Few years ago I was going abroad and I have my Hardware wallet with me. Even when I was passing the security check in Heathrow I had it with me and they asked me to keep it in the basket. I did not see any of them to show interest in it. My best guess is that they thought it's just a USB stick or dongle. But I think the time is changing.

The best shot in my opinion will be not to have any coins in your Hardware wallet if you are in situations like me. Empty it. You know the pass phrase and pin. So do something to move the passphrase, may be write the words randomly only will know the order, or write the phase but do not write it full. Be creative when you are handling crypto and moving from one country to another.

You have faced a very uncommon cases. May be the customs thought  it was suspicious things inside the box and when they found the ledger or any other wallet they became more curious whether it hold any Bitcoin or not so they seized your wallet.

In my experience, customs pick their targets based on the size of the package and the randomness. The number of packages circulating internationally is an ever growing figure, to open and physically inspect every package is impossible. I don't think that there is much difference between hardware wallet and some electronic gadget under X-ray scanner.

Actually you was unlucky to be captured. It is unacceptable one to be a crypto worker.We are getting some crypto by the bounty hunting,which is full of our work.So it make us feel for a while.I hope you get more and more crypto by your next work in the bounty hunting.And split up your earning to make a short loss.

I have been active in this forum for almost 8 years and this is the first time I am hearing that the authorities have confiscated a cryptocurrency hardware wallet. Tens of millions of individuals use cryptocurrencies, and a lot many of them use hardware wallets as well. Many of them keep these wallets in their backpacks, when they do international travel. Never heard that anyone had issues with the wallet at the airport.

So sorry for the loss but then  I believe they won't be able to crack through the code. So what's the point collecting from you.