Bitcoin Forum

I'm looking for a mobile wallet (Android or iOS) that would give complete privacy ( does not show any balance until i enable "the balance" or hidden wallet...etc)

Reason for this is because recently the border enforcement officers (US and UK) are now aware of bitcoins. They randomly check laptops as well as cell phone for bitcoins if you dont declare currency transportation.

I was asked to give my laptop password and cellphone pin. If you do not comply, they will seize your laptop or cellphone for investigations. Luckily, i did not have any bitcoin wallet on my phone, and an empty bitcoin wallet on my laptop (no transactions record, fresh installed Bitcoin core client). I'm upset that i have no privacy whatsoever at the border, however its another issue.

I'm wondering which bitcoin wallet on cell phone that can provide any privacy in this case. At the moment, i can only think of web wallet (unsafe) since they dont know which web wallet i'm using (clean browser history) or offline wallet with encrypted key (inconvenient)

 

Could just hide the app, no?  How much time do they take searching phones? ???

Airbitz is good because you can uninstall the app completely, travel, then reinstall.  When you "log in", it will download a copy of your (encrypted) wallet from their servers.  Or, if you want complete control, you could use Mycelium and rebuild the wallet (after travelling) using the seed -- then it's just a case of hiding the seed somewhere.

Curious what on earth they think bitcoins are.  It's not like they're in your phone.  You aren't transporting them anywhere.

you can use blockchain or coinbase.
you unistall it and reinstall it after the border

I would say a better solution would be to delete your wallet app when you cross the boarder. You could easily store your private keys in an encrypted file in the cloud and then retrieve your keys once you have crossed the boarder (it would probably be wise to also transfer your coins to a newly created address at this point).

I also know that if you use a blockchain.info wallet, you can archive your private key so your balance does not appear when you archive an address (although the balance is viewable to someone who knows where to look).

I personally do not think that carrying a private key to an address that contains a lot of bitcoin would be considered to be you carrying a lot of "currency". I also don't think that boarder agents are able to compel you to give up the password and/or unlock your laptop or phone for them to inspect.

use android.
ios ... is locked for the rest of your life (if you want export contact or calendar ... freely).

They obviously dont understand and think bitcoins are digital goods stored on your phone or computer. They're specially asked about digital money like bitcoin. I was really pissed and asked about my right, the asshole gave me an attitude

"You want to be difficult? we're here 24/7 lets see if you want to play game with us. This is border service, we can search anybody and you dont have privacy here.."

Along the lines with confiscate my laptop and phone for investigation, i just gave up and gave them my passwords. I was shocked that they're doing this now.

Thats what i thought. They can take your personal computers away for investigation then you will have tons of hassle and works to retrieve it back. I remember they said once the computer is in their hands, they just need a warrant to crack it to read data.

I'm still mad, the free land USA is no-longer free in my eyes.

just say:

bitcoin?  i have dollars (or) euros, thats fine for me! i heard about bitcoin on CNN. they went bankrupt right?! CEO was arrested.


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they should search for the webwallet if they like :P

when you have little amounts, that should be good.

My setting is simple: On my phones as well as on my laptop, I've created encrypted hidden volumes. In one volume I store the data, in the other volume the programs. If I want to access my Bitcoins, I first have to execute a script. This - encrypted and password protected - script first opens the hidden volume with the programs. One of the programs - also encrypted and password protected - opens the second volume with the data. Only after this, the wallet is accessible.

When I close the second script, it also deletes all traces of my wallet before closing and sends an encrypted and password protected version of my wallet to my owncloud server. This server can only be accessed through a VPN and with a combination of MAC-address and password. The owncloud-hd is also encrypted.

So basically, I have to execute two scripts for accessing my wallet. However, if anything goes wrong, I still can delete both hidden volumes with one click on a button and still have all my data available.

So the worst that can happen is that my mobile and laptop are lost or confiscated and I can't access my Bitcoins until I'm at home.

Wtf? Did they actually do this? What airport was it at? and in which country? They can't just go looking through people's phones. And besides, you could just write the private keys down if you wanted to transport them.

London to NY flight,

"Do you carry any currency with value over $10k USD? "

"No"

"This includes digital money such as bitcoin"

"... No i dont"

"Alright, we would like to confirm. Let me check your phone and laptop"

....

The rest you can guess.

This is pointless regulation .."you cannot bring in 10k of bitcoin on your pc"... but you can certainly enter the country and then access your 10k bitcoin from an exchange or online wallet.

so the point of checking for bitcoin is pointless as it is so easy to circumnavigate the regulation, waste of time for everyone.

Dont bother explain technology like bitcoin to them, they still think bitcoins are like fcking digital files stored on your computer.
I was very frustrated and they gave me attitude like " oh if you dont do anything wrong, why cares about privacy ...etc" . They even hinted that since i looked nervous (??? questioning my right and privacy somehow means nervous? ) and acting up, they can detain me for further investigation.

Just create a private address encrypt it and copy it to the phone.

When you arrive take the file, decrypt it and have fun.

Well I know that the supreme court has previously ruled that boarder agents (meaning the government) is able to search your possessions for illegal contraband in order to protect the country from people bringing in things they should not be bringing in (for example drugs, bombs, ect), but it is not illegal to "bring" bitcoin into the country and anything stored on your computer/phone so I don't see their justification here (although anyone always has the right to ask to search your belongings, or in this case to search the contents of your phone).

Regarding them being able to crack your phone once they have a warrant - that is correct, assuming you don't have full disk encryption they cannot break or that your phone does not employ encryption that they cannot break. They also need probable cause that you have committed a crime to get a warrant and they would likely not be able to show it based on your refusal to allow them to search your computer/phone.

IMO the simple solution would be to store your private key(s) in an encrypted file that is not labeled as being your keys and you would not have the wallet "loaded" onto any client. You shouldn't be storing 10k worth of bitcoin on your phone anyway as this is not safe and you are almost asking for it to get stolen

Exactly...
Say if you are using Blockchain, simply delete the app or use the online version (which has way more features and runs a lot smoother anyway)