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Nice story. I've left keys (to locks) with friends and relatives for security purposes, but never my wallet seeds or passphrases/PINs. Maybe I should. We're getting older and accidents happen.
I am thinking that not enough people know, and part of the problem is for any particular person to know too much, but someone likely does need to know that the three parts of the keys are in these three locations, but then maybe we expect that they are not actually going to go to the three locations and put the keys together....
So then I would know and the other person would know, but I am the one who put together the system and the locations.. and so I have back up locations too...
If the person who knows never actually tries out putting the three parts together, then there could be some questions about whether they are going to be able to accomplish the task correctly... and how many back up people are needed.
There could be instructions in a safety deposit box (but are they clear enough in terms of the actual locations of each of the parts of the keys and the order that they need to go together).
The story and/or example that I gave did not even involve the person who I trust to know all three locations, since he ONLY helped me to recover one of the locations, but since I was telling him exactly where to go and what to look for, he was able to communicate that back to me in order that I would be able to plug that information into the hole of the information that I had access to.
Actually I would trust that particular person with all pieces of the information in part because he would not really know what to do with them or even try on his own. and he would not consult anyone to get technical help to do it.. but if I were to die, and then maybe someone like him would be who needs to know in order to instruct my intended beneficiaries.. while at the same time, if I drop dead on the spot right now, he is not one of the persons who knows anything beyond that one spot that I told him about.. .and I told him that I have three spots, but I was ONLY showing him one.. so it would not help very much for him to know that one spot without having some kind of an idea about the other two spots. and then the back up three spots in case one or more of the primary three spots have damaged or missing words/information.
I think a mega-pump to $200,000+/BTC will surely prompt me to change some things security-wise, perhaps splitting some wallets and arranging for a way for loved ones to access them in case something bad happens.
I get you but then I don't get you. If that makes any sense?
In some sense, we should already have systems in place that were already largely prepared for $200k to $1.5 million per BTC, since those were already BTC price possibilities in the last cycle... so in that sense I don't get you.
But I do get you in the sense that once something happens, it becomes much more concrete and realistic as compared to when it is merely a future possibility (whether a strong or weak possibility)..
In both the 2017 and the 2021 UPpity periods, I had some wallet locations in which the value contained therein did end up transgressing above some of my comfort levels in terms of actual security and good practices (might we call it gambling or rolling the dice or sloppy or lazy?) - and it seems that quite a few of my practices have improved after each of those periods.. but I can still sense areas of vulnerabilities (that I am not going to necessarily particularize too much more than I already have), so I get you in that sense, also.
Oh, and regarding the hypnotism point.. could you imagine that you were in some location amongst strangers or even people who might have interests in the contents of your memory, and you went to sleep, and you were started saying (or talking in your sleep): coach, phrase, jar, inject, ketchup, window, ride, local, oyster, monster, arrange, useful
(not sure if these words lead to any real wallet or not.... pretty low odds... hopefully not my own.. hahahahaha).. .or maybe instead you had memorized some kind of a story with the words or you started listing out the locations in which the information could be found and which kinds of hardware you use and the various websites along with your mothers maiden name and your childhood nickname.
By the way, I have a little bit of a story, and I am not sure how much I should tell, but I had a situation in which I needed the seed phrase that was supposed to be in three parts and I was missing one of the parts (for reasons), and so I knew that I had two back ups of the three parts, and so I called up a life-long friend, and he surely is not very technical and even though talked with him about bitcoin several times, his eyes glaze over while he is looking at how complicated his flip phone is or that he is trying to get his remote on his TV to work.. (he doesn't have internet).. but anyhow.. I called him up, and I asked him if he could go to the location in which one of the pieces was located, and I would give him the code to get in, and then I would give him instructions about how to get to it while we were on the phone live, and he said o..k.. and he would call me when he was at the location. It took about 5-10 minutes just to get to locating the place where the words were, and I told him that it would probably be 8 words, and he told me that it is only 4 words.. and then I remembered that it was a 12 word split up instead of a 24 word split.. and so when he read me the 4 words, he mentioned that one of the words was "xxcxxxxx", and I said that does not even sound like a real word, and he read it several times and told me that is what it says. I said o.k... so I wrote down the 4 words, and I told him that I would let him know if I had any problems in terms of getting access to the wallet that I was wanting to get, but I would have to do it in a few hours.
So when I put together all 12 words, and I typed in the "xxcxxxx" by the time I got to the second letter, there was already a suggestion that had the word to be "xxrxxxx".. so my friend could have had sworn that the word the one with the "c" and neither of us even thought about the word with the "r".. so sometimes simple mistakes can be figured out, but some kinds of more complicated mistakes might be a lot more difficult to resolve.
You should not split up a seed. someone finding one piece compromises the whole encryption.
Also you often have to get your seed words through communication channels (in your case phone) which has the risk of a middleman attack.
There might be better ways, but I think that my way is better than having all of the seed phrase in one location.
I had heard about a case in which someone had 8 out of 12 words in the correct order, so was able to brute force the last 4 words in less than 24 hours (and I think part of the reason was that he already knew them in order and the 12th word is merely a checksum so once he got 8 of them and in order, he really was ONLY lacking 3 words... so that is part of my rationale for dividing into three rather than one or two.. which a lot of people don't even divide at all because they find it too confusing.. and I would suggest dividing into two is better than not dividing and dividing into three is better than either not dividing or dividing into two. .and maybe even better than dividing into 4 because it becomes increasingly complicated with more parts.. so 3 seems to be a kind of best spot for me for now.
Dividing into 3 seems to require at least the finding of two.. because not much could be done with one.. and even if two are found they still have to know in which slot each of them fits.. and it could take a while to break in even if getting 2 out of the 3.. and that is with 12 seed words.. and 24 seed words would be even more difficult, even if two of the parts are found.
If you want to produce shares to give to friends I highly recommend using Shamir (Model T) where every share in itself is totally worthless and doesn't compromise the security when found. It's a kind of prestage to multisig which requires several wallets but can be manufacturer independent. (so for me Shamir is the second best when it comes to security)
It's very easy to use and might be perfect for what you want to do.
Maybe some day I might need to try to that.. . but I am not sure... will have to think about it some more... it is not necessarily easy to change systems that are already in place and then needing to communicate a new system to anyone who might be in need of getting the parts..
I think that Trezor has ONLY been using that for a few years...
BTW afaik:
the reason for 24 words instead of 12 is actually that even if someone knows all words (out of order), your coins are still secure.
If someone knows all words of a 12 word seed out of order, he can brute force the sequence and get your coins.
If I remember it right, back in the days there was no option to put your seed directly into the Trezor so you had to use the keyboard on your computer. The computer didn't know the sequence though, as you were asked to put in the words out of order (for example word 7, 2, 11, etc). But with a 12 word seed someone could know the out of order words via a key logger and steal your coins by brute forcing the order.
That means you could send your 24 words through any compromised communication channel (even post it here). And as long as no one knows the word sequence, your coins will be fine.
I have used both 12 words and 24 words, and it seems that some of the recent wallets that I generated did not give me options but ONLY gave me 12 words. .but personally, I do prefer 24 words, even though it is a bit more cumbersome.
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