Seizing BTC wallet holders? Governments should be afraid to do it

[Carlton Banks]

Brain wallet holders will render it useless. Any crack down on miners or wallet holders will always yield this issue in some proportion of the arrests. Could this be why we haven't seen such action: fear of publicity for the currency that cannot be confiscated? NSA know who the likely BTC holders are, most of us have exposed our involvement one way or another since 2009. Where's the Liberty Reserve factor? Still building a case? (lol)

[huadylmate]

You scared me. I have to encrypt private keys on my paper wallet then

[Carlton Banks]

You scared me. I have to encrypt private keys on my paper wallet then

Paper wallets are more vulnerable to confiscation than encrypted software wallets. Unless the paper-based key is written in an encoded way. Brainwallet is likely easier tbh.

[ElectricMucus]

A brain wallet is pretty much useless if the Blockchain is declared illegal information. That's even the most likely scenario of a goverment crackdown - CP links encoded into it ring a bell?

[tclo]

You scared me. I have to encrypt private keys on my paper wallet then

Paper wallets are more vulnerable to confiscation than encrypted software wallets. Unless the paper-based key is written in an encoded way. Brainwallet is likely easier tbh.

Yes that's what I say.  Encrypted software wallet is the way to go because you can duplicate easily, upload to the cloud, have a friend hold it, bury a flash drive in the backyard, etc, etc.

[huadylmate]

You scared me. I have to encrypt private keys on my paper wallet then

Paper wallets are more vulnerable to confiscation than encrypted software wallets. Unless the paper-based key is written in an encoded way. Brainwallet is likely easier tbh.

Yes that's what I say.  Encrypted software wallet is the way to go because you can duplicate easily, upload to the cloud, have a friend hold it, bury a flash drive in the backyard, etc, etc.

I know, but you need to share the password with others. If only with your wife then you both can die in car accident, leaving your children without BTC 

[greyhawk]

Brain wallet holders will render it useless.

[malevolent]

That's only assuming the government could find out who stores their funds in a brainwallet.

Paper wallets are more vulnerable to confiscation than encrypted software wallets. Unless the paper-based key is written in an encoded way. Brainwallet is likely easier tbh.

You can also use steganography/deniable encryption.

[Rassah]

A brain wallet is pretty much useless if the Blockchain is declared illegal information. That's even the most likely scenario of a goverment crackdown - CP links encoded into it ring a bell?

Blockchain stored in nations where it's not illegal, everyone else uses it the same way Bitcoin Wallet for Android does it, where it only requests balances and relevant info for the addresses it's keeping track of. No need to keep copies of the illegal information. Done.


Besides, it would be pretty baseless to make something like an accounting ledger illegal.

[Carlton Banks]

Brain wallet holders will render it useless.

And people say that crypto-anarchists have a bleak outlook! greyhawk's scared o' tir'ney!

[ElectricMucus]

A brain wallet is pretty much useless if the Blockchain is declared illegal information. That's even the most likely scenario of a goverment crackdown - CP links encoded into it ring a bell?

Blockchain stored in nations where it's not illegal, everyone else uses it the same way Bitcoin Wallet for Android does it, where it only requests balances and relevant info for the addresses it's keeping track of. No need to keep copies of the illegal information. Done.

Someone would still have to store it. It's not like some part of the blockchain could be omitted by everybody.

Besides, it would be pretty baseless to make something like an accounting ledger illegal.

They could argue it's not the accounting ledger that's illegal but the excess information that is already. And because there are no methods available to prevent somebody to store more illegal information in it it can be declared illegal to posses the block chain.
You have to keep in mind to follow how a bureaucrat would think in case he is supposed to "do something about that".

It is clear that such a thing would be difficult to enforce, and somebody somewhere would still store the blockchain regardless of the potential consequences (a lot of people actually). But it would sure be a pain for anybody with a company to openly use Bitcoin. Think about how pot prohibition works.

[TheKoziTwo]

In the UK you can get sentenced to prison for up to 5 years for not giving up your encryption keys. I guess this law would work for those not giving up their bitcoin private keys as well. Once you have spent 5 years in prison they'll just ask you again, and if you still refuse, back you go. They may not have your bitcoins, but they will have your freedom. Luckily this fascism hasn't spread to many countries yet, but the trend is there and it wouldn't surprise me to see this implemented across the world.

From my understanding it don't matter if you "forgot" the key.

Oh and brain scanners are also making good progress, it would be foolish to believe government won't use them for "SERIOUS crimes" once that becomes viable.

[starsoccer9]

Brain wallets are not 100% sercure. Brain reading is already in the works. It has been used already to see what letters people are looking at simply by brain patterns. The real only 100% sercure way would be a brain wallet plus a string stored somewhere very safe. When you The string then acts as a basic decryption key for the letters you memorized.

This is safer as because both parts are useless with out the other one. Just my idea tho. Any other thoughts?

[wiggi]

It is clear that such a thing would be difficult to enforce, and somebody somewhere would still store the blockchain regardless of the potential consequences (a lot of people actually). But it would sure be a pain for anybody with a company to openly use Bitcoin. Think about how pot prohibition works.

Seems to work like this:
- X is banned at some point for arbitrary and nonsensical reasons (extra information in the blockchain or not)
- Availability or price is not affected by the ban.
- Additionally thousand synthetic high powered versions of X are developed and fly under the radar.

[Carlton Banks]

In the UK you can get sentenced to prison for up to 5 years for not giving up your encryption keys. I guess this law would work for those not giving up their bitcoin private keys as well. Once you have spent 5 years in prison they'll just ask you again, and if you still refuse, back you go. They may not have your bitcoins, but they will have your freedom. Luckily this fascism hasn't spread to many countries yet, but the trend is there and it wouldn't surprise me to see this implemented across the world.

From my understanding it don't matter if you "forgot" the key.

Oh and brain scanners are also making good progress, it would be foolish to believe government won't use them for "SERIOUS crimes" once that becomes viable.

Brain wallet seeds are unencrypted information, and so are the private keys you generate from them, so your first point does not apply.

The second point? Still science fiction really, and I doubt if that sort of thing would be effective on all subjects.

[ElectricMucus]

It is clear that such a thing would be difficult to enforce, and somebody somewhere would still store the blockchain regardless of the potential consequences (a lot of people actually). But it would sure be a pain for anybody with a company to openly use Bitcoin. Think about how pot prohibition works.

Seems to work like this:
- X is banned at some point for arbitrary and nonsensical reasons (extra information in the blockchain or not)
- Availability or price is not affected by the ban.
- Additionally thousand synthetic high powered versions of X are developed and fly under the radar.

Likely, what you have to consider though is in the instance of pot prohibition it doesn't only affect marijuana as a drug but also it's usage as medicine, industrial hemp and using it as a food crop.
A Bitcoin prohibition would have similar deteriorating effects.

[axus]

Government doesn't need to decrypt/steal your bitcoins in order to stop you from using them.  They just take your computers and little slips of paper, now your bitcoins are "gone".

[TheKoziTwo]

In the UK you can get sentenced to prison for up to 5 years for not giving up your encryption keys. I guess this law would work for those not giving up their bitcoin private keys as well. Once you have spent 5 years in prison they'll just ask you again, and if you still refuse, back you go. They may not have your bitcoins, but they will have your freedom. Luckily this fascism hasn't spread to many countries yet, but the trend is there and it wouldn't surprise me to see this implemented across the world.

From my understanding it don't matter if you "forgot" the key.

Oh and brain scanners are also making good progress, it would be foolish to believe government won't use them for "SERIOUS crimes" once that becomes viable.

Brain wallet seeds are unencrypted information, and so are the private keys you generate from them, so your first point does not apply.

No, password to your truecrypt container is also unencrypted information, and that is what the law require you to give up.

[Rassah]

Someone would still have to store it. It's not like some part of the blockchain could be omitted by everybody.

Sure. And that someone could be China, Iran, North Korea, Iraq, Equador, Chile, Russia, India, Seycheles, or if none of those are willing to, pretty much anyone, anywhere, on a Tor node. Or an I2P node. Or any other anonymizing node.

They could argue it's not the accounting ledger that's illegal but the excess information that is already. And because there are no methods available to prevent somebody to store more illegal information in it it can be declared illegal to posses the block chain.
You have to keep in mind to follow how a bureaucrat would think in case he is supposed to "do something about that".

And that's why drugs are not available anywhere, and CP is no longer on the internet. Sure, it would be a problem for the business that's in a country that bans bitcoin, but it won't be a problem for any businesses outside of that. USA banned online gambling. Doesn't mean that business is dead.

Government doesn't need to decrypt/steal your bitcoins in order to stop you from using them.  They just take your computers and little slips of paper, now your bitcoins are "gone".

Well, they can take away my pieces of paper and my computers, but I have a bunch of other copies of those papers stashed around, and they're all pretty much useless without whatever keycodes I have in my head. Hell, even if it gets to the point where they can read my brain for passwords, my password could simply be "The 5th item from the bottom at such and such location, plus the number on this page on that book at that library, + large string of characters hidden there, which I can never remember because it's too big." I could even memorize a ton of such places, and know that only a few of them are legit, or which order they must be put together in to make a password.

[ElectricMucus]

Someone would still have to store it. It's not like some part of the blockchain could be omitted by everybody.

Sure. And that someone could be China, Iran, North Korea, Iraq, Equador, Chile, Russia, India, Seycheles, or if none of those are willing to, pretty much anyone, anywhere, on a Tor node. Or an I2P node. Or any other anonymizing node.

They could argue it's not the accounting ledger that's illegal but the excess information that is already. And because there are no methods available to prevent somebody to store more illegal information in it it can be declared illegal to posses the block chain.
You have to keep in mind to follow how a bureaucrat would think in case he is supposed to "do something about that".

And that's why drugs are not available anywhere, and CP is no longer on the internet. Sure, it would be a problem for the business that's in a country that bans bitcoin, but it won't be a problem for any businesses outside of that. USA banned online gambling. Doesn't mean that business is dead.

Of course you're right, but still such a situation wouldn't be something to look forward to.