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

[Carlton Banks]

Brain wallet holders will render it useless.

I'd suggest the opposite. It's already been demonstrated, by theft of bitcoin, that people cannot pick random passphrases, but rather rely on phrases from movies, books, etc.

Additionally, the password crackers are becoming more sophisticated, cracking up to 55 character passwords(http://www.zdnet.com/password-breaker-successfully-tackles-55-character-sequences-7000019891/) based on extensive word / phrase lists.

Truecrypt with plausible deniability. http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/plausible-deniability.

This is all too true.

There was a thread recently where a Brainwallet.org user picked a very simple seed (as a trial run, only small quantity of BTC was transferred to the wallet). Someone out there was running a script that checked for really naive brain wallet seeds and emptying such wallets, and the same person posted back in the thread to let the OP know how it had happened to them.

I don't know what the best advice is: I've heard that even using 12+ word seeds can be discovered if you use dictionary or popular culture words, in English or any other language. So, Brainwallets are only secure from rainbow table style fishing when the seed is well chosen, and that the wallet file is created from the seed in a secure environment also. Do your best to get as much information about what the issues surrounding the creation of a secure brain wallet is before you try it, even if a key has been safe for a given time period, you cannot assume it always will be.
 
Charlie Shrem has a curious twist on the concept: engraving a private key onto a ring, but with one character missing. That missing character is his brainwallet, effectively.

[rumbitla]

They can extract the data from your brain.

They will send you to torture camp in some eastern European country and extract your password.

[crazy_rabbit]

^^^ And this is why we need built-in mixing, anonymizing, or Zerocoin.

SHHHHH! In time, in time.

[Rassah]

They can extract the data from your brain.

They will send you to torture camp in some eastern European country and extract your password.

I will tell them what my password is. And they'll even get my bitcoins. They'll just have no idea if they took all of my bitcoins, or just a small fraction of them.

P.S. I have very few bitcoins, and am almost out of them.   ...   

[virtualmaster]

You should have on your disposal a tel no where somebody is speaking only in an exotic language, like zulu and if you are under pressure then you can tell to the agents that temporary only this person has your password for your laptop and/or bitcoin wallet. It is a good method also by crossing the border.

[optimator]

Charlie Shrem has a curious twist on the concept: engraving a private key onto a ring, but with one character missing. That missing character is his brainwallet, effectively.

Here's a very well written, thought provoking story about leaving out 1 character of your private key...

http://thewhet.net/2012/shall-be-delivered/

[anarchy]

The answer is multi-signing

[Carlton Banks]

The answer is multi-signing

Ah yes! Cryptocurrency innovations come so thick and fast that I forget certain things if I only read about it once, god bless the hive mind that is bitcointalk! (mostly... )

Am I right in remembering that an implemented multi-sig wallet format doesn't yet exist, but is at the BIP stage? We have multi-sig public keys, that I know.

[Rassah]

The answer is multi-signing

Am I right in remembering that an implemented multi-sig wallet format doesn't yet exist, but is at the BIP stage? We have multi-sig public keys, that I know.

It is implemented, and you can do it from command line. There just isn't any GUI yet, because devs don't want people accidentally locking and/or losing their coins. Gavin said this is his top priority this summer. Summer is almost over. Hopefully Gavin is almost done