Ledger Confirmed That Government Can Get Access To Your Fund

[BitcoinPanther]

If we happen to access a centralized service and leave our information there, there is really a possibility that the government can acquire information about us.  And since Ledger is saving private keys no matter how many different online storage they use or how many part they cut our private key or seed phrases, they will be revealed once the government issued a subpoena requesting details about our Bitcoin address.  Remember being centralized service, they are bound to follow government regulation and have to answer to government inquiry especially when they have a court order asking for the users details.

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[Aikidoka]

Though like I said earlier, I've not been able to verify the authenticity of this information, but then, if this information be true, then I think we all should be very careful with ledger devices - privacy wise.

if this is confirmed to be true then I think many people will not use this wallet anymore because the government can have access to it.
for me, the only hardware wallet I trust now only Trezor Wallet, they will stay like this and not make the same steps as Ledger did.

I hope they won't make the same mistakes as Ledger though. I still trust Trezor but who knows what the future holds? Personally, I prefer to store my funds in an air-gapped device that I set up myself rather than relying on a company's product. There's always a risk involved when you entrust your money to any device that you can't fully control.

With an air-gapped device you ensure that you are the only person with access to your PC/phone minimizing the risk of anyone messing up with it.

[Stalker22]

Ledger is working closely with the government that's what it is. They may not even need a subpoena to access your account. They'd just go ahead and go ahead and because it's not an opensource the Ledger company could even freeze your coins if not sent to another wallet.

For users who bought a Ledger wallet and have used it before this update, there must have been paranoia already. If I did have a ledger, I must have sent my coins already the day after the announcement.

In my opinion, the biggest takeaway from this case is that we should not trust closed source wallets. When it comes to hardware wallets, the safest options appear to be those that are completely air-gapped. This means the ones that do not connect your hardware wallet to any form of internet connection. For example, they use QR codes and a camera to sign transactions. What are your thoughts on this?

[Potato Chips]

...though I tried to do some research to ascertain the validity of this information, that is, to try and get the real source of the information (since it was not shared on the telegram post) to make sure it's authentic, but all efforts proved abortive since I am not sure about the social media the screenshot was taken from - here is the shot..


Though like I said earlier, I've not been able to verify the authenticity of this information, but then, if this information be true, then I think we all should be very careful with ledger devices - privacy wise.

Their Former CEO (2014-2019) has indeed said this. To clear doubts, this is the post link:

If you are a Recover user and have your shard into safeguarded by third parties, then yes, a government could subpoeana them and get access to your funds.

Using Recover gives you an easy recovery option and mitigates backup loss, but your assets could get frozen by the government (in theory, I'm not a lawyer and I didn't see any legal opinon on the subject).

If you go to u/murzika's profile, you'll see he's the one of the mods on r/ledgerwallet and has the "Former Ledger Chairman and Co-Founder" flair on his posts.

It is too late for ledger as major trust has been broken ever since they announced cloud backups. It's pretty clear they rather prioritize profits over their users security. Unfortunately for them, not everyone does not know what they're doing.

[Kemarit]

Though like I said earlier, I've not been able to verify the authenticity of this information, but then, if this information be true, then I think we all should be very careful with ledger devices - privacy wise.

if this is confirmed to be true then I think many people will not use this wallet anymore because the government can have access to it.
for me, the only hardware wallet I trust now only Trezor Wallet, they will stay like this and not make the same steps as Ledger did.

I hope they won't make the same mistakes as Ledger though. I still trust Trezor but who knows what the future holds? Personally, I prefer to store my funds in an air-gapped device that I set up myself rather than relying on a company's product. There's always a risk involved when you entrust your money to any device that you can't fully control.

With an air-gapped device you ensure that you are the only person with access to your PC/phone minimizing the risk of anyone messing up with it.

Yes, although someone doing air-gapped should be at least technically incline and knows what he/she is doing. But I think this is the best method instead of buying 3rd party hardware like Trezor or Ledger that might give access or our wallet to the government and that doesn't sound good to crypto or Bitcoin holders.

It's worth a try to learn how to set up our own air-gapped machine now with this latest admittance from Ledger itself.

There are other closed source wallets not just this two in my opinion. So if someone is looking for a hardware wallet, just be sure what and where you are going to buy the items, IMHO.

[Wiwo]

It is too late for ledger as major trust has been broken ever since they announced cloud backups. It's pretty clear they rather prioritize profits over their users security. Unfortunately for them, not everyone does not know what they're doing.

The choice of cloud storage by ledger is one development that has affected the company's trust and there is no doubt the fact that their focus is more on profits rather than customers satisfaction and guaranteeing privacy and security.

Because storing user sed phrases online is the same as exposing them to third parties and there will be a lot of hack attempts to gain acto those stored details.

[franky1]

the stupid part of all this is..
.. they offer a service to back up your seed incase you lose it... but.. to access the seed in a cloud you need.. yep to remember a key..

in short
"if you think you will forget your key give it to us, but you will need a key to get it from us"
kind of defeats the purpose.

if your able to successfully remember the key to get into the cloud then you know how to remember a key. and thus dont need a cloud backup.
or the flip side if you are forgetful. you will forget your cloud key. thus lose both

anyways. lesson to learn
what a hardware wallet is suppose to do, is just sign a raw tx. thats all it should do. never needing any updates never having ways to take the key out of the device to communicate with a computer. never needing to do anything special that can compromise the key.

if new signing policy or tx format came out people should buy a new device if they want to use a new feature. because if a device is firmware upgradable then hackers can abuse that exploit, not just the manufacturer.

the whole idea of hardware wallets was secure hardware store of a key which could not be moved to a computer or accessed by a computer especially not one that can then transmit the key to the internet, nor have a system where the firmware of device can be compromised, edited, updated to change the security

so to whomever is going to make the next gen hardware wallet. let it do one simple job without needing any resources of a computer bar being given a raw tx and taking back a signature. no on PC app or browser extension. no firmware update capability. no online backup, account... just be a friggen hardware wallet as described

[_act_]

Because storing user sed phrases online is the same as exposing them to third parties and there will be a lot of hack attempts to gain acto those stored details.

Hack attempt may be useless, or the chance is low because the seed are encrypted, just like Shamir encryption. The seed encryption are in three, which would be enough to recover the seed phrase if the correct shared are used. The shared are given to two other companies and the first one with Ledger.

Although, hacking is possible, but the chance is low. The main problem now is the convenience that people can have that nobody knows their seed phrase. With Ledger, that convenience is no more there. People should stop using Ledger wallets.

The worst are the authorities. Ledger has used this opportunity for the government to have more control, but making their users to have no privacy like before.

[boyptc]

It's still an opt-in feature but it's crazy that it might go enforced to everyone if they want to. This is crazy in all honesty.

Few days ago, I came across a topic on this forum discussing that ledger now gives customers to option to store their wallet seed phrase through a cloud service within the wallet, several users, not just on this forum but also outside this forum, expressed deep concern as no one is sure any longer on the true privacy of the ledger hardware wallet..

I have been advocating to never store private keys and/or seeds to any cloud storage and services and even if it takes Ledger to make them trustworthy, I will still not keep my seeds there.

The twist is that, it's not them that will keep the seeds but by a trusted third-party of theirs and that's even make it more scarier because even it is them that shall keep it, no way and I'll never entrust it to them.

Everything starts as an opt-in feature, and then through the sheer pressure of the government or the userbase, they'll soon start implementing it as a mandatory feature. You can't make this up, this has been the staple in this industry.

Maybe no pressure from the government but it's actually part of their plan and no customer can stop them from doing so.

We can't do much with it but they don't know that this will impact their userbase if ever they've been pushing this to most of their users. AFAIK, they're already seeing the reaction of the market that they've got on it and it's not the typical feedback they want to see.

Because everybody doesn't like it, techy and non-technical people are easily understanding where they are coming from and this is no good for an individual.

[Potato Chips]

The current sitting CEO has also confirmed this in a podcast - there's a short clip in the link:

NEW: 🚨Ledger CEO "The only concern is if we get subpoenaed by a government" 😱👀

Although he tried to downplay it by saying it's not a real concern, we all know how hostile the governments are/can be to cryptocurrencies hence you never know + this breaks the concept of self-custody.

Why should people pay to get additional risk on their way?

[tread93]

Though like I said earlier, I've not been able to verify the authenticity of this information, but then, if this information be true, then I think we all should be very careful with ledger devices - privacy wise.

if this is confirmed to be true then I think many people will not use this wallet anymore because the government can have access to it.
for me, the only hardware wallet I trust now only Trezor Wallet, they will stay like this and not make the same steps as Ledger did.

It is a bit sad, though, that many newcomers to the crypto might not be aware or concerned about these aspects. It is just like when people trusted centralized services like the FTX exchange to hold their funds, and we all know how that turned out.

Unfortunately that is the case for the vast majority of newcomers. They are all so behind and there is so much to know, a crypto education is almost needed. All the scams, pitfalls, technical jargon, hardware, software, industry trends and all of the different coins and exchanges and so on and so forth. It'll be hard enough for them to get all this information downloaded into their brains, knowing who and what to trust to store your coins is also highly subjective and so many options out there make it very hard. A crypto education program would be highly beneficial.

[tbct_mt2]

The current sitting CEO has also confirmed this in a podcast - there's a short clip in the link:

NEW: 🚨Ledger CEO "The only concern is if we get subpoenaed by a government" 😱👀

Although he tried to downplay it by saying it's not a real concern, we all know how hostile the governments are/can be to cryptocurrencies hence you never know + this breaks the concept of self-custody.

Why should people pay to get additional risk on their way?

With this and Ledger Recovery Service, Ledger makes more fear among their customers and I am sure many of Ledger users will consider and already chose to use other hardware wallets.

The answer from Ledger CEO is risky but see why do we need a non custodial wallet, buy a hardware wallet, Ledger. Then if government send a subpoena to Ledger company, they will get keys of our coins.

It is not how hardware wallets were created and if a hardware wallet no longer provides such products, no reason to use that hardware wallet.

[Lucius]

~snip~
A crypto education program would be highly beneficial.

And who, in your opinion, should start and run that program? It would be a little strange to expect governments to do this, because as much as it seems to some that they (governments) approve of certain things, Bitcoin is still a small thorn in their side that is causing them a little embarrassment for now, and all the chaos you describe is going to their advantage.

The more confusion, doubts, hacking and loss of funds, the greater the advantage of those who are against all that. After all, in some conspiracy theory, we could say that Ledger was bought by a government to use it as a Trojan horse to gain control over everything that these devices store.

[tread93]

~snip~
A crypto education program would be highly beneficial.

And who, in your opinion, should start and run that program? It would be a little strange to expect governments to do this, because as much as it seems to some that they (governments) approve of certain things, Bitcoin is still a small thorn in their side that is causing them a little embarrassment for now, and all the chaos you describe is going to their advantage.

The more confusion, doubts, hacking and loss of funds, the greater the advantage of those who are against all that. After all, in some conspiracy theory, we could say that Ledger was bought by a government to use it as a Trojan horse to gain control over everything that these devices store.

This is a great question Lucius, IMO It would need to be a completely autonomous program and user guided, maybe kind of like the Khan Academy but specifically for crypto. It should not be free though, but charge some small nominal fee to gain access, like a Wikipedia on steroids. Maybe could even be a group effort to make this a reality where everyone contributed and the content sticks based on merits or votes from experts/devs etc. AI can help create the videos that explain and lessons that teach entry, mid, and advanced levels.

[SquirrelJulietGarden]

This is a great question Lucius, IMO It would need to be a completely autonomous program, maybe kind of like the Khan Academy but specifically for crypto. It should not be free though, but charge some small nominal fee to gain access, like a Wikipedia on steroids but for crypto.

There are many free resources to learn about Bitcoin so do you think paid courses will be better and provide more comprehensive knowledge for learners?

Learnmeabitcoin.com from Beginners to Advanced levels.
Saylor Academy - Bitcoin for everybody
Saylor Academy - Bitcoin for developers
Jameson Lopp blog

Maybe could even be a group effort to make this a reality where everyone contributed and the content sticks based on merits or votes from experts/devs etc. AI can help create the videos that explain and lessons that teach entry, mid, and advanced levels.

There are enough free resources and tech gurus in communities to help them learning. If they want to debut their learning, they can do it anytime.

[tread93]

This is a great question Lucius, IMO It would need to be a completely autonomous program, maybe kind of like the Khan Academy but specifically for crypto. It should not be free though, but charge some small nominal fee to gain access, like a Wikipedia on steroids but for crypto.

There are many free resources to learn about Bitcoin so do you think paid courses will be better and provide more comprehensive knowledge for learners?

Learnmeabitcoin.com from Beginners to Advanced levels.
Saylor Academy - Bitcoin for everybody
Saylor Academy - Bitcoin for developers
Jameson Lopp blog

Maybe could even be a group effort to make this a reality where everyone contributed and the content sticks based on merits or votes from experts/devs etc. AI can help create the videos that explain and lessons that teach entry, mid, and advanced levels.

There are enough free resources and tech gurus in communities to help them learning. If they want to debut their learning, they can do it anytime.

Nobody truly values something that they got for free, just look at the free public school systems. Do you think those educations are highly valued and beneficial and equipping students for financial independence? If they pay for it then the people who add the most value to the lesson plans can get paid, now we have an incentive system to have a completely non biased merit based learning platform that anyone can access, for a small fee. So many times people will start free courses and stop, at least this way I feel most people would want to get their money's worth...  just a thought.