Concerns on Bitcoin and Seed phrase handling

[Questat]

We do not know if he has Bitcoin in his wallet. But carrying seed notes to access our wallet wherever we go is something absurd. Whether intentionally or not, we can leave the recovery seed in a safer place. This becomes an experience and a lesson for us not to take risks with wallets or recovery seeds. We might also find ourselves in that person's situation. Take care of your assets.

I cannot imagine why a single person would bring his seed phrase wherever he wants to go. This is only putting  his investment at a high risk, instead of safeguarding it 24/7 and keeping it at the most safest place. Now that the cop officer has seen it, I don’t think it’s still safe anymore. Any moment after that, everything he had worked for so many years will be gone in an instant.

This is a wake up call for every investors out there. Always prioritize the safety of your coins, and with that, never put into compromise your seed phrase. Your seed phrase is your only access, showing it to anybody is like giving your hard-earned money to anyone for free.

[Mrbluntzy]

If that wallet which they found the phrase with him contained some significant amount of crytpto asset ( Bitcoin or altcoins),  then It's really stupid of him to carry his seed phrase around. If he is being insecure about the wallet, then he should duplicate the phrase and secretly keep it in different places at his home. Carrying it around could even be more risky, never the less, these kind of incomplete stories are not usually clear because at this point we don't know if there's Bitcoin or altcoins in that wallet, we don't know if it's a seed phrase to a cold wallet or hot wallet. Would someone be so stupid to carry their wallet seed around in their car, especially if there are coins worth millions of dollars in it?

[fillippone]

That is why I was saying for a while that seed words backup should be encrypted, easy way to do it is with Satochip Seedkeeper cards.

I did a quick check on the Satochip Seedkeeper and it has very close similarity with another solution that was discussed by fillippone about Tangem Wallet both of which, you have to download the application as well as link the seeds by importing them into the cards. They both have the NFC feature and looks like a good option but, no possible means to recovery of the cards and its spares are lost.

This though seems to be a good option should you feel the need to move about with your eeed phrase or seeds rather than have it written down.

This solution has pros and cons.
Maybe the washers spòution is not for everyone, and I think that Tangem has a good balance between risks and benefits for a certain percentage of your total stash.

The definitive solution is, in my humble opinion, the washer seed solution:
Securing Your Seed Phrase with Washers

[Odohu]

Securing the seed phrase is one area that we have not arrived at a generally accepted means of storage because of the sensitive nature of the information being stored. The challenge is that every means of storage carries a significant disadvantage. For instance, writing it down in a piece of paper and locking it away have the disadvantage of the paper spoiling over time or when in contact with any liquid. Steel plate also has its burden of safe keeping and the possibility of corrosion.

The worst option is what is being described in the incidence which is carrying the seed phrase about. I have seen several recommendations in this thread but some of them are not straightforward and it will be very bad to use a method that will become problematic during retrieval.

[Darker45]

Although this incident happened years ago, I guess this kind of discussion won't go obsolete. I'm afraid there won't be a perfect way to be your own bank. It's difficult.

I have reservations about breaking down your seed phrase and keeping them in several pages in a book or different books. There are risks that go with it.

Also, does it not make you uncomfortable not having access to your funds? Yeah, it's risky not to carry with you your seed phrase, but if you're far away and won't be home for months, does it not make you anxious?

[tech30338]

Is the suspect give permission to the officer that its okay to check on the belongings? as far as i know they can only check what they can see and not open things correct me if I'm wrong or they have a warrant?
Aside from this the suspect is so careless to bring those travelling, that is so careless and he knows that its not the proper way to bring those things, along the way, he could have keep it safe at home or in a vault, I'm curious what will happen with the police if they are not allowed, and if that's a seed phrase, the police can see those and might check on them, since they have the the video.

[Rustam Meraj]

Securing the seed phrase is one area that we have not arrived at a generally accepted means of storage because of the sensitive nature of the information being stored. The challenge is that every means of storage carries a significant disadvantage. For instance, writing it down in a piece of paper and locking it away have the disadvantage of the paper spoiling over time or when in contact with any liquid. Steel plate also has its burden of safe keeping and the possibility of corrosion.

The worst option is what is being described in the incidence which is carrying the seed phrase about. I have seen several recommendations in this thread but some of them are not straightforward and it will be very bad to use a method that will become problematic during retrieval.

You are right about seed phrase storage it is big problem with no easy solution because information is so private. Every way you try to save it has serious drawbacks. For instance writing it on paper can lead to it getting ruined by water or just old age. Even steel plate can rust or be hard to keep truly safe. Worst thing you can do as you said is carry your seed phrase with you. Many ideas for storing them seem too complicated and you are right we need method that lets us get our seed phrase back easily when we need it. This just shows how hard it is to find simple and safe and dependable way to store this very important information.

[SilverCryptoBullet]

You are right about seed phrase storage it is big problem with no easy solution because information is so private.

I don't see any complicated issue or big problem and hard solution for making my wallet backups and keep backups safely. If you are careful, and stay humble, don't make noise, have good habit online, you won't be hacked and nobody knows that you have bitcoins.

Your habit and action mainly contribute to make your wallet backup, backup storage and your Bitcoin fund safety better and more easily to do in practice.

Every way you try to save it has serious drawbacks.

Every method has pros and cons but serious drawbacks, really?

Many ideas for storing them seem too complicated and you are right we need method that lets us get our seed phrase back easily when we need it. This just shows how hard it is to find simple and safe and dependable way to store this very important information.

Don't use complicated wallet backup methods like seed splitting as those methods are very risky.

If you know that Bitcoin private key can not be bruteforced, if you do seed splitting, and you lose one or two parts of the seed splits, you will lose that wallet, can not recover it and will surely lose your bitcoins.

How to back up a wallet.
Bitcoin seed security analysis.
Why is Seed Splitting a bad idea?

[Oshio-man]

Never you blamed the officer that was searching to know the kind of documents with him, and you know that officers duty is to protect the citizens and their properties which seeds phrase is also a property. You don't need to be carrying your seeds phrase around, if you have written them down on a safe place, and even though you want to have some copies with you, let it be inside your phone or laptop for security reason, when you share your seeds phrase in different places that is safe, it will be difficult for you to be panicking when you misplace the seeds phrase because you have their copy in different places which you can make use of anyone that is close to you.

[satscraper]

Should I call the owner of the seedphrase careless or stupid?

Yeah, this could be called the Everest of stupidity. The only thing more foolish might be someone who decorates their car with their seed phrase. If you want to keep your seed phrase with you at all times, it should be stored in a way that prevents anyone else from seeing it. BTW, I always carry my seed phrase with me, but it's completely hidden from strangers. If you wanna learn how I did it,read this.

[KiaKia]

Whatever is inside those seed phrase are not safe anymore and if anything happens it's from those cops, but I expect him to move the fund later on anyway but why the hell is he driving around with his seed phrase inside the car?

There are car hijacking happening around the globe, he can be a victim of that and the seed can be gone just like that, also thank God this come to light because the cops are not dirty, that seed phrase can steal his life if the cops are dirty.

They can decide to kill him and get away with the seed phrase if the money in it is very big. This shows how stupid he is, imagine he is even explaining what it is to the cops, endangering of life.

[Sim_card]

Should I call the owner of the seedphrase careless or stupid? I guess he's both... Why would one risk the security of his funds by taking it around written on a piece of paper? I wonder if he has some coins on that because if he does, before he must had realised this video his coins must have already been moved... One lesson here don't always try to be too safe with your seed... Write it down and store somewhere safe..it shouldn't be around you all the time...

The funny part of it is that, the owner of the seedphrase does not even know that you don't need to show anyone your seedphrase which I think was the main reason why he was taking it up and down wherever he goes. Imagine him explaining it to the police man, instead just ignore him. People should be enlighten what a seedphrase is and how to keep them safe.

[SilverCryptoBullet]

The funny part of it is that, the owner of the seedphrase does not even know that you don't need to show anyone your seedphrase which I think was the main reason why he was taking it up and down wherever he goes. Imagine him explaining it to the police man, instead just ignore him. People should be enlighten what a seedphrase is and how to keep them safe.

It's not an explanation for him at all or for anyone have similar practice with their wallet seed backups.

To remind you, all wallets actually have their warning messages on importance of keeping the wallet seed words secure, safe and private. If any wallet does not have that warning, it's not a good wallet to use and it belongs to list of worst wallets ever exists for Bitcoin users to use.

This man simply ignored that warning message and considered it as nothing, not important, useless message and he eventually ended with that terrible fault in the public.

[Akbarkoe]

The funny part of it is that, the owner of the seedphrase does not even know that you don't need to show anyone your seedphrase which I think was the main reason why he was taking it up and down wherever he goes. Imagine him explaining it to the police man, instead just ignore him. People should be enlighten what a seedphrase is and how to keep them safe.

It's not an explanation for him at all or for anyone have similar practice with their wallet seed backups.

To remind you, all wallets actually have their warning messages on importance of keeping the wallet seed words secure, safe and private. If any wallet does not have that warning, it's not a good wallet to use and it belongs to list of worst wallets ever exists for Bitcoin users to use.

This man simply ignored that warning message and considered it as nothing, not important, useless message and he eventually ended with that terrible fault in the public.

So far, I think that each wallet has its own tutorial to maintain the security of the assets that you keep in, if there is no then I think what needs to be questioned is the person who uses it, whether he reads or not all the details listed in the use of the wallet.

Most of the cases are because they don't read, they know but don't read to the end because they are too rash in securing their bitcoin.

[Solosanz]

Yes every citizen actually has is right to privacy but I think there are some case scenario where you can not oblige to not show them things, there are warrants that actually requires one to having show them everything even and you can refuse but that definitely that will be for a high criminal or big crime suspect and from the picture there was certainly nothing like that. This was looking more like a road side search for either drugs and anything and ignorantly the suspect might have had his seed phrase in a bag or wallet which they searched. It wasn’t intentional from the security operative and was ignorance from the owner.

If people can't stand and fight against police, even you leave your seed phrase in your home, it doesn't make you safe.

In this situation, someone unfortunately get investigated in his car. Now imagine what if someday there are few polices come to your home, caught you and force to investigate everything on your home?

The police could find your seed phrase too, even you leave inside vault, the police could force you to open it.

[notocactus]

If people can't stand and fight against police, even you leave your seed phrase in your home, it doesn't make you safe.

In this situation, someone unfortunately get investigated in his car. Now imagine what if someday there are few polices come to your home, caught you and force to investigate everything on your home?

The police could find your seed phrase too, even you leave inside vault, the police could force you to open it.

Police can not arbitrarily stop you on the street and force you doing anything. By laws, they only have rights to stop you if there are signals of wrong doings from your side like some suspicious activities or illegal signals. It the same for entering your home, police cannot get in your home without reasons and any legal command officially.

So you only need to obey laws, live well legally and stay humble to be treated well by police. They chase criminals not good people and they have no reason to interrupt good people on street or in homes.

[Skjadoon]

Don’t carry seed phrases physically; keep them securely stored digitally or written safely, with backups to avoid panic if lost.

[sokani]

* Was it within the officers duty to go through what he had on paper?
* Suspect went around and about with his seed phrase
* Suspect ran a red light, putting himself in line for an investigation
* Suspect went out of his way to explain what the phrases was for

The suspect may be carrying illegal substances like drugs or firearms for trying to run the red light. So yes, it was within the officer's right to go through the suspect's personal stuff. The suspect made the dumb mistake of carrying the seed phrase around. He's even lucky it was the police that arrested him, he might still have some time to create another wallet and move the funds. But what if they were armed robbers who have ideas about crypto? He probably would lose the funds.

[apogio]

In the picture, we can clearly see a blue bitcoin logo, along with a QR code.
This is a BIP38 paper wallet, produced by bitaddress.org.
His backup is encrypted, which means he needs to use a password to unlock it.
The other wallet with the seed words is unencrypted and anyone with access to these words can steal the funds.

[khaled0111]

Someone suggested in the comments that the best means to safe guarding a seed phrase is by memorizing it. While that might be some safe means, you are at risk of a memory loss or forgetfulness and all you need is just to forget the placement of one word.

That’s not a good idea and no one should do it for the exact reason you mentioned. You should not rely on your memory to store important information (such as wallet seeds) especially that you will most likely need to store it for a long time.

I hope that person’s wallet was empty or that he moved the coins before the video got spread on the internet.
When you write down your wallet seed on a piece of paper, you are supposed to store that paper somewhere safe that only you know about and not put it in your pocket and take it everywhere you go