Don't wait till you get home

[Churchillvv]

There are things that can happen and I believe it is not impossible for this scenario to happen but I doubt this to an extent however, I have a question to pose to you OP, Why the heck will someone walk around in a peripheral country? I can’t have a hardware wallet and move it like it’s my mobile device so I argue the scenario. But being fast enough to move your coins to a wallet even though the choice of wallet is not the best but for temporary purpose it’s a good move, don’t lose regardless of what happens.

[uneng]

There was a time cops wouldn't even care about a hardware wallet, as Bitcoin was still an unknown thing for most people. But as it gets more popular, thieves start being attentive to hardware wallets as something valuable they could steal, for an example. Nobody is 100% protected from a situation like that, but I think we can reduce risks as much as possible by avoiding to transport hardware wallets around the city.

And in case a travel is needed, you can try keeping it discreet, what shouldn't be hard, considering hardware wallets are quite small. Therefore, it's easy to let it pass unnoticed by others.

[X-ray]

Sorry, but this story seems very unrealistic to me. It would have been more logical for me if he had been using the Trust wallet until then, but after anyone touched his phone, he decided to urgently transfer the coins to another wallet.
Now I'm curious, which hardware wallet is it that is easy to unlock and displays the seed phrase, while at the same time not displaying the amounts in the addresses?

While I wouldn’t say OP is actually lying, I would say the person who narrated the story to OP was definitely not telling a true story. Yes the hardware wallet doesn’t just display the balance of your wallet which is true like the OP said it, but it also doesn’t displays your seed phrase easily too. You definitely have to get a pin to access it first, hardware wallet like even Trezor displays that seed once when creating the wallet from that device. So how do they get access to the seed phrase easily or probably it was a guess by the narrator which is completely wrong by him.

Now with that seed phrase exposed to the internet if at all this story is true then there is nothing like a cold wallet again. Question for the narrator is how was the hardware wallet with him on the street, how did he get access to the seed phrase easily too.

OP's friend probably overly paranoid with the hardware wallet but I guess it's okay to be paranoid when it comes to self custody like this.

Truth of the story aside, I would migrate my money, reset the hardware wallet anew and start again. At least I will have some peace of mind knowing nobody know my seed phrase.

5 minutes setup that I need so I can sleep at night.

[davis196]

Bitcoin has become truly mainstream, even cops know a thing or two about hardware wallets and stuff.
Why your cousin has been caring a hardware wallet? Why didn't he keep the hardware wallet hidden in his house?
Was this cop stupid enough to catch himself on camera while trying to unlock a hardware wallet? Was his camera even working?
I'm glad that I don't have any hardware wallets in me. The best thing to do is to never reveal to anyone that you have crypto and to never declare to the authorities, that you invest in crypto. Dealing with corrupt law enforcement and government officials can be a pain in the arse.

[@nn@_pen9]

If you are from a country with high level of insecurity you need to be very smart.
Something happened to my cousin yesterday, some cop stopped him on his way coming to my house.

He had his hardware wallet on him and they forced him to unlock it.
That one thing that hardware wallet does right is the ability to not show balance straight up.

But after he unlocked the hardware wallet the cop guy takes a few step away and keep pressing the hardware wallet, and they found nothing but my cousin noticed that they have camera on them.

After the cop left he instantly installed trust wallet on his phone and move all his fund from the hardware wallet to the trust wallet, I asked him why and he said what if the camera on them captured his recovery seed already? What if they step away from him to get the recovery seed captured?

It was when it all makes sense to me, it is possible that after they drove off they will try to drain the wallet, he doesn't wait to get to my place before he moved all the bitcoin out to a hot wallet.

A few minutes wasted could turned into a horrible event, I liked that he doesn't waste any time.

It's quite sad that this case happened to your cousin. If I were in your cousin's position, I would definitely insist on fighting against anything that was not in accordance with what the police ordered us to do. The traffic police's job is only to check our driving equipment, other than that I will not issue it, in essence I will still fight for it and keep the hardware, it is not a general rule or applies when we are driving.

And your cousin's biggest mistake was downloading a wallet onto his phone, which shouldn't have been displayed on his phone. Unexpected things can happen to your phone, like it could be stolen, and so on. Android isn't robust enough to protect everything, unlike the iPhone, which is quite robust.

[Rustam Meraj]

Your cousin had better, lightning quick, street sense and moved those funds to hot wallet immediately, even before he or she came to your home. Whereas in high risk area, security of physical part plays major role along with secret coding of electronic part, and it would not have taken that long to be completely drained, say 20 minutes, waiting to get home. ​As I see it, this scary encounter is good reminder of why standard hardware is not enough in the case of armed forced payments. Shuffling in front of a hidden camera or lens in the dashboard while seated on device buttons is extreme weakness. This is why advanced users always recommend to have another PIN for forced use or hidden pass phrase. Your life savings are not in view, and even if your dummy account has little bit of money in it that is hardly believable under pressure, that is only way to survive corrupt physical shakedown.

[Mpamaegbu]

Is the story real? 

I don't think so. The whole thing sounds like a fiction to me. Who takes their hardware and recovery seed on a stroll to a friend's house?

As for your comment on Trust Wallet being a closed source app, I've been using that crypto wallet for over five years now and I haven't had issues of hacks or scam from it. I don't know if I'm just plainly lucky with using it or it's not really as bad as it's publicized.

[Bastketsrus]

Sorry, but this story seems very unrealistic to me. It would have been more logical for me if he had been using the Trust wallet until then, but after anyone touched his phone, he decided to urgently transfer the coins to another wallet.
Now I'm curious, which hardware wallet is it that is easy to unlock and displays the seed phrase, while at the same time not displaying the amounts in the addresses?

While I wouldn’t say OP is actually lying, I would say the person who narrated the story to OP was definitely not telling a true story. Yes the hardware wallet doesn’t just display the balance of your wallet which is true like the OP said it, but it also doesn’t displays your seed phrase easily too. You definitely have to get a pin to access it first, hardware wallet like even Trezor displays that seed once when creating the wallet from that device. So how do they get access to the seed phrase easily or probably it was a guess by the narrator which is completely wrong by him.

Now with that seed phrase exposed to the internet if at all this story is true then there is nothing like a cold wallet again. Question for the narrator is how was the hardware wallet with him on the street, how did he get access to the seed phrase easily too.

That's what caught my attention too. A hardware wallet doesn't just reveal the seed phrase that easily. If that part is true, then either the story is missing details or the narrator misunderstood what actually happened.

[Patikno]

If you are from a country with high level of insecurity you need to be very smart.
Something happened to my cousin yesterday, some cop stopped him on his way coming to my house.

He had his hardware wallet on him and they forced him to unlock it.
That one thing that hardware wallet does right is the ability to not show balance straight up.

But after he unlocked the hardware wallet the cop guy takes a few step away and keep pressing the hardware wallet, and they found nothing but my cousin noticed that they have camera on them.

After the cop left he instantly installed trust wallet on his phone and move all his fund from the hardware wallet to the trust wallet, I asked him why and he said what if the camera on them captured his recovery seed already? What if they step away from him to get the recovery seed captured?

It was when it all makes sense to me, it is possible that after they drove off they will try to drain the wallet, he doesn't wait to get to my place before he moved all the bitcoin out to a hot wallet.

A few minutes wasted could turned into a horrible event, I liked that he doesn't waste any time.

As far as I know, the police don't have the right to disclose personal data without a valid warrant, and even then, there must be a suspicion of cybercrime for the police to cross the line. If it is just a routine inspection, the police can only conduct a physical search, and they can't overstep the privacy boundaries of any civilian. Furthermore, we are also allowed to ask the police to show the warrant to verify its legitimacy (this is allowed in my country, but I don't know about other countries). So, I hope you also check the warrant first, and if necessary, politely record a video or ask the police officer permission to avoid any unpleasant incidents.

By the way, your cousin was wise enough to immediately transfer funds from his hardware wallet to another wallet, but he should choose a fully open source wallet.

[Cryptmuster]

If you are from a country with high level of insecurity you need to be very smart.
Something happened to my cousin yesterday, some cop stopped him on his way coming to my house.

He had his hardware wallet on him and they forced him to unlock it.
That one thing that hardware wallet does right is the ability to not show balance straight up.

But after he unlocked the hardware wallet the cop guy takes a few step away and keep pressing the hardware wallet, and they found nothing but my cousin noticed that they have camera on them.

After the cop left he instantly installed trust wallet on his phone and move all his fund from the hardware wallet to the trust wallet, I asked him why and he said what if the camera on them captured his recovery seed already? What if they step away from him to get the recovery seed captured?

It was when it all makes sense to me, it is possible that after they drove off they will try to drain the wallet, he doesn't wait to get to my place before he moved all the bitcoin out to a hot wallet.

A few minutes wasted could turned into a horrible event, I liked that he doesn't waste any time.

Why did he need to carry a hardware wallet with you in the first place? That's what I don't understand.

I always say that you should be extremely careful when it comes to cryptocurrencies. There is no need to keep apps related to cryptocurrencies, exchanges, and similar services on your smartphone. In general, it is best to avoid leaving any traces that could indicate that you are involved with cryptocurrencies.

I don't know which country you live in, how professional and law abiding the police are there. But if they use body cameras and now know that this person owns a hardware wallet, they may be able to identify them, and overall that is not a very good situation.

[Umulala-alala]

If you are from a country with high level of insecurity you need to be very smart.
Something happened to my cousin yesterday, some cop stopped him on his way coming to my house.

He had his hardware wallet on him and they forced him to unlock it.
That one thing that hardware wallet does right is the ability to not show balance straight up.

But after he unlocked the hardware wallet the cop guy takes a few step away and keep pressing the hardware wallet, and they found nothing but my cousin noticed that they have camera on them.

After the cop left he instantly installed trust wallet on his phone and move all his fund from the hardware wallet to the trust wallet, I asked him why and he said what if the camera on them captured his recovery seed already? What if they step away from him to get the recovery seed captured?

It was when it all makes sense to me, it is possible that after they drove off they will try to drain the wallet, he doesn't wait to get to my place before he moved all the bitcoin out to a hot wallet.

A few minutes wasted could turned into a horrible event, I liked that he doesn't waste any time.

Why did he need to carry a hardware wallet with you in the first place? That's what I don't understand.

I always say that you should be extremely careful when it comes to cryptocurrencies. There is no need to keep apps related to cryptocurrencies, exchanges, and similar services on your smartphone. In general, it is best to avoid leaving any traces that could indicate that you are involved with cryptocurrencies.

I don't know which country you live in, how professional and law abiding the police are there. But if they use body cameras and now know that this person owns a hardware wallet, they may be able to identify them, and overall that is not a very good situation.

The mistake he even made was to carry his hardware wallet and be moving around knowing that the country he is in is not safe most expecially when police sees anything that relates to cryptocurrency in your device, i think Op must be a Nigerian where every young guy is seen as an internet fraudster, this is always a means they use to collect money illegally from young youth in the country because ordinarily i don't know why police should be searching phones when they have a lot of work to do there has been killing and kidnapping in the country this is what they should be fighting but they left it untouched and be harassing young innocent people on the street, i think to be safe is just to hide anything related to cryptocurrency or have a separate device at home where those apps are store to avoid spending unnecessary money.

[Somegory]

There are things that can happen and I believe it is not impossible for this scenario to happen but I doubt this to an extent however, I have a question to pose to you OP, Why the heck will someone walk around in a peripheral country? I can’t have a hardware wallet and move it like it’s my mobile device so I argue the scenario. But being fast enough to move your coins to a wallet even though the choice of wallet is not the best but for temporary purpose it’s a good move, don’t lose regardless of what happens.

Everyone has their reasons to doubt, this topic isn't about proving what I wrote is real or not, it's for people who can learn one or two things from the post. He is moving in with me for a while and he didn't trust leaving that wallet at home.

I guess some people like judging straight up without thinking, it's easy to figure out what's going on, you can't have a ride in my country and not get checked my these people on the road.

Those who walk by aren't always searched or questioned, it's always those who have a car, if you are from my country you will understand better what I am talking about.

[As-Soon-As]

If you are from a country with high level of insecurity you need to be very smart.
Something happened to my cousin yesterday, some cop stopped him on his way coming to my house.
 out to a hot wallet.
A few minutes wasted could turned into a horrible event, I liked that he doesn't waste any time.

But he used his strategy correctly for that situation, but anyway he was able to protect his coins, thank him too. But your cousin himself is out of danger because why did he go out with his hardware wallet? It is better to leave the hardware wallet at home. Because taking a hardware wallet out with him is very risky and any kind of accident can happen at any time, but he must learn from this mistake.
In the future, it is better for him not to take his hardware wallet out because it will maintain privacy, and the Bitcoin will be more secure.

[Supreme Donvic]

A lot of things are happening and some may think it is not true in my country police officers can stop you and start searching you and order you to open your phone and you won't have any other option than to obey the instructions because if you don't they will immediately beat you or shoot you to death and no one we hold them accountable for the wrong act they have done.
It is not normal for a police officer to Hold someone and ask them to open their phone it is not right at all and it is not even in the police policy in my country or part of our laws but the corrupt police officers are doing it.

[Razmirraz]

Your cousin's decision to waste no time and immediately move the funds to a Trust Wallet has saved his assets from the risk of theft. His action of moving assets to a new wallet was considered a very appropriate and smart decision. In a situation of coercion by a party who is blaming his position, this type of threat is called a "rubber-hose attack", The main priority is of course to secure the assets before the police have a chance to use the seed phrase they recorded. Next, never send funds back to that hardware wallet because the police may still have a record of the seed phrase.

[impulse709]

If you are from a country with high level of insecurity you need to be very smart.
Something happened to my cousin yesterday, some cop stopped him on his way coming to my house.
 out to a hot wallet.
A few minutes wasted could turned into a horrible event, I liked that he doesn't waste any time.

But he used his strategy correctly for that situation, but anyway he was able to protect his coins, thank him too. But your cousin himself is out of danger because why did he go out with his hardware wallet? It is better to leave the hardware wallet at home. Because taking a hardware wallet out with him is very risky and any kind of accident can happen at any time, but he must learn from this mistake.
In the future, it is better for him not to take his hardware wallet out because it will maintain privacy, and the Bitcoin will be more secure.

I'm glad your cousin acted quickly when he was threatened to move his money. When personal safety is a concern, always protect yourself first, before protecting your assets. However. Having the hardware wallet with you is not a necessity and therefore puts you at risk of being stolen. Lost or coerced. A hardware wallet is a wallet that is meant to be stored for the long-term securely. And that's usually best stored at home in a secure location. This incident is a reminder that physical security is important as well as digital security. A disaster plan can mean the difference between a stressful situation and a disaster.

[Floxynice]

Your cousin's decision to waste no time and immediately move the funds to a Trust Wallet has saved his assets from the risk of theft. His action of moving assets to a new wallet was considered a very appropriate and smart decision. In a situation of coercion by a party who is blaming his position, this type of threat is called a "rubber-hose attack", The main priority is of course to secure the assets before the police have a chance to use the seed phrase they recorded. Next, never send funds back to that hardware wallet because the police may still have a record of the seed phrase.

Yea, i love him for taking immediate action after he suspected something. The cops may not have viewed his seed and may not even be able to access his wallet, but that doesn't mean that he should feel relaxed about the whole situation. I just want him to learn from this experience that it is not good to move about with your hardware wallet or your device that contains your crypto wallet. Cops were nice to to not have stolen from him, real criminals will force him at gun point to transfer everything to them. He should take note of this next time and not put himself in such a risky situation.

[@Afzaal126]

“Later” is often when people come up with the idea, but people don't always wait. Bitcoin is a negative currency that is discussed by people throughout the world. If you would like to get acquainted with Bitcoin, you need to learn now. Little changes can have a huge impact. Knowledge is key and understanding the market before making a decision. Don't hurry into investing, but don't be late to learn! Keep in mind that it's those who do the right thing at the right time that succeed. Don't delay action, do take action and begin to receive better information in the future.

[examplens]

While I wouldn’t say OP is actually lying, I would say the person who narrated the story to OP was definitely not telling a true story.

It is more interesting what drove the OP to convey this "it didn't happen" story to us here.
Maybe such anecdotes are interesting for a technologically illiterate audience, but this is certainly not such a place. Although the topic has already reached 50+ replies... 

[Renampun]

I see that the police's actions are arbitrary and cannot be justified because if they conducted a search they should have come with a strong basis of suspicion and have a clear legal basis before taking action. If they immediately conducted a search like that, it would have violated law enforcement and disrespected the public's right to privacy. but your friend was also wrong that he carried his hardware wallet everywhere knowing that his country does not have a good level of security.. luckily it was not a robber, otherwise his life might have been in danger.