Encrypted Public Key/Double Encrypted Private Key

[saddambitcoin]

Scenario:
Mercenaries break into your house and force you to hand over your paper wallets. Easy for them to see how much you have simply by looking at the bitcoin address. From there they only have to torture you to obtain your BIP38 passphrase and sweep the funds.

Solution:

A) Encrypted Public Key. Thieves will have no way of knowing how much BTC is stored at any given address.

B) Encrypted Private Key with two possible outcomes for plausible deniability. One password reveals a small amount of BTC, enough to satisfy your attackers. Another password reveals a different private key where you have stored the majority of your funds. Is this possible?

[byt411]

Scenario:
Mercenaries break into your house and force you to hand over your paper wallets. Easy for them to see how much you have simply by looking at the bitcoin address. From there they only have to torture you to obtain your BIP38 passphrase and sweep the funds.

Solution:

A) Encrypted Public Key. Thieves will have no way of knowing how much BTC is stored at any given address.

B) Encrypted Private Key with two possible outcomes for plausible deniability. One password reveals a small amount of BTC, enough to satisfy your attackers. Another password reveals a different private key where you have stored the majority of your funds. Is this possible?

You can simply make a paper wallet that doesn't contain the address, so your "attackers" don't know how much you have, and you say that you were about to buy some btc to put in there.
Private keys can only generate 1 bitcoin address, and if you try and decrypt it with an incorrect passphrase it would be very noticeable. You'd have to come up with a new encryption method for what you suggested.

[Sydboy]

what about if you make a private key for some coins on testnet ?
Im sure the address would be different to a bitrcoin address but these mercenaries sound pretty stupid.
The private key would be the same I would guess ??

Just hope they dont test while they have the guns pointing at you ?

considering *most* people dont talk about how they just bought a lambo for examppe.  this should not be an issue.

[Seldar]

You can simply make a paper wallet that doesn't contain the address, so your "attackers" don't know how much you have, and you say that you were about to buy some btc to put in there.

Yep, it's the best solution.
One paper wallet wich will  contain the biggest part of your bitcoin assets (You keep it in bank safe).
One (or several) small wallets for daily use or in case of robbery. If you have to loose this money, you can imagine that's the price to pay an life insurance contract

[Mitchell]

I really like the second idea you pitch. I have no idea if it's possible, but if it is, I would love to have something like that. Keep 0.1BTC on the first one, keep the rest on the other, safe and sound. That would be an amazing security feature.

[BitcoinLlama]

Two encrypted private keys seems like something that could be done and is interested but i am not sure if it would undermine the rest of the bitcoin architecture by doing this. Seems like a bit of complication and complications can mess with systems.

-Justin

[DannyHamilton]

Scenario:
Mercenaries break into your house and force you to hand over your paper wallets. Easy for them to see how much you have simply by looking at the bitcoin address. From there they only have to torture you to obtain your BIP38 passphrase and sweep the funds.

Solution:

A) Encrypted Public Key. Thieves will have no way of knowing how much BTC is stored at any given address.

Useless.  They only have to torture you to obtain your Public Key passphrase, then they know how much bitcoin you have and can decide to continue torturing you for the private key, or kill you since you're not worth their time.

B) Encrypted Private Key with two possible outcomes for plausible deniability. One password reveals a small amount of BTC, enough to satisfy your attackers. Another password reveals a different private key where you have stored the majority of your funds. Is this possible?

Since a private key is nothing more than a 256 bit integer, it would be easy to create a situation where decrypting the private key yielded the private key to an address that had very little in it, and then taking an additional step on the decrypted private key yields a private key completely different private key to an address that has lots of bitcoins.  This is how the deterministic wallets (such as Electrum) work. As long as you know what the additional step is, and the attackers don't know that an additional step is necessary, they won't find the second private key.

Of course, once they realize that they wasted their time coming after someone that doesn't have much, they'll almost certainly just kill you.  So you'll never get to use the hidden bitcoins.

[Newar]

Solution C) : Make a split wallet where the private key needs m out of n to be accessible ( see bitaddress.org or http://point-at-infinity.org/ssss/demo.html ) and keep the different parts at locations that you need to get in contact with other persons to get access (your lawyer, bank personnel etc.) Of course this would annoy mercenaries once they find out and they'll kill you anyway. Probably a good idea to teach you're heirs how to get to your coins. And how to evade mercenaries. ;}

[KamyKira]

Scenario:
Mercenaries break into your house and force you to hand over your paper wallets. Easy for them to see how much you have simply by looking at the bitcoin address. From there they only have to torture you to obtain your BIP38 passphrase and sweep the funds.

Solution:

A) Encrypted Public Key. Thieves will have no way of knowing how much BTC is stored at any given address.

B) Encrypted Private Key with two possible outcomes for plausible deniability. One password reveals a small amount of BTC, enough to satisfy your attackers. Another password reveals a different private key where you have stored the majority of your funds. Is this possible?

I think it would be highly unlikely for "Mercenaries"to break into your house , and even more to even know that you own ANY Bitcoins , But then again if that would be the scenario I agree with B ) option there.

[fbueller]

The problem with encrypting anything, is that you assume people will learn the different cipher texts, and can study them. If someone observes that you encrypt your stuff, and you expect them to break into your home, the rubber hose attack will be used until they're satisfied you've given over everything. Since there's no way to prove that you haven't cooperated entirely without giving them the jackpot, this just ensures sustained torture if this situation were to occur.

Multisig might be better, but nothing stops them beating you until you reveal the identities of the other users, and then the mercenaries call them, explain they have a gun to your head, and then your friends will then be coerced into signing.

If this is actually in your threat model, you shouldn't let anyone know your true value. For instance, paying a remote 0.02BTC for the night, and then they see you received 200BTC as change, could lead to this situation.

[Este Nuno]

If they are going to torture you does it really matter? I'm assuming they know you hold bitcoins already. So you can encrypt anything you want, but you'll just end up either giving your life to protect your coins or decrypting it all anyway.

[paythrough_team]

Bitcoin public key for encryption, if someone sends bitcoin to you, how to get an account.

[DannyHamilton]

Bitcoin public key for encryption, if someone sends bitcoin to you, how to get an account.

English try, please sense, your post make.