2012-09-12 forbes.com - Key Disclosure Laws Can Be Used To Confiscate Bitcoin As

ArticMine

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Monero Core Team

Quote from: Rygon on September 13, 2012, 07:40:37 AM

Maybe it's just me, but I'm not really clear about how a situation could arise where the court would demand for the private key to a bitcoin wallet. If the crime was receiving money for some illegal activity, all they would have to do is prove that someone had the private key to the public address. They would have to know something linking you to the public key in the first place to charge you with a crime. Your financial transaction history would be on the block chain, hence, public. I'm not a lawyer, so perhaps I just don't get it.

I could see a potential situation where someone is ordered by the court to pay back taxes or alimony, and it comes up that the defendent has the private key to a 100K BTC wallet. A divorce case might perhaps, but it would be easy for the defendent to move the BTC around and claim that they lost it all on Satoshi dice or something.

I can see a situation where a court of law would demand the private key or keys to a bitcoin wallet. Hint: pirateat40.

Domrada

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Quote

Another legal strategy to complicate matters could be to split the passphrase with another person and claim that you are never in possession of the entire real passphrase. Then, at least there would be “plausible deniability” as to who provided the invalid portion of the passphrase or you would have a cellmate if held in contempt.

Great gem in the last paragraph. This reminds me of the old anecdote about the six bodyguards who dogpile a guy and shoot him in a public place. They are all carrying identical, recently fired weapons. In the aftermath, none of them speaks a word. All have plausible deniability.

makomk

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Quote from: cbeast on September 14, 2012, 08:21:07 AM

I presume this to be about owning property or assets created, stolen, or obtained illegally.

Not exactly. At least in the US, civil forfeiture is about police having the power to seize assets that they claim were stolen or obtained illegally without actually having to prove that any crime was ever committed at all. There were already criminal forfeiture procedures which allowed the police to seize assets from convicted criminals - they didn't need civil forfeiture for that! In fact, due to a nifty abuse of the law targets often don't actually have the right to defend themselves in civil forfeiture cases at all because often it's not them being sued, it's their property; a much easier case to win since property cannot hire or instruct lawyers.

Viceroy

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Quote from: cbeast on September 14, 2012, 08:21:07 AM

I presume this to be about owning property or assets created, stolen, or obtained illegally.

There are asset forfeiture cases in Califnornia where the federal government says selling medical marijuana for profit is illegal while California says selling medical marijuana is not illegal. None have gone through but the threat from the Fed is enough for most people to capitulate.

cbeast

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Let's talk governance, lipstick, and pigs.

Quote from: Rygon on September 14, 2012, 08:13:40 AM

Quote from: gnar1ta$ on September 13, 2012, 04:00:01 PM

"Civil forfeiture laws represent one of the most serious assaults on private property rights in the nation today. Under civil forfeiture, police and prosecutors can seize your car or other property, sell it and use the proceeds to fund agency budgets--all without so much as charging you with a crime. Unlike criminal forfeiture, where property is taken after its owner has been found guilty in a court of law, with civil forfeiture, owners need not be charged with a crime let alone be convicted to lose homes, cars, cash or other property."

http://www.forbes.com/2011/06/08/property-civil-forfeiture.html

Fascinating. I had no idea it was that bad. At least it'll be interesting when police officers try to figure out how to confiscate bitcoin and use it. All the more reason to hold BTC in cold storage after sending them through a mixing service. And never to admit any access to coins. Ever.

I presume this to be about owning property or assets created, stolen, or obtained illegally.

Rygon

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Quote from: gnar1ta$ on September 13, 2012, 04:00:01 PM

"Civil forfeiture laws represent one of the most serious assaults on private property rights in the nation today. Under civil forfeiture, police and prosecutors can seize your car or other property, sell it and use the proceeds to fund agency budgets--all without so much as charging you with a crime. Unlike criminal forfeiture, where property is taken after its owner has been found guilty in a court of law, with civil forfeiture, owners need not be charged with a crime let alone be convicted to lose homes, cars, cash or other property."

http://www.forbes.com/2011/06/08/property-civil-forfeiture.html

Fascinating. I had no idea it was that bad. At least it'll be interesting when police officers try to figure out how to confiscate bitcoin and use it. All the more reason to hold BTC in cold storage after sending them through a mixing service. And never to admit any access to coins. Ever.

gnar1ta$

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Quote from: Rygon on September 13, 2012, 08:45:36 AM

Quote from: FreeMoney on September 13, 2012, 08:15:54 AM

Quote from: Rygon on September 13, 2012, 07:40:37 AM

Maybe it's just me, but I'm not really clear about how a situation could arise where the court would demand for the private key to a bitcoin wallet. If the crime was receiving money for some illegal activity, all they would have to do is prove that someone had the private key to the public address. They would have to know something linking you to the public key in the first place to charge you with a crime. Your financial transaction history would be on the block chain, hence, public. I'm not a lawyer, so perhaps I just don't get it.

They are going to want the money eventually.

Well, of course. Wink

But that's assuming they have already proven that person guilty. This article is about retrieving private keys to somehow obtain evidence to prove guilt, and jailing someone for contempt of court for refusing to give up those keys. I guess my question is, "What evidence does the prosecuter actually obtain by getting the private key to a bitcoin address?"

"Civil forfeiture laws represent one of the most serious assaults on private property rights in the nation today. Under civil forfeiture, police and prosecutors can seize your car or other property, sell it and use the proceeds to fund agency budgets--all without so much as charging you with a crime. Unlike criminal forfeiture, where property is taken after its owner has been found guilty in a court of law, with civil forfeiture, owners need not be charged with a crime let alone be convicted to lose homes, cars, cash or other property."

http://www.forbes.com/2011/06/08/property-civil-forfeiture.html

bitcats

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If you run the risk of being caught by LE, you should have a separate "alibi" wallet with a few transactions in the history and a 69 BTC balance -> plausible deniability.

FreeMoney

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Strength in numbers

Quote from: Rygon on September 13, 2012, 08:45:36 AM

Quote from: FreeMoney on September 13, 2012, 08:15:54 AM

Quote from: Rygon on September 13, 2012, 07:40:37 AM

Maybe it's just me, but I'm not really clear about how a situation could arise where the court would demand for the private key to a bitcoin wallet. If the crime was receiving money for some illegal activity, all they would have to do is prove that someone had the private key to the public address. They would have to know something linking you to the public key in the first place to charge you with a crime. Your financial transaction history would be on the block chain, hence, public. I'm not a lawyer, so perhaps I just don't get it.

They are going to want the money eventually.

Well, of course. Wink

But that's assuming they have already proven that person guilty. This article is about retrieving private keys to somehow obtain evidence to prove guilt, and jailing someone for contempt of court for refusing to give up those keys. I guess my question is, "What evidence does the prosecuter actually obtain by getting the private key to a bitcoin address?"

They often take cash before trial or even without arrest or trial ever happening. Most 'normal' people don't have a lot of cash, so if they see a lot of cash it's evidence that you are up to no good. Most people don't have a lot of bitocins either (and never will no matter what since 'a lot' is relative). But it's easier to keep bitcoins safe and hidden from anyone.

Rygon

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Quote from: FreeMoney on September 13, 2012, 08:15:54 AM

Quote from: Rygon on September 13, 2012, 07:40:37 AM

Maybe it's just me, but I'm not really clear about how a situation could arise where the court would demand for the private key to a bitcoin wallet. If the crime was receiving money for some illegal activity, all they would have to do is prove that someone had the private key to the public address. They would have to know something linking you to the public key in the first place to charge you with a crime. Your financial transaction history would be on the block chain, hence, public. I'm not a lawyer, so perhaps I just don't get it.

They are going to want the money eventually.

Well, of course. Wink

But that's assuming they have already proven that person guilty. This article is about retrieving private keys to somehow obtain evidence to prove guilt, and jailing someone for contempt of court for refusing to give up those keys. I guess my question is, "What evidence does the prosecuter actually obtain by getting the private key to a bitcoin address?"

FreeMoney

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Strength in numbers

Quote from: Rygon on September 13, 2012, 07:40:37 AM

Maybe it's just me, but I'm not really clear about how a situation could arise where the court would demand for the private key to a bitcoin wallet. If the crime was receiving money for some illegal activity, all they would have to do is prove that someone had the private key to the public address. They would have to know something linking you to the public key in the first place to charge you with a crime. Your financial transaction history would be on the block chain, hence, public. I'm not a lawyer, so perhaps I just don't get it.

They are going to want the money eventually.

Rygon

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Activity: 520

Merit: 500

Maybe it's just me, but I'm not really clear about how a situation could arise where the court would demand for the private key to a bitcoin wallet. If the crime was receiving money for some illegal activity, all they would have to do is prove that someone had the private key to the public address. They would have to know something linking you to the public key in the first place to charge you with a crime. Your financial transaction history would be on the block chain, hence, public. I'm not a lawyer, so perhaps I just don't get it.

I could see a potential situation where someone is ordered by the court to pay back taxes or alimony, and it comes up that the defendent has the private key to a 100K BTC wallet. A divorce case might perhaps, but it would be easy for the defendent to move the BTC around and claim that they lost it all on Satoshi dice or something.

Seal

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Quote from: marcus_of_augustus on September 13, 2012, 05:14:28 AM

Quote from: rebuilder on September 13, 2012, 03:25:16 AM

Quote from: Seal on September 12, 2012, 08:36:26 PM

Quote from: ?? on ??

John raises excellent points in this article.

Quote from: FreeMoney on September 12, 2012, 07:44:19 PM

"We demand you give us the private keys to these addresses within 24 hours!"

Transfer bitcoins.

"Here ya go"

FreeMoney raises an excellent countermeasure against

Easily done with a 'panic button' script that can broadcast all your coin to a laundry service into your own personal and more private brain wallet or friends/family/spouse's wallet.

For how long can you be jailed for contempt of court?

In a quite recent similar case, Martin Armstrong was held for 7.5 years in prison without a trial, in contempt of court. He insisted he didn't know where the missing gold was and court insisted he did ... essentially.

The bigger issue this raises for me is how ready people are to blow-off clearly corrupt court rulings and look for other ways around the "problem".

The longer the courts go on rubber-stamping facistic, totalitarian unconstitutional govt. decrees the more respect they lose. This is a dangerous situation for the society to head into.

What happened to the days of innocent until proven guilty?

marcus_of_augustus

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Eadem mutata resurgo

Quote from: rebuilder on September 13, 2012, 03:25:16 AM

Quote from: Seal on September 12, 2012, 08:36:26 PM

Quote from: ?? on ??

John raises excellent points in this article.

Quote from: FreeMoney on September 12, 2012, 07:44:19 PM

"We demand you give us the private keys to these addresses within 24 hours!"

Transfer bitcoins.

"Here ya go"

FreeMoney raises an excellent countermeasure against

Easily done with a 'panic button' script that can broadcast all your coin to a laundry service into your own personal and more private brain wallet or friends/family/spouse's wallet.

For how long can you be jailed for contempt of court?

In a quite recent similar case, Martin Armstrong was held for 7.5 years in prison without a trial, in contempt of court. He insisted he didn't know where the missing gold was and court insisted he did ... essentially.

The bigger issue this raises for me is how ready people are to blow-off clearly corrupt court rulings and look for other ways around the "problem".

The longer the courts go on rubber-stamping facistic, totalitarian unconstitutional govt. decrees the more respect they lose. This is a dangerous situation for the society to head into.

rebuilder

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Quote from: Seal on September 12, 2012, 08:36:26 PM

Quote from: ?? on ??

John raises excellent points in this article.

Quote from: FreeMoney on September 12, 2012, 07:44:19 PM

"We demand you give us the private keys to these addresses within 24 hours!"

Transfer bitcoins.

"Here ya go"

FreeMoney raises an excellent countermeasure against

Easily done with a 'panic button' script that can broadcast all your coin to a laundry service into your own personal and more private brain wallet or friends/family/spouse's wallet.

For how long can you be jailed for contempt of court?

marcus_of_augustus

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Eadem mutata resurgo

Storing all your bitcoins in multi-sig addresses would give plausible deniability that one had all the passwords needed.

FreeMoney

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Strength in numbers

Quote from: TTBit on September 12, 2012, 09:26:08 PM

Possible / practical?

Keep coins in 20 addresses. Have remote online computer monitor those addresses. if 1 of 20 addresses has a withdraw, move all coins in the other 19 to panic address.

If they put all the addresses in one wallet and make one tx you'll be too slow. Best hacking practices are to do it all at once, so odds are pretty bad imo.

grondilu

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Quote from: TTBit on September 12, 2012, 09:26:08 PM

Possible / practical?

Keep coins in 20 addresses. Have remote online computer monitor those addresses. if 1 of 20 addresses has a withdraw, move all coins in the other 19 to panic address.

If one of your 20 addresses has been hacked for some reason, the others probably are too. IMHO. Better use a key that has never been used and only you know it even exists. It might be encrypted and hidden in a picture somewhere using steganography, for instance.

TTBit

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Possible / practical?

Keep coins in 20 addresses. Have remote online computer monitor those addresses. if 1 of 20 addresses has a withdraw, move all coins in the other 19 to panic address.

grondilu

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Quote from: ?? on ??

OOO please make one Grin

or show me how to in Bash or Python.

Code:

#!/bin/bash

# send all your money to a previously generated bitcoin address
# whose private key is stored and hidden somewhere on the net 
# or printed on paper somewhere.
bitcoind sendtoaddress WRITEYOURPANICADDRESSHERE  "$(bitcoind getbalance)"

# clean up your tracks:
# remove this script from your disk
# so that you'll have plausible deniability.
# You'll say that you just happen to have sent all your bitcoins to someone.
wipe $0 || rm -f $0

Topic: 2012-09-12 forbes.com - Key Disclosure Laws Can Be Used To Confiscate Bitcoin As (Read 4584 times)