Topic: Be careful of $5 wrench attacks! Also, of thieves armed with Toblerone bars! (Read 441 times)

In these latter days I  notice more than often  crypto cards used  at PoS terminals and this tendency is good as it evidences the increase of crypto popularity. But< at the same time, their owners  can be easily sported by criminals who are out for crypto. I also have crypto cards and  to prevent myself from  "toblrerone attack" I don't use them directly when paying for goods. Instead I have added them into my Apple Pay and communicate with PoS terminals via mobile with closed protected case which are not transparent for picking eyes. This is small trick but probably it could help to somebody.

Let's be realistic, I've heard enough of this 'don't let them know', how are you going to make it possible? I don't have this much of Bitcoin but everyone in my family knows that I am into crypto trading and investing, the only way they won't know is if you are not working at home and online, maybe you started your money making journey with a business and you silently start investing in crypto.

How about people like myself that start making money from Bitcoin and slowly start using the money to establish other business? There were times where I need to teach and take some online classes, the moment you start making money your family member will come closer seeking for some knowledge, I can't watch my cousins going through hard times and not teach them about crypto because in the end I will be the one they will come to for help.

There is a saying that betrayers on the inside is what open doors for the attacks from the outside, but in my own case I prefer security, just be careful of your surroundings and know very well the people you choose to be closer to, even when I need to help a family member I always choose the one that are so far away from me, because not all family members can be trusted.

This is why I always say in every robbery action there is a loophole around that area; either the victim was the one who indirectly sold himself out to those who robbed him or those who are close to him and are aware of their asset could possibly be the ones who sold him out.
 
But sometimes we can never be too sure if we are taking all the security precautions on how to protect ourselves from danger because there is nothing as bad as having someone who is monitoring you as a person without you realising it. Any bit of mistake can give them all the clues they need. 

Privacy is just necessary, every body can be a suspect or a danger when it comes to deal with funds. Most persons do take it as a flex to show case how much worth of Bitcoin/cryptocurrencies they own and forget about the dangers behind such slim thought of action.

In that process of robbery, anything could have happened which may not have been the plans of the robbers, it is better to be guided than being a victim of robbery or even more.

The problem is when the attacker knows how much you have by somehow getting your wallet address, Monero solves this by encrypting amounts.

But even with Monero, you can be tortured to death, even if you actually don't have any money but they think you are lying to them.

I don't know what country do you live but in most European countries there is no problem getting a "sport" gun license and additionally "European Firearms Pass" that allows you to travel with your gun in the European Union.
Not all countries allow to EDC, I happen to live in a country where it's legal to carry and to use what ever means necessary (including firearm) to protect yourself.

If I couldn't get it legally, I would buy it on DNM - my life and my family is more important than some laws written by politicians who live in their 24/7 guarded houses.

If your country does allow you to get a license and you still think it's unnecessary because laws will protect you, you are deserving all the evil that's coming in your way.
Don't be one of this snowflakes... get a gun. If not for yourself, do it for the safety of your family.

Without a gun your life is in the hands of people who will attack you, police will not magically materialize to help you and even if they did - they mostly don't know how to use their own guns that they are given to protect you.

There are a few ways to do fucked up stuff and get away with it, but they all rely on the police botching their investigation by forcing you to make a confession, searching your house without a probable cause, and basically doing anything in the build-up to the the trial that would suggest to a judge that the evidence was gathered unlawfully, even if it happened to be true.

Well, that guy you've dealt with found a good guy then. If he has dealt with bad guys then for sure that his Bitcoins were forcefully stolen from him. When was this? if he's got around $400k worth of Bitcoins by that time then now it's more worthier and the value of it has increased a lot. People should remain low profile so that they won't be known that they're holding Bitcoins even it's just 1 or 2, everyone needs to protect themselves by being private and not too showy.

$5 wrench attacks are becoming more and more popular, recently i have seen a handful of stories about it and it is scary to be honest. The recommendation is surely not to tell anyone about your funds in BTC, but some people learnt about that late and even if they have since stopped telling people they own BTC, they are still at risk from those they told initially. There is also a risk of attackers trying to steal fiat from you, and then they see you also own BTC.

Extending your seed phrase with a passphrase is one way to avoid a $5 wrench attack, it won't work on attackers who knew you had BTC before they came for you, but it will work on attackers that came to rob you of fiat, only to find out you own BTC.

I remember about 10 years ago, I bought a bitcoin ASIC from an individual. He wanted to get paid in Bitcoin instead of cash. This ASIC was old and obsolete and I bought it mostly for hobby use.

He brought the ASIC along with his big laptop and said he will have me scan the QR code on his Bitcoin Wallet and ill send the funds over. Well he loaded his bitcoin wallet on his laptop and I see he had $400K worth of Bitcoins at the time. I told him that its not wise showing that you are in possession of these many coins. Never tell anyone how many coins you have. I think he said after he will just get some Crypto wallet on his phone, I think the only one at that time was Blockchain app and use that instead.

Examples like this are the reason why many are getting robbed of their bitcoins these days.

AFAIK, some countries don't even give out licenses or permits to ordinary citizens who'd like to purchase guns for protection... An easier solution that doesn't involve violence from our side is to have passphrase-protected wallets ^{[multi-sig setups can also be another alternative]}.

Exactly and that's actually one of the biggest issues because you usually can't stop them from mentioning it to other people.

From my understanding, they're still not sure if he was one of the three men who did those awful things... So far, he seems to be responsible for trying to exchange those bitcoins into other forms.
^{- I also disagree with the light sentence (BTW, only the suspended sentence is for six months... The 150 hours of unpaid work equates to roughly 17 days on 8 AM to 5 PM shifts).}

So a guy breaks into a home and terrorizes two people, and the only consequences mentioned are six months of unpaid work and a suspended sentence? Great to be a thug in Scotland I guess.

Safe diversification is very important in this kind of scenarios. If one has more than one safe where they keep their Bitcoin holdings, even in situations were you are attacked, the robbers can not have any clues you saved your assets in multiple wallets and you might just show them the least wallet savings and they go away with that one alone thinking its all they have taken.

In some cases of wallets loss or misplaced keys, this method of storing assets in multiple wallets could also help because not all your assets would be in the wallet your lost access to. You can easily get over it because you have some of your assets still stored elsewhere you can easily access it without the stress of thinking about the one you lost access to.

That would be something to look into with that much Bitcoin on your portfolio. Eventually, the holding strategy doesn’t give much room for spending does it? That could be the case of the victim, holding for dear life they say as, you don’t get to devalue what you’ve accumulated not knowing, you could be a victim of such robbery some day.
The best that could be done is staying absolutely silent on your investments but, the need to carry some friends and family along often makes people break that rule and lands investors in trouble.

They took everything of value:
https://www.scotland.police.uk/what-s-happening/news/2023/november/lanarkshire-man-convicted-following-the-high-value-theft-of-cryptocurrency-in-blantyre/

the details were not released till one of those involved was convicted, that was back in 2023, now the news resurfaced because of the bitcoin being seized, but no at the time of the robbery the detail about the beating with the Toblerone bar was not known.


There is a list tracking some of those:
https://github.com/jlopp/physical-bitcoin-attacks?tab=readme-ov-file
of course incomplete as a lot ofvictims don't go to the police or the police don't make them public but it's still growing

Exactly, I've had same thoughts going in my head, the theives would've taken his jewelries, valueable items or even fiat money but they chose to beat him out of his consciousness and ask him to transfer his Bitcoin when he was back to his conscious state, which means they're fully informed about his worth in bitcoin, the world has birthed cruel societies lately and people ought to take precautions and safeguard themselves and if you got a spare money spend it on security and well being instead of leaving an extravagant lifestyle, that would attract attention.

 I'm pretty sure the theives would have some knowledge about Bitcoin before carry out that operation, else they wouldn't have been able to figure out how to carry the transaction or even have a wallet to receive the Bitcoin not to talk of knowing the right crypto asset to rob.

Do you have a gun ?

How private can you be though? I mean in real life not online. As someone who speaks about bitcoin to friends and family people will definitely know you hold bitcoin.
Let me take myself for example, people who are not close to me have no idea about what I do and how I earn my money, but people close to me know what I do and they know I am involved in bitcoin one way or the other because they come to me whenever they have a question about bitcoin, So they know that I hold bitcoin, they may not have any idea about the amount, but they know I hold bitcoin, how do I protect myself against them if they get any crazy ideas?

I get it that you need to stay private from stranger and online and try not to flaunt your wealth that much, especially those of us in bitcoin, but there are only so much we can be private when it comes to friends and relative

That's the same exact question I was about to ask too, because a thief can not come to rob you and go straight to the point asking you to transfer your Bitcoin if initially they never knew you had Bitcoin in possession. So it's obvious she must have said it publicly somewhere which gave those robbers idea she had Bitcoin, and as as, I think we all need to learn from this man's mistake to always keep our investment private, and also learn to always diversify our investment portfolio, so that if in case you are unlucky to be robbed, you will still be able to have the rest coins safe.

Aren't we always practicing about Bitcoin privacy? Privacy is a very important part of our lives; it could save your money and life as well. Forget about crypto; imagine you are a rich person and you have a lot of money. Your neighbour or relatives ask you to borrow some money from them. If you don't do it, then they will turn into your enemy. So when someone from your neighbourhood or relatives knows about your crypto and they know you are holding a decent amount, then they might become your enemy as well. So they might attack you in various ways. Always need to maintain the privacy when you have crypto and funds. 

This robbery is very common everywhere and the fact we are discussing it here is because the thief wanted some bitcoin, aside that everyone is supposed to be aware of thiefs and robbers hence provide safety measures for themselves.

I saw a post on social media where people who must have given their identity and full informations on social medias claiming how many bitcoins they have and how much they are worth, I was worried because I know how those information could be used to attack them, it's very dangerous action to give out such information and I believe those kind of people are the ones who get attacked by robbers without their knowledge.

So it's very simple never show off how much you have or worth when you can't afford a full security for yourself.