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Topic: How to properly store seed phrase during inspection? (Read 605 times)

legendary
Activity: 1652
Merit: 1208
Gamble responsibly
You can also use something like a QR code to make it impossible to read unless you use certain software or try to hide it in plain sight like written down on something super tiny in your vehicle user manual or something. Sometimes hidden in plain sight might be a better solution when dealing with the authorities because they're not looking for the normal stuff. They're looking for something out of the ordinary.
The easiest way to put down a seed phrase would be to write it down, I can not use pencil or pen to write down seed phrase using QR code, which would be the reason I will not recommend it, also because it can fade with time. I will not even be convenient to have the seed phrase on QR code at all, unlike just having it on paper. Having passphrase with it will be better.
full member
Activity: 1302
Merit: 129
Vaccinized.. immunity level is full.
Plot twist!

That seed phrase is actually a bait for you to send some amount of crypto that will serve as a transaction fee for a script that automatically removes it's balance LOL Grin

I actually have seen this on couple of telegram group channel. Usually scammer send the full of crypto seed and ask for help how to transfer money.

(* scammer usually using fake token with add liquidity so they can fool trust wallet system make it look very real )
And of course someone will actually pick it up, add some bnb and auto transfer it

beware Yall
I have heard about a few similar cases myself so it is important to be careful as scammers are making use of any tactic they can think to get to our coins, and about the question presented by the OP, a simple option could be to bring an old notebook with you and then write part of the seed words on different pages, this way no one can tell at a glance that those words are part of your seed and you will have no problem passing any kind of inspection this way.

Your method is also a good way to avoid security cameras saving the seed phrase, or my way is to record the seed phrase in a notebook, but we don't need to write all 12 or 24 words but write down 11 or 23 words, and the last word we can memorize and memorize in our head. It's like an optional part when we create a wallet on Electrum wallet, choose a familiar word to us, so it's easy to remember without saving it anywhere.
legendary
Activity: 2716
Merit: 1383
Plot twist!

That seed phrase is actually a bait for you to send some amount of crypto that will serve as a transaction fee for a script that automatically removes it's balance LOL Grin

I actually have seen this on couple of telegram group channel. Usually scammer send the full of crypto seed and ask for help how to transfer money.

(* scammer usually using fake token with add liquidity so they can fool trust wallet system make it look very real )
And of course someone will actually pick it up, add some bnb and auto transfer it

beware Yall
I have heard about a few similar cases myself so it is important to be careful as scammers are making use of any tactic they can think to get to our coins, and about the question presented by the OP, a simple option could be to bring an old notebook with you and then write part of the seed words on different pages, this way no one can tell at a glance that those words are part of your seed and you will have no problem passing any kind of inspection this way.
newbie
Activity: 3
Merit: 0
I read about a guy who was a tattoo artist. 

He had twelve mistresses and satisfied each of those twelve girls.  Over time, he bought himself 5 bitcoins and the question arose before him - how to store the seed phrase? 

He had an idea.  On the butt of each of his mistresses, he tattooed one of the words of the seed phrase.  He believed that this was a very reliable way to store seeds, but this turned out not to be the case.  All of his 12 mistresses once met, began to communicate with each other and conspired to rob him.  They have long guessed that the English word tattooed on their buttocks is the key to great wealth. 

The most difficult thing for them was to solve the sequence of these 12 words, but in the end they solved this riddle. 

They eventually withdrew his bitcoins to their bitcoin addresses and stopped communicating with the guy. 

As a result, this guy was very disappointed in this way of storing seed phrases.

lol It's a sad story, but I couldn't help laughing. It was a miracle to get 12 girls together, and he deserves the lost bitcoins. Hahaha

Quote
Not your keys, not your coins.

The way everyone saves the mnemonic is really strange. I personally think that it is safer to remember it in my mind. To be on the safe side, I will choose the second method to engrave it on the tombstone I prepared.
copper member
Activity: 2156
Merit: 983
Part of AOBT - English Translator to Indonesia
Plot twist!

That seed phrase is actually a bait for you to send some amount of crypto that will serve as a transaction fee for a script that automatically removes it's balance LOL Grin

I actually have seen this on couple of telegram group channel. Usually scammer send the full of crypto seed and ask for help how to transfer money.

(* scammer usually using fake token with add liquidity so they can fool trust wallet system make it look very real )
And of course someone will actually pick it up, add some bnb and auto transfer it

beware Yall
member
Activity: 253
Merit: 93
Humble Bitcoin Stacktivist
I am surprised to see this today on the news:

Police body cam leaks suspect's seed phrase during vehicle inspection

It is about a suspect that police searched his car and body camera revealed the suspect's seed phrase to the whole world.

I am considering if traveling and fall into such situation or during inspection, what could have been done to avoid this? Let us assume the person is travelling, leaving where is leaving to work or stay in another town and his car was thoroughly inspected.

Is there a possible way that can be avoided?
Use passphrases with the majority of your holdings in them and just keep a smaller amount of bitcoin in the main wallet. If this guy had done this, he could have kept most of his holdings in different wallets using different passphrases and only some in the main wallet that was confiscated by the police. When they sweep the primary funds, the majority of the remaining funds aren't stolen.

You can also use something like a QR code to make it impossible to read unless you use certain software or try to hide it in plain sight like written down on something super tiny in your vehicle user manual or something. Sometimes hidden in plain sight might be a better solution when dealing with the authorities because they're not looking for the normal stuff. They're looking for something out of the ordinary.
member
Activity: 868
Merit: 38
Join hands and help me to grow everybody...
As an option - just save on some media. But, here it is worth paying enough attention to safety. In this niche, this is a very important aspect.
It is been depends on your own aspect of understanding exactly what the opa saying because if you understand it to the other side that we I've been in understanding this stuff I think you will know the exact thing to do, on this kind of kiss you don't need to follow anyone what you have to do is to follow your own wish and their own methodology
hero member
Activity: 2478
Merit: 695
SecureShift.io | Crypto-Exchange
How would someone expose their seed phrase like that in the first place? seed phrases are supposed to be stored in a place where no one except the owner can have access to it, keeping them in such an open or not so secured place is inviting trouble.
If you must travel with seed phrases then try as much as possible to memorize them so that no one else can know about them, it is much safer this way.
newbie
Activity: 14
Merit: 0
I read about a guy who was a tattoo artist. 

He had twelve mistresses and satisfied each of those twelve girls.  Over time, he bought himself 5 bitcoins and the question arose before him - how to store the seed phrase? 

He had an idea.  On the butt of each of his mistresses, he tattooed one of the words of the seed phrase.  He believed that this was a very reliable way to store seeds, but this turned out not to be the case.  All of his 12 mistresses once met, began to communicate with each other and conspired to rob him.  They have long guessed that the English word tattooed on their buttocks is the key to great wealth. 

The most difficult thing for them was to solve the sequence of these 12 words, but in the end they solved this riddle. 

They eventually withdrew his bitcoins to their bitcoin addresses and stopped communicating with the guy. 

As a result, this guy was very disappointed in this way of storing seed phrases.

lol It's a sad story, but I couldn't help laughing. It was a miracle to get 12 girls together, and he deserves the lost bitcoins. Hahaha
member
Activity: 126
Merit: 22
I am surprised to see this today on the news:

Police body cam leaks suspect's seed phrase during vehicle inspection

It is about a suspect that police searched his car and body camera revealed the suspect's seed phrase to the whole world.

I am considering if traveling and fall into such situation or during inspection, what could have been done to avoid this? Let us assume the person is travelling, leaving where is leaving to work or stay in another town and his car was thoroughly inspected.

Is there a possible way that can be avoided?

Of course there are many ways to store the seed phrases that we have.
Everyone has a different way to save it, as long as we are not careless in saving it.
I prefer to save the seed phrase by making it a random sentence or cipher and only I know.
I keep it in my office and put it in a personal safe, not for traveling, of course.

But who knows we will experience unexpected bad luck.
Of course we cannot avoid bad luck, because what I saw in that case I consider it a bad luck.
sr. member
Activity: 1008
Merit: 366
Is there a possible way that can be avoided?
I will share my method here. Hope this can help you guys. I have made an algorithm simple plus minus math, actually. If I do it correctly, then I can find my seed phrase easily.
Write down some words, just random words to fill up the page. You can use many math equations available out there.
Let's try the Fibonacci sequence, for instance. You can count the number that comes in that sequence and point out those words from that random word's list. Then from your seed phrase finish to start, Not start to finish. (you can also randomize the phrase using some math, up to you) Put those words where your Fibonacci sequence leads to. Then replace those random words from the list with your reverse seed phrase. If the sequence leads to a bigger number, then limit it to a small section and repeat.
You can do this with row and column. Or diagonally.
I think it will be very hard to crack. And even someone sees the page, they won't be able to find the seed phrase
hero member
Activity: 2184
Merit: 891
Leading Crypto Sports Betting and Casino Platform
Well for one, I don't think having your seed phrase with you at all times is the best idea for storing. Considering how many personal affects a person loses in their person already. If you are going to store your cryptocurrency on a self-custodial wallet' might as well choose cold ones and only pull the seed phrase out for whenever you really need it. Most of the time you should keep it somewhere safe like a safety deposit box inside your home, secured in itself with a lock and key that only you could open, as well as a trusted person for emergencies. I do those and thus far, despite me being POC and being pulled over god-knows-how-many I don't ever encounter a situation like what you posted.
hero member
Activity: 1190
Merit: 901
Livecasino.io
Don't make it look like a seed phrase. People these days are aware of what seed phrases are look like.

Although this experience is one of the few and sorry for that guy that has to experience it but, I'm sure that many are learning from his experience.

Maybe have a sequence and jumble the combination but I think that someone who doesn't have a strong memory might forget it. At least make a pattern that you are the only one that knows it.
Agreed. Another crazily stupid idea that I wouldn't advise anyone to do unless you have exhausted all your options is to get 2 pieces of paper and place half of the seed on one of the papers and the other half on the other piece of paper, so that if the police searches your car (as in the scenarios explained by the OP), his body camera will only reveal one half of your seed phrase to the whole world.
sr. member
Activity: 672
Merit: 273
A seed phrase is not something to travel around with even with movement from one location to another, there are better ways to avoid the risk of getting one seed phrase exposed and what ops mentioned is an outright violation of the right of the citizen.

Yes the police have the right to search but what gave them the right to make the entire process live, I don't think they have warrant for a search, and this situation is just a stop and search between border towns. And as the case is it is better to keep your seed phrase encrypted somewhere that only you have access to on your mobile device but PC yes.
hero member
Activity: 2520
Merit: 952
I was going to criticize him than I realized I do same — have 2fa codes in my pocket too, numbers aren't that obvious as seed phrases but still pretty much same.
sr. member
Activity: 728
Merit: 421
Costly mistakes people do make which put them on the plunge. How on Earth would he be driving around with such sensitive document or details as the case maybe. I believe the officer had no idea what he was opening hence he allowed the camera to capture the phrase because I see no reason why he should continue allowing the camera on the phrase. Well the camera is for evidence of action if there are any cliams or counter claims from any party and it serves well for fairness.
Looking at this situation, the police should not have made this public as it contains sensitive details to assets or funds which is to be kept away from the public and they breached his right by doing so. If his wallet gets hacked who is to blame for the deed otherwise we assume it to be a public stunt because I wonder how a reasonable human can still make public such details after getting to know what it is.
legendary
Activity: 1848
Merit: 1982
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Something really strange, at first I wonder why the police publish this video on social media? Isn't this a violation of the law?

The second surprising thing is why this person carries his initial phrase with him in the car. This is a very dangerous behavior, because even if the police do not search his car, he may be exposed to theft, an accident, or anything else that causes him to lose his initial phrase and lose his money.
Unless he's moving out of his house permanently, why would he carry his initial phrase in the car and not simply leave it somewhere safe at home?

Of course I am sad about what happened with the man, his initial phrase spread on the Internet and all his money may be lost, but his negligence and lack of proper security measures is the reason.
legendary
Activity: 3528
Merit: 1234
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There are a couple of reddit threads that state that the person they searched was a former-fbi agent, and currently worked in cyber security:

https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/zo9i21/lesson_learned_cop_pulls_over_former_fbi_agent/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/zo7nq1/cops_pull_over_former_fbi_now_cyber_security_self/

The details may be in the video, but I can’t be bothered to go through it all. He does say he works as a contractor, has what looks like a law enforcement badge and a bunch of other stuff. Watching the video in full may corroborate what the above two links state.


In my opinion it is high unlikely a former FBI agent moreover expert and currently engaged in the cyber security sector can act in this unprepared way of storing their private keys even if actually there is some clues that can induce in thinking so and he self declare to be a hacker if I understand correctly.
Weird story imo.
legendary
Activity: 1568
Merit: 6660
bitcoincleanup.com / bitmixlist.org

Put your seed phrase(s) inside a small opaque bag, small enough so that it can't contain any guns or knives or anything like that. Maybe even an old and otherwise empty wallet will do the trick (and why the hell would police insist on searching there?).
legendary
Activity: 1792
Merit: 1296
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Of course, it is absolutely not a reasonable idea to carry seed phrase with you. I don't know this guy's motives, but he was definitely unfortunate enough to meet law enforcement. But if there is a need to transport the seed phrase, then, as you can see, transporting it in plain text and without any changes is fraught with the security of your funds.

As already mentioned above, you don't need to do like the hero of this video. Keep seed phrase only in a safe place and don't touch unless absolutely necessary. If you need to transport the seed phrase, then you can use various methods to make it difficult to access information. In order not to repeat the suggestions of other users, I can recommend, for example, installing an encrypted Linux OS on a USB flash drive and saving the seed phrase (or immediately enter the seed phrase into the electrum so that it is not in clear form and, if necessary, you can receive / send btc). Of course, it is not permissible to connect to the Internet using this OS. Or take security measures to avoid leakage of this information.

This is not the safest method for a number of reasons (for example, due to the likelihood of a flash drive failing), but in some situations you can use it.
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