> 3) Use a strong encryption algorithm like aes-256 to encrypt your bitcoin wallet using the key from step 2. bitcoin wallet private key is 256 bits. Why not j

> 3) Use a strong encryption algorithm like aes-256 to encrypt your bitcoin wallet using the key from step 2. bitcoin wallet private key is 256 bits. Why not just sha256 hash a password and xor it with the private key? Seems like a decent one time pad to me and much simpler than your approach. And before you say how easily sha256 passwords are brute-forced (they aren't if you pick a password longer than, say, 20 characters) the attacker would need to know so many things that it is unreasonable to assume they would even try that. They would need to know a) my bitcoin private key was xored with a OTP b) the OTP was generated using sha256 c) anything else I did > 4) Use steganographic techniques to hide the ciphertext from step 3 in an image, email, executable, pdf, etc. If I were the leader of a totalitarian regime, I would almost certainly make my country's great firewall have extensive anti-steganographic measures. Any common file formats used for smuggling information that pass through the great firewall must first have all of its padding bits zeroed before continuing to its destination. If people start abusing metadata, metadata should be zeroed as well. > 5) Walk across the border carrying the hidden ciphertext on a computer or a disk, and with the passphrase in your brain Didn't GP say they take everything of value at the border? That would include computers and disks. "You could pass the border occasionally to visit family on the other side, but it was risky to take anything."