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This sort of stuff is why cryptocurrency was created. Despite its flaws, it does impede the governments ability to take your assets without criminal charges.

Zhenya 5y ago
So that anyone can steal your money on hole-ridden exchanges and not just the police?
- Quillbert182 5y ago
  That's how it's ended up, which is a shame. The idea behind cryptocurrency had the potential to be used for good, but the execution has been so poorly pulled off that it ended up being scams, speculation, and air pollution.
- gruez 5y ago
  If you're not a trader and just want to hide your wealth from the government, why would you need to keep your coins on "hole-ridden exchanges"?
- kurisufag 5y ago
  only very rarely do intelligent people get their wallets drained -- its mostly young people hopping on the cultural movement (e.g. NFTs, games) without actually knowing what they are doing. if you abide by a few basic principles (keep your wallet cold, actually read through smart contracts before executing them, read the specification of everywhere you are putting your tokens) you'll be just fine.
gkoberger 5y ago
I think you'll find that if the government wants your money, they'll get it. Doesn't matter how it's stored.
- nullc 5y ago
  The prior poster's point wasn't that the government couldn't get it, it was that they couldn't get it without due process: They'd have to use their ability to imprison the target to get his securely stored Bitcoin, and in doing to they'd implicate his constitutional rights. To the sibling comment, -- sure Bitcoin exchanges are sadly a security crapshow but that its a brief exposure (and one can obtain Bitcoin without an exchange, though the alternatives have their own costs). Once you've obtained and securely stored your Bitcoins they should be safe from both hackers and government due process violations. It's not always easy to correctly store Bitcoin, but it's possible which is something you can't say about other equivalently liquid assets when your threat model includes things like the abuses described in this article.
woodruffw 5y ago
This gets trotted out whenever civil asset forfeiture comes up on HN, so I'll trot the standard response out: any financial scheme that requires you to do a crime to avoid corrupt institutions is a bad scheme. Hiding your money from the government muddies the water in exactly the way that a prosecutor or overzealous cop loves to see: it's direct evidence that you know your assets won't stand up to scrutiny. The solution, as it's always been, is to criminalize asset seizure and go after agencies that use it to maintain their slush funds. Cryptocurrency isn't in the picture.
- Quillbert182 5y ago
  It's not illegal in the U.S. to hide your assets or to hold cryptocurrency, and I'm sure a prosecutor would try, but possessing cryptocurrency is hardly evidence of crime. I definitely agree with your second point though, it would be a much better solution to criminalize civil asset seizure, but that is a much harder thing to achieve in the short term.
  - woodruffw 5y ago
    It is not separately illegal to hide your assets in the US, except where doing so involves committing other crimes (such as not paying your taxes.) However, hiding your assets is functionally illegal in the circumstances that are interesting during civil asset forfeiture: civil cases have discovery available to them, and the standard for compelled information during civil discovery is extremely low (the prosecution only needs to show that the information might reasonably lead to admissible evidence). Hiding your assets during discovery means perjuring yourself.
    - gruez 5y ago
      >However, hiding your assets is functionally illegal in the circumstances that are interesting during civil asset forfeiture: civil cases have discovery available to them [...] Hiding your assets during discovery means perjuring yourself. 1. IANAL, but can't you plead the fifth on that? 2. I agree that cryptocurrency isn't a silver bullet against government action, but it still seems like an improvement to the status quo, where they can seize your stuff whenever they want and you have to sue them to get it back. With crypto, the most they can do is figure out how much money you have, but they can't seize anything without going through the courts. That in itself basically solves the civil forfeiture problem.
tehwebguy 5y ago
Some cops carry a device that drains debit cards[0], there’s no reason to expect they won't soon have a device that automates draining all accounts available on your phone or anything that looks like a private key. [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/07/02/483394735/device-lets-police-seize-digital-cash-raises-civil-liberties-concerns https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/07/02/48...
- Quillbert182 5y ago
  This is definitely a concerning device, but you would think that it would be harder to take password protected keys off of a device than it would be to swipe a credit card.
- gruez 5y ago
  Looks like the device is a card reader with some sort of backend api to freeze/seize accounts. Presumably the the only way it works is that the issuers are willing to give law enforcement a blank check to do whatever they want. I don't see how that's the case for cryptocurrency wallets, which are at least password protected.

Zhenya 5y ago

So that anyone can steal your money on hole-ridden exchanges and not just the police?

Quillbert182 5y ago
That's how it's ended up, which is a shame. The idea behind cryptocurrency had the potential to be used for good, but the execution has been so poorly pulled off that it ended up being scams, speculation, and air pollution.
gruez 5y ago
If you're not a trader and just want to hide your wealth from the government, why would you need to keep your coins on "hole-ridden exchanges"?
kurisufag 5y ago
only very rarely do intelligent people get their wallets drained -- its mostly young people hopping on the cultural movement (e.g. NFTs, games) without actually knowing what they are doing. if you abide by a few basic principles (keep your wallet cold, actually read through smart contracts before executing them, read the specification of everywhere you are putting your tokens) you'll be just fine.

gkoberger 5y ago

I think you'll find that if the government wants your money, they'll get it. Doesn't matter how it's stored.

nullc 5y ago
The prior poster's point wasn't that the government couldn't get it, it was that they couldn't get it without due process: They'd have to use their ability to imprison the target to get his securely stored Bitcoin, and in doing to they'd implicate his constitutional rights. To the sibling comment, -- sure Bitcoin exchanges are sadly a security crapshow but that its a brief exposure (and one can obtain Bitcoin without an exchange, though the alternatives have their own costs). Once you've obtained and securely stored your Bitcoins they should be safe from both hackers and government due process violations. It's not always easy to correctly store Bitcoin, but it's possible which is something you can't say about other equivalently liquid assets when your threat model includes things like the abuses described in this article.

woodruffw 5y ago

This gets trotted out whenever civil asset forfeiture comes up on HN, so I'll trot the standard response out: any financial scheme that requires you to do a crime to avoid corrupt institutions is a bad scheme. Hiding your money from the government muddies the water in exactly the way that a prosecutor or overzealous cop loves to see: it's direct evidence that you know your assets won't stand up to scrutiny. The solution, as it's always been, is to criminalize asset seizure and go after agencies that use it to maintain their slush funds. Cryptocurrency isn't in the picture.

Quillbert182 5y ago
It's not illegal in the U.S. to hide your assets or to hold cryptocurrency, and I'm sure a prosecutor would try, but possessing cryptocurrency is hardly evidence of crime. I definitely agree with your second point though, it would be a much better solution to criminalize civil asset seizure, but that is a much harder thing to achieve in the short term.
- woodruffw 5y ago
  It is not separately illegal to hide your assets in the US, except where doing so involves committing other crimes (such as not paying your taxes.) However, hiding your assets is functionally illegal in the circumstances that are interesting during civil asset forfeiture: civil cases have discovery available to them, and the standard for compelled information during civil discovery is extremely low (the prosecution only needs to show that the information might reasonably lead to admissible evidence). Hiding your assets during discovery means perjuring yourself.
  - gruez 5y ago
    >However, hiding your assets is functionally illegal in the circumstances that are interesting during civil asset forfeiture: civil cases have discovery available to them [...] Hiding your assets during discovery means perjuring yourself. 1. IANAL, but can't you plead the fifth on that? 2. I agree that cryptocurrency isn't a silver bullet against government action, but it still seems like an improvement to the status quo, where they can seize your stuff whenever they want and you have to sue them to get it back. With crypto, the most they can do is figure out how much money you have, but they can't seize anything without going through the courts. That in itself basically solves the civil forfeiture problem.

tehwebguy 5y ago

Some cops carry a device that drains debit cards[0], there’s no reason to expect they won't soon have a device that automates draining all accounts available on your phone or anything that looks like a private key. [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/07/02/483394735/device-lets-police-seize-digital-cash-raises-civil-liberties-concerns https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/07/02/48...

Quillbert182 5y ago
This is definitely a concerning device, but you would think that it would be harder to take password protected keys off of a device than it would be to swipe a credit card.
gruez 5y ago
Looks like the device is a card reader with some sort of backend api to freeze/seize accounts. Presumably the the only way it works is that the issuers are willing to give law enforcement a blank check to do whatever they want. I don't see how that's the case for cryptocurrency wallets, which are at least password protected.