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80% of the way through the article you can read what actually happened. It's not that the Feds were incompetent and kept a "seized wallet" thinking only they ha

80% of the way through the article you can read what actually happened. It's not that the Feds were incompetent and kept a "seized wallet" thinking only they had the private keys or something like that. The wallets were simply protected by a passphrase and Larry couldn't be compelled to give the passphrase. The feds even told the judge they didn't have control of the funds and they could be moved to family/friends before it happened.

vikingerik 4y ago
Which means the feds didn't actually seize anything. A copy of the wallet without the passphrase is nothing. If the feds don't have the keys, they don't have the coins. It sounds like Michael Scott declaring bankruptcy - the feds declared "I seize Bitcoin" but nothing happened.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > Which means the feds didn't actually seize anything Seizure is tied to possession, a legal concept [1]. Not control. Courts commonly authorize the seizure assets not yet under the government's physical control. (I agree the terminology is misleading.) [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/seizure https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/seizure
  - arcticfox 4y ago
    That's good to know! But the title is the part that is so misleading that it's essentially inaccurate - you can't steal something back that was never taken away. This would be like the feds "seizing" a car, and you drive it away before they actually come take possession of it. Hardly stealing it back, they simply never had it.
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > you can't steal something back that was never taken away "Taken away" muddles legal possession and control. If someone takes control of your un-attended car, we call that stealing. > would be like the feds "seizing" a car, and you drive it away before they actually come take possession of it. Hardly stealing it back Legally, it is. Colloquially, that's silly phrasing. (Not disagreeing at all that the headline is silly. Hacker absconds with frozen coins would be clearer. Though we'd then have a page full of questions about what frozen coins are doing in transit.)
  - null0pointer 4y ago
    Ok, but they still didn’t actually seize anything. This is like saying they seized your bank account because they took the wallet which has your debit card in it.
    - dale_glass 4y ago
      No, seizure is a legal concept. There's no physical bank account the feds can somehow move into a locked room. The bank retains the technical ability to let you use your seized bank account anyway. It's just a bad idea because it's illegal, and if the bank did that, somebody would get into a lot of trouble.
  - bo1024 4y ago
    "Feds seize song 'Stairway To Heaven' from Florida Man, surprised to find him listening to it anyway". Point being, lawyers can pretend that information is property, but some things obey physical laws and other things don't. (edit) Maybe I'm being unclear, but your link defines seizure as "removes property from an individual's possession" and none of these terms apply here.
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > lawyers can pretend that information is property, but some things obey physical laws and other things don't Free information is difficult to control. We have to add things to it, like DRM, to make it compatible with the legal concepts of possession and ownership. Crypto, however, is different. One can control it. Had the FBI been able to move the coins to their own wallet, they would have controlled them. Crypto is information re-structured in the image of our legal senses around property. It's the antithesis of free information. (That’s why two people can look at it and simultaneously see profoundly-pure meaning and infinitely-valid meaninglessness. Legal versus tangible. Possession without substance. Money.) All that aside, ownership and control have a long history of separating. The traditional method of reconciliation was violence. The FBI "owned" those coins on "seizing" them and thus legally "possessed" them [1], even if they didn't "control" them. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/possession https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/possession
      - bo1024 4y ago
        I don’t follow. If you record my https traffic to my banking website, do you now “own” my bank account? Did you “seize” it? Do you “possess” it? No, no, no. you have a copy of a pile of bits that are meaningless to you without my encryption keys. You don’t have anything new and you didn’t deprive me of anything either.
        JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > you record my https traffic to my banking website, do you now “own” my bank account? Did you “seize” it? Do you “possess” it? No, no, no. Recording and seizing are different. If a court rules the you own a bank account, that doesn't technically prohibit the bank from charging it. Possession involves ownership or control [1]. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/possession https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/possession
  - Double_a_92 4y ago
    But they still didn't "possess" anything, except a meaningless blob of data... of which there are probably copies of out there.
  - cortic 4y ago
    So when i read that a suspect was seized by police; They might have just recovered a picture of the person..? But then the real person can't change addresses as they would be charged with escaping from police custody.. Doesn't seem right.
    - rjmunro 4y ago
      I think that when you read that a suspect was "seized" by police, the person writing it doesn't know what "seized" legally means, and they should have said "arrested" or "taken into custody" or something.
      - cortic 4y ago
        I think at best you could argue the people who wrote the law didn't actually know what seized means, which is more worrying. But i would say that taking public keys doesn't fulfill the "removes property from an individual's possession" in the law.cornell.edu link. There is no way to 'remove property from an individual's possession" while "leaving property in an individual's possession" at the same time. And if you are have done the second one of those things then you have failed to do the first.
        JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > the people who wrote the law didn't actually know what seized means Rooms full of lawyers getting a legal definition wrong for centuries across multiple jurisdictions is more likely than you misunderstanding a technical term? > no way to 'remove property from an individual's possession" while "leaving property in an individual's possession" at the same time Yes, there is. Possession involves control or ownership [1]. One can own something without controlling it and vice versa. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/possession https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/possession
    - blep_ 4y ago
      Silly dystopia ideas: police seize an NFT of the suspect.
- runeks 4y ago
  > If the feds don't have the keys, they don't have the coins. Having the keys is necessary but not sufficient. Namely, if other people have the same keys you don't really hold the bitcoins in any practical sense. It's like ten people all holding a $1000 check drawn against a bank account with only $1000 in it. Whoever cashes the check first has the money, everyone else don't have anything.

vikingerik 4y ago

Which means the feds didn't actually seize anything. A copy of the wallet without the passphrase is nothing. If the feds don't have the keys, they don't have the coins. It sounds like Michael Scott declaring bankruptcy - the feds declared "I seize Bitcoin" but nothing happened.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> Which means the feds didn't actually seize anything Seizure is tied to possession, a legal concept [1]. Not control. Courts commonly authorize the seizure assets not yet under the government's physical control. (I agree the terminology is misleading.) [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/seizure https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/seizure
- arcticfox 4y ago
  That's good to know! But the title is the part that is so misleading that it's essentially inaccurate - you can't steal something back that was never taken away. This would be like the feds "seizing" a car, and you drive it away before they actually come take possession of it. Hardly stealing it back, they simply never had it.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > you can't steal something back that was never taken away "Taken away" muddles legal possession and control. If someone takes control of your un-attended car, we call that stealing. > would be like the feds "seizing" a car, and you drive it away before they actually come take possession of it. Hardly stealing it back Legally, it is. Colloquially, that's silly phrasing. (Not disagreeing at all that the headline is silly. Hacker absconds with frozen coins would be clearer. Though we'd then have a page full of questions about what frozen coins are doing in transit.)
- null0pointer 4y ago
  Ok, but they still didn’t actually seize anything. This is like saying they seized your bank account because they took the wallet which has your debit card in it.
  - dale_glass 4y ago
    No, seizure is a legal concept. There's no physical bank account the feds can somehow move into a locked room. The bank retains the technical ability to let you use your seized bank account anyway. It's just a bad idea because it's illegal, and if the bank did that, somebody would get into a lot of trouble.
- bo1024 4y ago
  "Feds seize song 'Stairway To Heaven' from Florida Man, surprised to find him listening to it anyway". Point being, lawyers can pretend that information is property, but some things obey physical laws and other things don't. (edit) Maybe I'm being unclear, but your link defines seizure as "removes property from an individual's possession" and none of these terms apply here.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > lawyers can pretend that information is property, but some things obey physical laws and other things don't Free information is difficult to control. We have to add things to it, like DRM, to make it compatible with the legal concepts of possession and ownership. Crypto, however, is different. One can control it. Had the FBI been able to move the coins to their own wallet, they would have controlled them. Crypto is information re-structured in the image of our legal senses around property. It's the antithesis of free information. (That’s why two people can look at it and simultaneously see profoundly-pure meaning and infinitely-valid meaninglessness. Legal versus tangible. Possession without substance. Money.) All that aside, ownership and control have a long history of separating. The traditional method of reconciliation was violence. The FBI "owned" those coins on "seizing" them and thus legally "possessed" them [1], even if they didn't "control" them. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/possession https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/possession
    - bo1024 4y ago
      I don’t follow. If you record my https traffic to my banking website, do you now “own” my bank account? Did you “seize” it? Do you “possess” it? No, no, no. you have a copy of a pile of bits that are meaningless to you without my encryption keys. You don’t have anything new and you didn’t deprive me of anything either.
      - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > you record my https traffic to my banking website, do you now “own” my bank account? Did you “seize” it? Do you “possess” it? No, no, no. Recording and seizing are different. If a court rules the you own a bank account, that doesn't technically prohibit the bank from charging it. Possession involves ownership or control [1]. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/possession https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/possession
- Double_a_92 4y ago
  But they still didn't "possess" anything, except a meaningless blob of data... of which there are probably copies of out there.
- cortic 4y ago
  So when i read that a suspect was seized by police; They might have just recovered a picture of the person..? But then the real person can't change addresses as they would be charged with escaping from police custody.. Doesn't seem right.
  - rjmunro 4y ago
    I think that when you read that a suspect was "seized" by police, the person writing it doesn't know what "seized" legally means, and they should have said "arrested" or "taken into custody" or something.
    - cortic 4y ago
      I think at best you could argue the people who wrote the law didn't actually know what seized means, which is more worrying. But i would say that taking public keys doesn't fulfill the "removes property from an individual's possession" in the law.cornell.edu link. There is no way to 'remove property from an individual's possession" while "leaving property in an individual's possession" at the same time. And if you are have done the second one of those things then you have failed to do the first.
      - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > the people who wrote the law didn't actually know what seized means Rooms full of lawyers getting a legal definition wrong for centuries across multiple jurisdictions is more likely than you misunderstanding a technical term? > no way to 'remove property from an individual's possession" while "leaving property in an individual's possession" at the same time Yes, there is. Possession involves control or ownership [1]. One can own something without controlling it and vice versa. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/possession https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/possession
  - blep_ 4y ago
    Silly dystopia ideas: police seize an NFT of the suspect.
runeks 4y ago
> If the feds don't have the keys, they don't have the coins. Having the keys is necessary but not sufficient. Namely, if other people have the same keys you don't really hold the bitcoins in any practical sense. It's like ten people all holding a $1000 check drawn against a bank account with only $1000 in it. Whoever cashes the check first has the money, everyone else don't have anything.