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> Agents built a detailed financial picture of Larry. Inspecting his cloud accounts, they found a Google Glass photo of a computer screen showing the Helix administrator page Wow, a picture taken with google glass is one of the things that got him
Likelihood that these are always on, dumping data directly to the Feds?
This was bound to happen eventually. People have been noting for awhile how often law enforcement just leaves the "seized" coins in the original wallet somehow thinking that no criminal would ever make a backup copy of their private keys.
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>> you would think people in his position would know what private keys are and how to secure Bitcoin funds they pretend to "seize" How exactly would you have handled this differently? They were well aware the account could be recovered via mnemonic, but they couldn't move the funds because they didn't have the PIN.
Sounds like they did not truly secure the crypto then. Shouldn't call it seizing if you don't have it digitally in your own secure wallet.
This reminds me of that time that a governor claimed a journalist hacked the state via right-click => view source.
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> It's an interesting case because it's harder to recover physical assets from a police storage locker than digital. I feel like you missed the whole point the comment you replied to made. If the person who stored the cryptocoins on the physically seized computer had a copy of the private keys on another computer (COMPLETELY NORMAL) and the prosecutor never transferred the coins making the assumption that physically…
It’s a moot point. If BTC is seized or forfeited to the US government, and the (co-)owner later transfers them out of the original wallet, it will likely only accomplish the addition of felony criminal charges. It is an assist to the federal prosecutors. Case in point, Gary Harmon, who probably wouldn’t be on trial otherwise.
So, very worth the extra criminal charge if you've been thinking ahead.
(obviously replace bank+passcode with wallet seed or whatnot)
Because it really seems like the obvious thing would be to immediately move the bitcoin or whatever from the original elsewhere on the assumption that they'd be recouping the transaction cost?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Likelihood that these are always on, dumping data directly to the Feds?
Besides what other people said, if a device is always on, dumping data directly to the Feds then it will be hot and its battery life will be very short.
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 be…
It sounds like Michael Scott declaring bankruptcy - the feds declared "I seize Bitcoin" but nothing happened.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sounds like they did not truly secure the crypto then. Shouldn't call it seizing if you don't have it digitally in your own secure wallet.
But what will they say at the press conference then?