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“My PGP key is compromised, and at least many of my bitcoins stolen”

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Re: “My PGP key is compromised, and at least many of my bitcoins stolen”

#341
post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>These things happen every day, but happening to a core developer (if confirmed!) who has a deep understanding of the systems and security indicates just how fragile crypto can be (in my opinion) Based on the other comments in this thread it looks like he didn't bother using a hardware wallet (which is literally something that's recommended on bitcoin.org[1]), and kept his wallet.dat on a server exposed to the intern…

So you’re saying that to use crypto properly, I have to secure a physical object that grants irrevocable ownership of my wealth? That sounds bad. Is there a way I can get my crypto held my an institution with SIPC insurance, the way I hold stocks at a brokerage, so I can outsource this issue to someone else who is backed by a government guarantee? (I obviously don’t expect them to guarantee the value of the crypto, j…

You can also use multisig holdings to ease this issue.

> So you’re saying that to use crypto properly, I have to secure a physical object that grants irrevocable ownership of my wealth? That sounds bad.

Welcome to reality. You'll laugh now, but if you want to hold something of lasting value, that's kinda how it works.

Gold is physical and requires security.

Dollars lose their value to dilution.

Other securities incur risks too.

Multisig BTC looks downright safe in comparison

Re: “My PGP key is compromised, and at least many of my bitcoins stolen”

#342
post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah, that's how most things work in the physical world. If you want to secure a widget, then you need to "secure a physical object that grants irrevocable ownership" of it. You can’t steal my house by obtaining the deed. You can’t steal my stock by obtaining the stock certificates. That’s not how it works. The vast majority of wealth in developed countries doesn’t rely on physical security to maintain ownership. W…

You can definitely steal houses though. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-essex-59069662 https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/stories/2008/march/ho... https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/she-had-n... You can also steal stocks. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/us-charges-ha... > The vast majority of wealth in developed countries doesn’t rely on physical security to maintain ownership I…

When this stuff happens, you can engage in a legal process that has the power to get your property back. The process to recover from this can be slow and difficult. I acknowledge that this is a failure of the institutions involved, which can and should be fixed. However, the existence of these avenues for recovery acts as a strong deterrent that limits the frequency of such crimes. That’s why I am slightly worried about the local gang stealing my TV (and my safe full of Kruggerands) but not at all worried about them stealing my house.

When your crypto is stolen, the theft cannot be reversed, by design.

Re: “My PGP key is compromised, and at least many of my bitcoins stolen”

#343

Maybe off topic: is it fine to publicly say that you have $3.6M in bitcoin using a profile name that exposes who you are in real life? Wouldn’t the IRS (or local equivalent) come to knock your door and ask for taxes on that money?

>Wouldn’t the IRS (or local equivalent) come to knock your door and ask for taxes on that money?

Not sure about other countries, but at least in the US any gains on crypto is only taxable after you've sold (or transacted with) it. Given that he just got his bitcoin stolen, my guess is that he hasn't sold yet, and therefore doesn't owe any taxes yet.

Re: “My PGP key is compromised, and at least many of my bitcoins stolen”

#344
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly! if the experts can’t secure their accounts, what hope does anyone else have? Soon you will see people saying you should have done this or that complicated thing, or how somebody so smart could should have known better. No matter what they say it is never enough. This is why lack of consumer protections suck.

This is why lack of consumer protections suck Agreed, and the problem is that this is a feature . Without that feature of a lack of central control, Bitcoin's main use case is invalid.

[flagged]

Re: “My PGP key is compromised, and at least many of my bitcoins stolen”

#345
post #129
post #35

I still think the reason Satoshi vanished is that he lost his private key and couldn't handle the embarrassment.

Almost right. He spilled two (!) beers on the paper he wrote his private key upon, and he died of embarrassment.

This is nonsense. He spilled tea on the papers — whether they had cream and sugar is widely debated.

Re: “My PGP key is compromised, and at least many of my bitcoins stolen”

#346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you’re saying that to use crypto properly, I have to secure a physical object that grants irrevocable ownership of my wealth? That sounds bad. Is there a way I can get my crypto held my an institution with SIPC insurance, the way I hold stocks at a brokerage, so I can outsource this issue to someone else who is backed by a government guarantee? (I obviously don’t expect them to guarantee the value of the crypto, j…

You can also use multisig holdings to ease this issue. > So you’re saying that to use crypto properly, I have to secure a physical object that grants irrevocable ownership of my wealth? That sounds bad. Welcome to reality. You'll laugh now, but if you want to hold something of lasting value, that's kinda how it works. Gold is physical and requires security. Dollars lose their value to dilution. Other securities incur…

This thread is actually about security and custody, not valuation. Those are different issues, but we can talk about valuation.

My crypto has lost more value than any of my other investments. Since crypto (unlike stocks and bonds) doesn’t entitle me to any cash flows, and (unlike dollars) doesn’t allow me to repay any debts, why shouldn’t the value keep dropping?

Re: “My PGP key is compromised, and at least many of my bitcoins stolen”

#347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Experts are also bigger targets and face more risks than ordinary people. Like in the non-crypto world, banks are the experts on storing money securely, but people still try and rob banks despite ordinary people being much easier targets.

except this wasn't a targeted attack, it was just a run of the mill shotgun approach to capture wallets. cryptocurrency is stupid. regulation around banks is there for many very good reasons. https://twitter.com/peterktodd/status/1609655629903265795 you won’t trust highly regulated banks, but you will trust random strangers on the internet whom you know want your wallet and all the coins in it, without any guarantees…

> except this wasn't a targeted attack, it was just a run of the mill shotgun approach to capture wallets.

Do we know that? The tweet you linked to basically says, we have no idea what happened so we have no idea if it was targeted or not.

But i do agree generally that i have no idea why "imagine the financial system but with no regulation or oversight" is considered a selling point.

Re: “My PGP key is compromised, and at least many of my bitcoins stolen”

#348
post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you’re saying that to use crypto properly, I have to secure a physical object that grants irrevocable ownership of my wealth? That sounds bad. Is there a way I can get my crypto held my an institution with SIPC insurance, the way I hold stocks at a brokerage, so I can outsource this issue to someone else who is backed by a government guarantee? (I obviously don’t expect them to guarantee the value of the crypto, j…

> So you’re saying that to use crypto properly, I have to secure a physical object that grants irrevocable ownership of my wealth? That sounds bad. Yeah, that's how most things work in the physical world. If you want to secure a widget, then you need to "secure a physical object that grants irrevocable ownership" of it. Cryptocurrencies improve on this slightly by allowing you set up multisignature schemes, so you ca…

Can you go into more detail about how multisig helps? I assume one of the signatures is my hardware wallet. Who holds the other signature? Do they have SIPC insurance?

Re: “My PGP key is compromised, and at least many of my bitcoins stolen”

#349
post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the point. If you're a criminal, you don't get to keep the proceeds of your crime. In this case, people were blocking streets and creating nonstop noise disturbances in order to get donations from foreigners who wanted to shut down the city. Or do you think I should be able to pay a trucker to block your driveway and honk their horn all night? If so, the way to solve it isn't to let anybody get money for any i…

> If you're a criminal That's a big "if", and it's operating under the assumption that it was objectively correct for the Prime Minister of a civilized nation which claims to be a democracy to invoke emergency powers and declare a group of protestors to be criminals, bypassing due process that a civilized nation which claims to be a democracy should be using to reach that conclusion. Is that the kind of democracy you…

> Is that the kind of democracy you'd like to live in, where any group of people can suddenly be declared criminals without due process?

No. The solution is to use democracy to require due process.

Bitcoin remains the wrong solution for both the reasons I gave in my GP comment. It (1) doesn't get around financial regulations that can freeze access to real money and (2) even if it could, allowing funding of any type of crime is the wrong solution.

Finally, even in this case, the truckers were given access to their bank accounts right after they left because their money can't be seized without due process, which won't happen for this guy whose Bitcoins were stolen. https://www.nationalreview.com/news/canada-unlocks-vast-majo...

Re: “My PGP key is compromised, and at least many of my bitcoins stolen”

#350
post #298
post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as the code he submits is correct, I don't see any issues.

His PGP key got stolen, so someone else could have been submitting code as him. Hopefully he didn't also lose any SSH keys with push rights to the repo.

he doesnt have those keys, and never had. His fellow devs dont trust him too much.
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