The same way it seizes anything else; have people with guns show up [0] to the person with control over it, and inform them they must turn it over or face dire consequences. Seizing money held in a personal wallet means doing that to the owner (whether its a physical or digital wallet), seizing money held in a third-party service (often the case with Bitcoin) means doing it to the service operator.
> Stealing Bitcoin is not the same as seizing.
True, in that “stealing” is what is called when someone seizes property from another without legal authority. But false in the senae that seems intended, in that the mechanics the government uses when seizing something are exactly mechanics that would constitute stealing if they weren't backed by law.
[0] Or people without guns with the implicit backing of people with guns. Or just messages from an agency known to be backed by people with guns.
> have people with guns show up [0] to the person with control over it
It is much easier to physically confiscate cash, than it is to confiscate a wallet that you don't have the keys to.
Sorry, but it just is. Yes, an arresting authority can always threaten people, with violence, but that has problem and roadblocks to it. People get mad. Courts come into the picture. And although yes it is possible it is still more difficult to do, with greater negative consequences to doing so.
The point of censorship "resistance" is not to be completely immune from a mind reading mecha-hitler, who will nuke the universe if you don't give up the password to your crypto wallet.
Instead, the point is to make it more difficult to confiscate assets, in more situations, such that it significantly reduces but does not stop completely, the times that assets are confiscated, as opposed to the absurd super hitler with nukes hypothetical.
> that the mechanics the government uses when seizing something are exactly mechanics that would constitute stealing if they weren't backed by law.
Nope. The mechanics that are used and available to the government, in real life actual examples, of how actual governments work, make it easier for those existing governments to confiscate cash as opposed to crypto.
This is not about absurd hypotheticals. This is about existing government laws and implementations of those laws.
Once all the governments in the world, actually change their laws such that they can now threaten to nuke the universe, if you don't give up your keys, then you can start talking about how technical solutions have zero effect on getting around existing government policies.
Or, in other words, the "wrench" solution has significant drawbacks that make it difficult for current governments to implement. So it is stupid to bring that up, as some gotcha counter example, for why you think technical solutions are worthless, when talking about actual real life, as opposed to your sci-fri fantasy novel.
Trezor [1] and Ledger [2] are both hardware wallets that can have a passphrase which would generate any number of wallets, each derived from the user's private key, but each generating a different public key. If someone has say 20 different passphrases, how would the people with guns know which wallet they are getting? There can be wallets without the entirety of funds stored in them, i.e. give away some to save the rest, and the people with guns think they got it all.
Even not considering passphrases, anytime you set up a crypto wallet there is a 12 or 24 word mnemonic seed which could be memorized and not written down anywhere, and which could be used to restore a wallet at a later time. So, how exactly does seizing work in this case?
dragonwriter|4 years ago
The same way it seizes anything else; have people with guns show up [0] to the person with control over it, and inform them they must turn it over or face dire consequences. Seizing money held in a personal wallet means doing that to the owner (whether its a physical or digital wallet), seizing money held in a third-party service (often the case with Bitcoin) means doing it to the service operator.
> Stealing Bitcoin is not the same as seizing.
True, in that “stealing” is what is called when someone seizes property from another without legal authority. But false in the senae that seems intended, in that the mechanics the government uses when seizing something are exactly mechanics that would constitute stealing if they weren't backed by law.
[0] Or people without guns with the implicit backing of people with guns. Or just messages from an agency known to be backed by people with guns.
stale2002|4 years ago
It is much easier to physically confiscate cash, than it is to confiscate a wallet that you don't have the keys to.
Sorry, but it just is. Yes, an arresting authority can always threaten people, with violence, but that has problem and roadblocks to it. People get mad. Courts come into the picture. And although yes it is possible it is still more difficult to do, with greater negative consequences to doing so.
The point of censorship "resistance" is not to be completely immune from a mind reading mecha-hitler, who will nuke the universe if you don't give up the password to your crypto wallet.
Instead, the point is to make it more difficult to confiscate assets, in more situations, such that it significantly reduces but does not stop completely, the times that assets are confiscated, as opposed to the absurd super hitler with nukes hypothetical.
> that the mechanics the government uses when seizing something are exactly mechanics that would constitute stealing if they weren't backed by law.
Nope. The mechanics that are used and available to the government, in real life actual examples, of how actual governments work, make it easier for those existing governments to confiscate cash as opposed to crypto.
This is not about absurd hypotheticals. This is about existing government laws and implementations of those laws.
Once all the governments in the world, actually change their laws such that they can now threaten to nuke the universe, if you don't give up your keys, then you can start talking about how technical solutions have zero effect on getting around existing government policies.
Or, in other words, the "wrench" solution has significant drawbacks that make it difficult for current governments to implement. So it is stupid to bring that up, as some gotcha counter example, for why you think technical solutions are worthless, when talking about actual real life, as opposed to your sci-fri fantasy novel.
hackingforfun|4 years ago
Even not considering passphrases, anytime you set up a crypto wallet there is a 12 or 24 word mnemonic seed which could be memorized and not written down anywhere, and which could be used to restore a wallet at a later time. So, how exactly does seizing work in this case?
[1] https://wiki.trezor.io/Passphrase
[2] https://support.ledger.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005214529-Ad...