[webXL]

A very interesting philosophical and moral can of worms you just opened there. Bitcoin is governed by the protocol, so if the protocol permits anyone who can sign a valid transaction involving a given UTXO to another address, then it technically isn't a "crime". Morally I'm not sure I'd be able to sleep well at night if I unilaterally took what I didn't exchange value for.

As for the forgotten key case, I think the only way to prove you had the key at some point would need to involve the sender vouching for you and cryptographically proving they were the sender.

[tsimionescu]

Morally, there is no quandary: it's obviously morally wrong to take someone else's things, and knowing their private key changes nothing.

Legally, the situation is the same: legal ownership is not in any way tied to the mechanism of how some system or another keeps track of ownership. Your BTC is yours via a contract, not because the BTC network says so. Of course, proving to a judge that someone else stole your BTC may be extremely hard, if not impossible.

Saying "if the protocol permits anyone who can sign a valid transaction involving a given UTXO to another address, then it technically isn't a "crime"" is like saying "traditional banking is governed by a banker checking your identity, so if someone can convince the banker they are you, then it technically isn't a "crime"".

The only thing that wouldn't be considered a crime, in both cases, is the system allowing the transaction to happen. That is, it's not a crime for the bank teller to give your money to someone else if they were legitimately fooled; and it's not a crime for the Bitcoin miners to give your money to someone else if that someone else impersonated your private key. But the person who fooled the bank teller /the miners is definitely committing a crime.

[webXL]

Traditional banking is governed by men with guns who depend on votes (for appearances). They always have recourse and motivation to intervene with private transactions. Not so much the case with bitcoin, which is extralegal for the most part and doesn't depend on them.