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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
"In early 2017, he had just over 6,000 Bitcoin in one account, but he feared it may be too easy for a hacker to access," the Irish Times noted this month. "He decided to spread his wealth across 12 new accounts and transferred exactly 500 Bitcoin, worth almost €4.5m, into each of them."
The keys to those accounts were written on a piece of paper and stashed with Collins' fishing rod for safekeeping.
But later that year, Collins was cuffed and jailed for five years for drug possession, as dealers are prone to do. Believing his tenant was no longer able to make rent, Collins' landlord emptied his house and threw out, among other things, the pot peddler's fishing gear.
As it turns out, within the aluminum case of the weed-slinger's fishing rod was the sheet of A4 paper on which the digital keys to 12 Bitcoin wallets was scribbled. The paper was, among Collins' other belongings, sent to a dump in Galway and, it is believed, ultimately incinerated at a facility in either Germany or China.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 26 2020, @10:11AM (14 children)
Actually hiding it in a fishing rod doesn't seem like a stupid idea. It's not like a drug dealer would want to stash the bitcoins in a safe (that's like painting a bullseye on the money). Or worse a bank "safe" [1] deposit box (which is like painting a bullseye AND announcing the start of hunting season)...
Having just one physical copy isn't that stupid - lots of people have only one physical copy of their valuables in a safe (and sometimes they're just naive enough to trust a bank with it[1]) .
And maybe he actually has more than one copy but this incident just gives him plausible deniability...
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/business/safe-deposit-box-theft.html [nytimes.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 26 2020, @01:06PM
>Then, on April 7, 2014, he lifted the thin metal lid. Box 105 was empty.
White wageslave retard PWND. Bet he opposed men marrying little girls too.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday February 26 2020, @01:14PM (12 children)
Well, only in the sense that it is incredibly stupid.
Suppose there's a fire?
Suppose mice get into the location you decided to store the paper and think it'll make just dandy nesting material?
Suppose the landlord throws out all your stuff?
Suppose there is a tornado and your shit is scattered far and wide? Or, depending on where you are, an earthquake, a volcanic eruption, a flood, a mudslide, a sinkhole...
Suppose someone burglarizes you and ... likes fishing?
I mean, come on. How difficult is it to make multiple copies (on paper no less!), at least lightly encoded and with no hint as to what the contents mean, and stash them in various places that are both secure and not subject to same potential risks?
The stupidity of the approach as described is beyond believable. If actually true, the self-owned idiot must have the IQ of a snail.
No, that's just being rude to snails. I apologize.
--
Child: Daddy, how much does it cost to get married?
Father: I don't know. I'm still paying.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday February 26 2020, @03:37PM (2 children)
All of which are of course also problems with storing paper money...
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday February 26 2020, @05:16PM
Only if you were storing it in million dollar bills.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Thursday February 27 2020, @06:59PM
Not the same at all. You get one copy of valid paper money.
The important thing passwords on paper have in common with money is that they can be valuable.
However you can have N copies of passwords, unlike money, so copies make perfect sense. I don't just have one copy of my passwords, and I don't have them all subject to the same risks, either. They're not even bitcoin related, but there are a lot of them and they're not at all easy to remember, so I do the smart thing and make sure they're retrievable.
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Life's a beach...
and then you dry.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 26 2020, @08:52PM (1 child)
Ya, no backups? DUH! Was the guy on drugs!
Oh wait ...
(Score: 2) by arslan on Thursday February 27 2020, @12:22AM
Come on. He's just doing QC on his product! That's a sound business plan.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Thursday February 27 2020, @02:04AM (6 children)
Given there's only one original, you can't store backup copies - they're useless.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Thursday February 27 2020, @07:03PM (5 children)
Sure. But with passwords, which are the subject at hand here, we do have a choice:
--
Why can't you checkmate a Christian?
Because they are all pawns, and their
king doesn't exist.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Friday February 28 2020, @02:37AM (4 children)
Both have risks. It boils down to two options.
1. keep all your eggs in one basket, and watch that basket like a hawk. The downside is that if it's gone, it's gone and nobody, including you, can gain access to your shit (which is better in many cases than someone else gaining access);
2. Make multiple copies, knowing that every copy increases the risk that someone else gets access to your shit and changes the password, so you end up with nothing and they end up with everything.
In most cases, you're better off under scenario 1. In both scenarios, you lose your crap, but at least in #1 nobody else gets to profit from your loss, maybe find interesting stuff on your hard drive that can blackmail you, steal your identity and take ALL your stuff, etc.
Scenario: you lose your phone or laptop. Ideally nobody else can access it, and all you've lost is your phone.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Friday February 28 2020, @02:25PM (3 children)
Yes. But those two options are not even remotely equivalent — not if you're smart. Multiple copies of passwords can be stashed so they are encrypted, anonymous, and incredibly difficult to find or accidentally run into, and these three things are trivially easy to accomplish.
Again, it comes down to using your head. Also, again, phones, money, passwords — these things are not equivalent. Phones can just be phones, they don't have to be troves of data (that's a choice.) You can have multiple phones. Lose one, so what. Use another. Disable the lost one and move the number to the next phone. Done. If you managed your risk poorly, that's on you. We know how they work. Money is one copy only and any specific unit portion can only be secured in one way. Passwords are multiple copy and can be extremely well secured in all instances.
Sure, you can do things poorly, and if you do, your risks increase enormously. But why would you?
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Pizza... so much more than just breakfast.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Friday February 28 2020, @05:05PM (2 children)
So you store multiple encrypted copies of your passwords all over the place - and forget the encryption key. How are you any better off? Using a password manager? You still need to either remember the key, or if it's a hardware key, hope nobody else gets their hands on it. Screwed either way, but the latter is worse, because again anyone can take your crap, change your passwords, and steal your identity.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Friday February 28 2020, @07:35PM (1 child)
No. Same thing applies to keys as it does to records. Really, your argument has already foundered, capsized and sunk on this one. All I can see now are bubbles. 😊
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Reality is that thing which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by barbara hudson on Saturday February 29 2020, @03:35AM
That's your opinion, but it doesn't stand up to reality. Most people lock their phones. They'd rather someone attempt 10 times to unlock it, and brick the phone, rather than have someone else access to their data.
And if you admit you wrote down your pin, you're not covered for any loses by unauthorized withdrawals on your debit card. Which is more likely to be discovered if you leave a dozen copies floating around.
It's always better to lose all your data than to have someone else have access to it.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.