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Comment by techterrier | Hacker News Reader

it's another $5 wrench situation

Sure but now you need a $5 wrench to essentially force a guy to tell you where he buried the gold, rather than just walking to the bank and taking it. I don't see that as some kind of win for the guy with a wrench, especially when you realize the bank manager is way less likely to be a violent nutter sov-cit.

The solution is to store your money on a wallet where you do not have the private key. This way if you cannot access your funds nobody will be able to coerce you.

Their solution to that is "rot in jail for a long time, then".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Beatty_Chadwick

Demonstrating that if you wait long enough (14 years in that case), you can get away without loosing the funds, even from the state?

> On July 10, 2009, Chadwick was ordered released from prison by Delaware County Judge Joseph Cronin, who determined his continued incarceration had lost its coercive effect and would not result in him surrendering the money.

His finances are gonna be under close inspection for the rest of his life, and fourteen years is a lot to lose.

2.5 million was a lot in 1992, and who knows what that amount is today, if they've offloaded it to somewhere it earns interest. I know plenty of people who day-by-day sacrifice their time for way less than ~500 per day which that ends up being if we assume the money been still since they were arrested.

But none of that matters if it's fundamentally inaccessible. The instant he spends outside of his known means, they have evidence he's accessed the funds and can jail him for contempt again. Travel is probably barred.

Yeah, of course, but since he didn't wanna give it up, and was willing to take 14 years of prison, I feel pretty confident he has some way of being able to use it, otherwise why not give it up?

Of course, this is also assuming he was lying when he said all the money been spent and he had no money when he was arrested.

> I feel pretty confident he has some way of being able to use it, otherwise why not give it up?

People go to shocking lengths to spite their exes sometimes.

In that case the obvious move from the 5$ wrench perspective is to hit you with it until you tell them where the private key is kept, because you would need to have it somewhere.

The key must exist somewhere and the wrench may make you reveal that information instead.

What 5 dollar wrench wielder is going to believe that, even when it's true?

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