Considering the entire point of bitcoin is circumventing seizure, that sounds like a bad thing to me.
[citation needed]
There are many reasons to want to use Bitcoin.
Plus it is much more seizure resistant than centralized systems like banks.
Yeah, the more I read about bitcoin in the media, the more I've decided people are projecting on the currency what they want it to be about.
The entire point of Bitcoin is anonymity!
The entire point of Bitcoin is to be able to do things that sound suspiciously like laundering money!
The entire point of Bitcoin is to circumvent seizure!
I just wonder what will be next on the list.
Every transaction in BTC is recorded in the public blockchain _forever_. A good enough computer has infinite amounts of time to analyze the transactions of BTCs after the fact.
I dare say it is impossible to properly launder money with BTCs as it is. (ZeroCoins or other protocol extensions notwithstanding)
Seize that.
I suppose you can file a motion to quash, but now you'll need to submit evidence that you no longer control those Bitcoins. Good luck. Maybe you'll say the passphrase was destroyed. You might be lying, but in any case, they're as good as seized, because if the Bitcoins are ever spent, we'll see it in the blockchain.
And that's all assuming that the loss or destruction of the Bitcoins even matters to the court. Maybe the current USD value of N BTC is just added to your non-dischargeable debt.
Bitcoins raise some interesting legal & law enforcement questions, but it's wrong to assume that they somehow exempt their users from the law, or prevent all enforcement of the law.
People have been trying to bypass the law for millennia, and it rarely works: The law just isn't that fragile.
What you see right now is Law trying to play catch up. However, it seems quite obvious that the people involved in creating Laws don't quite know exactly what Bitcoin is fully. We'll see a bunch of really dumb bills being introduced in retaliation then, like always, they will adapt slowly and find a way to take control.
Bitcoin isn't exempt, you're right. Though, Bitcoin can be changed or something new will come out.
The US Government's response so far has been pretty good, actually. They're not making new rules for bitcoin. They're making it explicitly known that they're treating BTC like all other forms of money.
During the "raid" (I.E. your desperate attempt to set fire to your own property to destroy evidence), this password was lost.
The court can't force you to hand over something you no longer have. Of course, the court also can't give you a polygraph test since it isn't admissible as evidence anyway.
If the Bitcoins do get spent sometime later, you could argue someone likely bruteforced the passphrase (it was only 12 characters long). That's still reasonable doubt.
Edit: After reading my own post, I'm quite terrified of my own imagination. I think you're a bad influence on me :(
Good luck arguing that that a password with 78-bit entropy (12 characters out of 95 in the ASCII set) was likely broken by brute force. 'Reasonable doubt' does not mean 'no matter how improbable,' otherwise nobody would ever get convicted.
Meanwhile, people have been convicted with far more implausible evidence (eyewitness testimony comes to mind) so this will be the least of your worries.
Wow. You've certainly persuaded me.
>'Reasonable doubt' does not mean 'no matter how improbable,'
It's times like this I genuinely wish HN had an "ignore" feature since I don't believe in down votes.
Bitcoin, however, can be used without the use of a third party storing your coins.