It Happened As I Predicted: Crypto Bank Robbers Make House Calls - Watch Out What You Publish About Yourself!
A few weeks ago I wrote an article about the emerging danger of getting robbed as a negative side-effect of becoming rich in crypto.
The problem I described in that post was that with your fortune stored in the blockchain and easily accessible from at home, bank robbers don't have to go to the bank anymore to rob large amounts of money. They now have go to the homes of known crypto traders and crypto holders - which could be you. Among others, I had a discussion with @lukestokes about it, but he saw it more as a theoretic possibility.
Not so anymore...
Today, The Daily Mail reports: Gun ordeal of family in UK's first Bitcoin heist: Armed intruders force man to transfer cyber currency in raid at TV Midsomer village home
This is exactly the scenario that I had in mind. In this case Bitcoins got robbed and the victim was a known trader. But with Steem increasingly growing in importance and value and with having Steemit as Social Media platform where users having the incentive to post personal information, I believe it is only a matter of time until the first Steemian gets a house call by robbers.
What makes this problem even bigger is that the blockchain doesn't delete anything - which means that even if your account is only small now and you can post personal information without having to fear anything - in two years from now, you could be a whale and then all your personal information about where you live, who your family is and what you do are still available for everyone who wants to know it.
And that means, also for people with bad intentions!
Therefore, I urge you to take precautions:
- Do not post about where exactly you live.
- Make sure, photos are not revealing too much about your house.
- When going on vacation, only write about it after you are back home again (or elsewhere).
- Try to avoid details about pets like having dogs.
- Do not post about your family and what they do (especially children and where they go to school).
- Never store too much Steem&SBD on your main account and create an anonymous second one as storage.
To be clear, I didn’t say it was only a theoretical concern. I think appropriate steps should be taken by each individual based on the real-world possibilities of this happening to them. Percentage wise, in terms of publicly known cryptocurrency holders, I’m surprised this doesn’t happen more often. I think the frequency will increase to at least get on par with normal crime concerns in the fiat world, but right now someone could argue, statistically, it’s safer to be in cryptocurrency than anything else.
I still think crypto is much more difficult. Someone has to use a lot more threats of violence to force their victim to give up a password then they would to just knock them unconcscious and take their physical goods. This significantly ups the risk for the perpetrator.
Also, articles like this, to me, are more about spreading fear and controlling the narrative than they are about reporting useful information.
This is false:
Not only can it be tracked, it is being tracked by governments. Cash can’t be tracked (unless the numbered bills are recorded beforehand). Gold and silver can’t be tracked.
Thankfully it included this quote which is far more accurate:
It would have been a much more useful to publicly paste the bitcoin addresses involved to help the internet get involved with catching these criminals.
I do appreciate you raising awareness to this issue and the importance of people using the savings feature here or locking up their STEEM in SteemPower. That (with account recovery) makes STEEM a very secure blockchain with assets which are a difficult thing for criminals to steal effectively.
Thanks for the quick answer.
Do you physically protect your node? After all, it contains a lot of valuable data and even if thieves might not be able to use it - they might think so and try to get it. And how much money do you invest per month for security?
I think there should be a minimum amount for witnesses to invest into the security of their nodes if they want to become a top 20 witness.
Where do you know from that there are not more incidents but which are not reported? Also, I think the known big shots have enough cash to protect themselves. The real problem as I see it looming is more the middle area with a lot, but not crazy much. They are still unprotected - and also unaware.
You almost sound like the German Mainstream Media reporting on low migrant crime;-)
The trajectory for my concern is not now, but in 6 months to 2 years from now. Users must start thinking about that now already.
I don't know much about the technical details for crypto (vs tangibles), but that is not necessarily a reason that keeps robbers away. Not all of them know how a bank safe works, but yet they rob banks. And who knows what a Rolex does inside? But yet, very popular.
Well now how about that: A new sales pitch for Steemit;-)
PS: Thanks for the big upvote, but much more important than that would be if you could spread the word and create some sensitivity towards that issue - you don't have to mention my article or user name. Just tell people about it.
It's mostly the blockchain which is all public data. Yes, it has the private key used to sign transactions as a witness as well as an encrypted, password-protected wallet for making witness changes. It also may have in-memory keys for updating price feeds and such, but again, I would never use a host I didn't feel took adequate security precautions. Data centers don't make their money by being insecure. The way you describe this, it sounds like witnesses are running a server in their basement or something. That's not how this works. Top witnesses also run backups so if there was even a slight concern of a security breech, they would switch to a backup in a physically separate datacenter (which involves signing blocks with a new key, making the old one useless) and they would also immediately change their active key for their account. If someone had gotten access to that and changed it, they would use their owner key to change it again. Worst case scenario, they would use account recovery, but really, that wouldn't be needed in any scenario I can conceive.
I think there are crimes of all kinds that are not reported. We could argue X% are not reported and that X would be comparable (as far as a total number) to the whole amount which, IMO, is small in the cryptocurrency world because it's a very small total of people involved at this point. That's why this happening at all becomes a global news story. It's rare.
I don't think I'm obfuscating data or false reporting. If my premise is off, please correct it.
If the concern becomes real in 6 months or 2 years, why is it a concern right now? If I was to vet and hire a personal security team for myself and my family (for example), it would take an afternoon doing some research, some phone calls, and they would be here installing new surveillance equipment and posting guards in short order. I don't think there is a huge value in worrying about that prior to when it's actually a viable concern based on probabilities.
It's the same reason I don't freak out about the potential for terrorist attacks. Statistically, walking down the stairs from my attic is more concerning as a threat to me personally.
And yet you're talking very confidently about the risks associated with them. Actual criminals only rob banks where they do know every detail about the safe in question (or else they wouldn't be successful and would just be attempted-criminals).
My disagreement here is based on your knowledge of what you're talking about. I've been in this space since January of 2013. I've seen a lot of FUD spread (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) and a lot of people confidently spreading ideas without understanding of the technical details. That's why I'm not excited about sharing this perspective because, IMO, it can get people more afraid then they should rationally be at this point. Yes, it's an important discussion worth having, but living in fear does not help people make rational decisions (thought it does make them easily manipulated by others).
And no, that was a pitch for STEEM, not steemit. There is an important difference. :)
Great post, im hearing about the tax here in norway, and they ate asking people to fill out tax return forms. Pfff. Its a BIG mistake to buy crypto with a bank card,and the after effects of this will cost you cryptos,even from being robbed or being robbed from the taxman lol. I just hope local bitcoins keeps its pay with cash option for 2018 hahaha
Thanks for sharing this information @doodlebear. It is something I already knew.
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