Third party data custodians are security holes. End of discussion.

If Ledger is holding private keys for customers it is not the most secure solution. It may be a super secure setup, but keys should not leave the device. Keys shoudl remain offline. That is a more secure model than hosting keys for customers. They might be the safest company out there, until the govt comes knocking. see EO6102.

Security is good enough, until it isn't.

You can't steal data that isn't there, so obviate this risk by NOT HAVING THE FUCKING KEYS ON A SERVER SOMEWHERE.

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Ledger is holding an encrypted shard of the seed. Without collusion they can’t do anything. EO6102 is not a great example here. A better example would be when the gov went to Apple for user info, and that didn’t go the way they thought it would. It

Well the seeds have to be somewhere. They can be stolen in the physical world. I think the government would have a much easier time taking your seed phrase from your home or safety deposit box than having to go to 2 different companies. I’m not endorsing this product but keeping your seed phrase under the mattress is not much or any better if you fear a state attack.

we can argue in circles because it's all trade offs.

imoh, a cold storage hardware device offering the best security SHOULD NOT send private keys off the device. Do you control your physical security posture more than you control some random server's security posture? the more sovereign answer is holding your own keys and not letting them leave the device.

institutions or organizations have different trade offs, but for individuals, with their biggest stack on a single hardware wallet, DON'T USE LEDGER. YOU HAVE NO IDEA IF THE KEYS ARE SAFE.

That's just not true. It's not like you hold the decryption key. They / their third parties can decrypt the seed at any time.

It is true, you just said it. The shards are encrypted. I never made a comment about who has the decryption key. I said collusion was needed for the custodians to take your money. The government can definitely try to get those shards, the same way they can come into your home and take your steel back ups.

If Ledger can unilaterally decrypt the shards to allow you to recover the seed, the encryption is kind of a moot point. They can recombine the shards and decrypt at any time.

And what's easier? The government raiding a million different homes to find a seed they think exists there?

Or the government sending a subpoena to 2 companies to gain access to tons of seeds they know exist there?

They can’t unilaterally get your seed, they need at least one of the other custodians to send a shard in addition to the one held by them. You don’t need to lie to criticize the product, which is my whole point. The encryption serves to protect against a bad actor trying to get into the servers, which matters whether the server is yours or not.

It is very unlikely that a government is gonna request millions of people’s shards. The more likely scenario is that they have individuals of interest for whom they can definitely get search warrants. And sure depending on the scenario a search warrant won’t do anything if the individual is savvy enough and was able to hide the backups well. But the state attack is not exclusive to this product.