Quote from: D05GTO on March 27, 2015, 11:15:17 PM

That's right! They can seize your bank accounts, cars, house but can't take Bitcoins. So the bank account is safe.

Now, I was reading an article that was put out recently and that goes hand and hand with the company 21 "Internet of Things". You know that they will have some kind of smart hardware.

From the article
"Or maybe you're the physical goods type. Maybe you want your assets piled high and wide. In that case, what if the steering wheel of your Tesla wouldn't unlock unless the driver enters a private key? What if the electricity in your smarthouse wouldn't turn on without it?

This is the promise of smart property: physical goods equipped with computer chips which only offer full accessibility with the owner's private key."

Just something to think about.

Wouldn't it be easy to circumvent the security mechanism though? If a steering wheel is locked using a chip or the electricity in a smart house is controlled by a chip, it would be pretty trivial to simply yank it out and replace it with another one.

Most computers these days come with a security chip that can prevent access to anyone who doesn't provide the right password. It's usually possible to reset the password by physically de-soldering this chip from the motherboard and replacing it with a new one. A door that only opens when you provide the correct password is another example of a physical good that restricts access via application of cryptographic principles. In such a case, someone without a password could simply smash the door down.