If someone randomly selects the exact same private key with yours (which is immeasurably improbable to happen), then two people have custody of the coins, and either of them can spend them to themselves. No, there is no law that protects you from such scenario.
Thanks! I think that's kind of the beauty of the challenge really, even at 2
66, nobody has figured it out in years.
I was just reading through the puzzle/challenge stuff, experimenting with some code, and naturally I tried hashing "password", which resulted in an address that did receive and send bitcoin. So, I started trying other random words, phrases, etc... I got a surprising amount of hits. I figure most of them are done comically, sarcastically, but I found it interesting, and wanted to see what the consensus was, or if there were any previous court rulings, or real world examples of this.