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Many folks might not even know if they lost possession or not. They cannot find their Trezor, but they also cannot remember for sure where they last put their Trezor.
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This may sound too harsh, but these people do not deserve to own Bitcoin. I will not feel the slightest bit of sympathy for them if they lose their coins.
Would they do the same if they had a
suitcase full of cash? Would they forget where they last put it? I bet they wouldn't.
Extended family history: lost (for a time) quite a bit of money (bearer bonds or something like that) by putting them, as it turned out, inside a big book, then properly forgetting it completely. Family was looking for this for years, then found the 'instruments' when they were moving many years later. Alas, by then most of the value was eaten by inflation.
Don't think that you would always remember that odd password that you concocted recently and did not write down somewhere. Memories do fade.
Yep, we should probably be reassessing and going through our various security set ups (like testing passwords and access) on about a yearly basis, yet easier to say than done because sometimes it can be time consuming to go through various matters. I have a set of physical and electronic keys for a smart lock that have been sitting on one of my bookshelves for more than 6 months, on the list of things to do.. to program and to hide them in their various locations.. ..
Also frequently through the year, I will add various new passwords, change some passwords and perhaps even delete a few accounts, including some of them are 12/24 seedwords, and so at a certain time of the year, I am supposed to update them into my storage systems and hopefully I don't lose them or leave exposure to any of them while they are in the process of waiting to be added to my updated system.
Surely some of us may have had relatives who pass and we try to figure out what accounts they have, and i even had some relatives tell me that they want me to know their passwords in case something happens to them, and my most common response is that they need to keep their passwords in a safe place that would be accessible upon their passing, which surely is easier said than done... and most likely value ends up getting lost when persons pass and so many passwords that they are not even able to keep track of.
I would say, don't overdo it when it comes to the complexity of your security schemes, because you may "lock yourself out" of your coins or whatever data you're protecting. I remember a long time ago I had designed a very complex and intricate algorithm that would link a set of seemingly random numbers to my seed words. The plan was to be able to store that set of random numbers on my PC (which could be connected to the Internet), so that, even if someone got hold of that set of random numbers, they would not be able to get to my seed. I'm pretty confident that the algorithm was very secure and would protect the seed. But then it dawned on me: what if I, myself, forget how to get to my seed? So I dropped the whole thing and simply used normal backups + a very strong passphrase.
I think, when it comes to security, a good approach is to keep things clean (not unnecessarily complex), standardized, and cryptographically strong. And periodically refresh your neurons by unlocking your "safes" every few months or so.