A team of cybersecurity expert say they have picture out how to access a Bitcoin wallet deserving one C of millions of dollars . The only job is that the owner is n’t interested .
In 2011 , programmer Stefan Thomas make an animated picture entitle " What Is Bitcoin " for a Bitcoin fancier in Switzerland . For his bother , he was befittingly paid in Bitcoin . 7,002 Bitcoins to be precise . At the clock time the coin were only deserving around$2 each , which is still fairly good for a short and comparatively simple animation . Bitcoins are now worth around$34,095.40each , making his Bitcoin deserving $ 238,735,990.80 .
Unfortunately for Thomas , he was the security - witting eccentric , and kept theBitcoinon an encrypted IronKey knockout drive . The IronKey gives whoever is trying to access it 10 supposition before it basically ego - destructs , make it unobtainable to anyone who , for example , has $ 238,735,990.80 stored on there .
This is groovy when it ’s some other nefarious character reference attempt to get at your money , but less than idealistic when that nefarious person is you 10 years on with absolutely no memory of what the password is , and the amount you ’re undertake to get at is $ 240 million . This is exactly what happened to Thomas , having lost the piece of music of composition on which he’dnoted his password .
Since the value of Bitcoin skyrocketed , he has undertake to get at the hard thrust in various different way . The result is that he has two effort left before his stash is lost forever and a day .
Thomas is not the only one attempting to get into that wallet . As well as two team engage by him , cyber security expert have been tempted by the opening of hacking the notecase and make themselves a tasty commission in the process .
Unciphered , a business firm that specialize in recuperate lostcryptocurrency , has been working on a solution . Now they say they have found a style to crack into decade - erstwhile IronKey hard driveway , establish toWiredthat it is possible by having diary keeper Andy Greenberg set a password , which they then message back to him the following day .
The firm has contacted Thomas now that they are confident of their method , grant to Wired , but at the minute he has declined their help , due to understanding he has in place with two squad working on their own result .
“ I have already been ferment with a dissimilar set of experts on the recovery so I ’m no longer innocent to negociate with someone new , ” Thomas told Wired . “ It ’s potential that the current team could decide to subcontract Unciphered if they feel that ’s the best option . We ’ll have to expect and see . "
[ H / T : cable ]
