{"id":181144,"date":"2023-10-26T04:36:04","date_gmt":"2023-10-25T23:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/?p=181144"},"modified":"2023-10-26T04:36:04","modified_gmt":"2023-10-25T23:06:04","slug":"recovery-firm-proposes-cracking-former-ripple-ctos-244m-bitcoin-hard-drive-crypto-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/recovery-firm-proposes-cracking-former-ripple-ctos-244m-bitcoin-hard-drive-crypto-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Recovery firm proposes cracking former Ripple CTO’s $244M Bitcoin hard drive – Crypto News"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A company is petitioning former Ripple chief technology officer Stefan Thomas for a hard drive containing more than 7,000 Bitcoin (BTC<\/a>) that he has been unable to access for years.<\/p>\n

In an Oct. 25 open letter, crypto recovery firm Unciphered offered<\/a> to unlock an IronKey hard drive belonging to Thomas containing 7,002 BTC \u2014 roughly $244 million at the time of publication. The former Ripple CTO forgot the information<\/a> to access the drive, designed to erase its data if an individual enters the incorrect password ten times. So far, the German-born programmer has used eight out of his ten attempts.<\/p>\n

According to Unciphered, its teams developed a method to crack the hardware and access the BTC keys safely stored for years. Technology magazine Wired reported<\/a> on Oct. 25 that the company was able to access the data on a similar IronKey after \u201c200 trillion tries\u201d \u2014 seemingly bypassing the 10-attempt restriction on the drive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThough there are always caveats, this is not theoretical,\u201d said Unciphered. \u201cWe can do it; we\u2019ve done it many times before […] And we can do it again. You don\u2019t have to take our word for it […] we would be happy to demonstrate it on as many samples in a row as it takes for you (and everyone) to feel confident before moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

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This is an open letter to Stefan Thomas (@justmoon<\/a>) – we would love to help you get back into your IronKey.https:\/\/t.co\/zhfu41b9jn<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/1hYg3h79BF<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Unciphered LLC (@uncipheredLLC) October 25, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Unciphered CEO Eric Michaud said the company accessed the data in the IronKey from the Wired report by extracting some of the drive\u2019s information and using offline servers, giving its team more than one bite at the apple at guessing the password. He declined to say what the firm would ask for in return from Thomas but added Unciphered had created a \u201csustainable business\u201d helping people recover crypto.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re prepared if Stefan doesn\u2019t want to work with us, but we\u2019re hopeful,” said Michaud. “We already have a business that is growing and we’ll be here when he\u2019s ready.”<\/p>\n

Related: <\/em><\/strong>Ledger hardware wallet rolls out cloud-based private key recovery tool<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

There are many highly publicized stories like Thomas\u2019 involving recovery or users unable to locate their keys for one reason or another. In 2021, a Redditor claimed to have regained access<\/a> to 127 BTC after more than ten years, finding the private keys on an old computer. In 2013, British national James Howells mistakenly discarded a hard drive containing roughly 7,500 BTC \u2014 he has made multiple attempts<\/a> to locate and recover the drive in a landfill without success. <\/p>\n

Estimates from 2022 suggested that users could have lost access<\/a> to roughly 20% of Bitcoin\u2019s supply. This amounted to billions of dollars worth of the cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n

Magazine: <\/em><\/strong>How to protect your crypto in a volatile market: Bitcoin OGs and experts weigh in<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A company is petitioning former Ripple chief technology officer Stefan Thomas for a hard drive containing more than 7,000 Bitcoin (BTC) that he has been unable to access for years. In an Oct. 25 open letter, crypto recovery firm Unciphered offered to unlock an IronKey hard drive belonging to Thomas containing 7,002 BTC \u2014 roughly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[235,203,210,234,231,232,237,238,236,233],"class_list":["post-181144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blockchain","tag-bitcoin","tag-crypto-currency","tag-elon-musk","tag-ethereum","tag-hyperledger","tag-ibm","tag-mining","tag-nodes","tag-spacex","tag-tesla"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181144"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":181147,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181144\/revisions\/181147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}