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Hello all, is there a way to crack a 44 characters passphrase with brute force? sadly I have no idea how many characters there were really on the passphrase cause I used the copy and paste with the mouse and i'm not sure if I copied the paraphrase I was supposed to use as paraphrase, I tried the paraphrase with 44 characters and it does not work. So I have no idea what could be the paraphrase. 3 bitcoins in the wallet, right now is worth almost $60k, back in the days, was worth $40.

Also I tried many combinations and nothing, when copying space can be a problem and also the special characters may have been different than what is now. There is one of each $%^& and I think they could be the problem. I was using the US windows 7 64 bit version at that time, British keyboard. Well I guess if I cant crack it now, maybe one day, anybody with ideas, any help is welcome, I can throw some money to anybody that helps me to crack this if successful.

I really can't remember what happened, it was on January 2013.

I have this software on my PC: https://www.thegrideon.com/bitcoin-password-recovery.html

You can use your own password and set a keyboard layout and choose tyypos (also for characters like %$&) and let it bruteforce

EDIT: https://www.thegrideon.com/keyboard-layout.html this is what you want

Thank you. I think it might be related to the special characters, maybe instead of them, it is a different character. I guess i will be trying.

Brute force you won't have a chance, with a smart attack like racquemis says it might work.

Can you buy the same keyboard and try to reproduce what you did at the time?

Well racquemis said to use the same password and brute force it hehe, i guess his program tries many combinations.

About the keyboard, not sure if is related cause it was a copy paste password from a written password on notepad, i remember i checked 2 times and then I applied the password to encrypt the wallet and then after few days I went back and the paraphrase could not work, so i left it alone since 2013. As it was a copy paste password, i'm not sure if special characters printed something else, is hard to say. I'm trying now cause is worth some work for almost $60k hehe

I was reading about this https://www.ccn.com/researchers-describe-easy-way-crack-bitcoin-wallet-passwords/

https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/103.pdf

For this reason, I always type at least part of the password I copy/paste when I enter it the second time for verification. This ensures I'm not accidentally copying something else.

Do you by any chance have a backup of your wallet.dat from before the encryption?

When you said "Bitcoin wallet", I assumed you have a wallet.dat file made by Bitcoin Core (or bitcoin-qt). This article is about brain wallets, cracking them doesn't target your wallet, it cracks random wallets.

Yes, I have backups of the wallet.dat. So what is the best alternative in my case? Any hope?

Is your oldest backup from before encrypting the wallet? If so, see what is says when you open it in Bitcoin Core.

No. I have only the encrypted wallet.dat and the password which I think is right. When I open, It shows the old transactions, sent and received. Balance 0 hehe, I need to sync with the blockchain first i guess, is not synchronized yet and that will take a while, 145gb.

However, I think even if the wallet.dat is not synchronized yet, the wallet.dat would be decrypted without any problem, Am I right or no?

44 characters. That's heavy work there. The more characters, the longer it will take. And if you no longer remember even part of the password's composition, it's probably almost impossible to brute force it. Since you have no idea how many characters exactly were in that password, this further complicates an already complicated situation.

Assuming 44, the permutations are staggering. With a super computer working on it nonstop, 50 years later there is still no end in sight.

If there were no symbols and numbers and if you used dictionary words alone, you might stand a chance. A remote chance but a small flicker of hope.

 

I would say that if password uses A3 alphabet (all possible characters on your keyboard. It's 77 symbols as i remembered) it's about 77^44 combinations. I think it will take more than 50 years  ;D Much more.
here calculations: 77^44 = (77^4)^11.  (35153041)^11.  
to bruteforce (35153041)^2 with 40M pass per second (it's high speed) needed 30893407 seconds. It's 357 days. For ^3 you will be need 1*35153041 years, for ^4 you will be need (357*35153041)*35153041 years, so it's (35153041)^9 = trillions years. Yeah, we have a little trouble here. Need immortal potion.

You see, that is the thing, I mean I really dont know what the hell happened, the password could be anything I copied too, I know I copy and pasted but maybe the copy and paste inside the program was something else. The bitcoin core program wallet should tell you the password you are typing, typed or copy and pasted. That way cases like this would never exist. I mean, for example winrar, you can see the password you copy pasted or typed and click okay, in this case here maybe it could have been anything really, within the program. For example, the copy paste on few programs are not the same as the copy paste on other programs or windows, see that is the problem, to tell you the truth, maybe the password could be a wallet address cause I remember i sent many coins to mt-gox and after that I encrypted the wallet. I will try something tonight. Brute force is the only thing that would work here, given bitcoin price now and what it could reach and quantum computers, maybe now is hard but in few years or decades would be possible, at any case i will keep trying for fun ehhe, i mean the value now is $60k but back on the days it was just $40 so is not a big deal. Now if I had bought right now and had this problem then i would be pissed off.

And 182 271 nights after that if you still thinking about bruteforce.
what alphabet you used? With all symbols or not? Did you used RNG or your brain for creating this password? (it's important condition)

I just typed randomly on notepad, saved the text on a file and copied and pasted on bitcoin core paraphrase. After few days I went to send these 3 bitcoins to mt-gox and went to copy and paste on to decrypt the wallet.dat and nothing, it would not work, I did not bother after few tries and never tried it again, only trying now cause is a lot of money eheh.

This is the password, Hanqtr%7abcz3$3%9&bnxklAqripBvz5^ahwtGhqrweU, as you can see there are many special characters.

The thread owner wont download this, he has just forgot his password and is probably not so dumb to download a software of a low rank guy who is claming to have the solution.

Beware.


Bruteforce? are you serious? it might take more than months to try to make it work, it wont go through in just a few minutes or seconds just like you are expecting.


There was a code in github about the password recovery, i will see if i can find it and i will post it here soon.

Yeah, I did not download it, there is no way to know if is legit. I have been here for a very long time and know how things are. I'm also a programmer.

I tried that program btcrecover cause the source code was provided and nothing, well given time maybe I could recover it.

Not sure, just throwing something here: maybe you had an invisible character at the end of password?
Like a new line:  \n

Also if you double click(in order to select) the first part of this password: abcd123%4abcd, then only "abcd123" will be selected. That is because the % is a different char.
I don't know if it's the same in Windows.

Are you a joke? This is not my software at all, i just use it and have a paid license... This software has been opted on this forum by hero members.

You must have a very small brain judging people by their "rank".... Mr "big shot Hero member"

Op:

If you install python https://github.com/gurnec/btcrecover
Or from a very trusted member here: https://walletrecoveryservices.com/

I tried leaving a space adn then 2 spaces at the end and nothing.

Thanks very much for the insight, so you are saying, as the password is Hanqtr%7abcz3$3%9&bnxklAqripBvz5^ahwtGhqrweU, so what would become?


I tried the btcrecover and 44 characters is really tough for it, it ran few times and stopped, tried many other things and nothing, too many characters. Thanks, any help is welcome and if i recover these bitcoins i will def repay any help here.

Did you try Hanqtr%7abcz3$3%9&bnxklAqripBvz5^ahwtGhqrweU/n (/n is the "space")

Did you copy it from notepad or notepad++?

It depends where you double click. For instance if I double click over the "Aqr", then only the entire "bnxklAqripBvz5" is selected, the rest is trimmed. I don't know if this is the same in Windows.

Btw, for your security I hope that this is not your original password but a similar one!

No i did not try that, I can't try it now, will try in few hours. Let's see, maybe it could work. I dont remember which one i used, i have always used notepad++ too but at that moment I just can't remember.


That is really my password hehe, there is no way somebody will hack me and steal my wallet.dat and if they do and they crack it using what i gave then they deserve it ehhe. The reason i posted my original password was that i need help.

I don't know how BTC core handles if you copy a regex with it and if it's even possible.
You can read the regex codes here: http://docs.notepad-plus-plus.org/index.php/Regular_Expressions

copy paste your password to notepad and notepad++ and see if there is a space at the end in both

Yeah that is something to try it out.

Copy-and-paste errors are common. Try these (https://pastebin.com/up2xr3xd).

Thank you, will try them.

That would create much bigger problems: anybody could read it from your screen!
The common solution against typing errors is to enter the password twice, but just to be sure, I always test if I can unlock my wallet anyway.

Your best odds are to reproduce everything you've ever copy/pasted. You're in luck if it's a used Bitcoin address, as they're all public information and can be extracted from the blockchain.

With 44 random characters you don't stand a chance, unless a vulnerability in the encryption will be found in the future.

You could be on to something here: Notepad and Wordpad handle those in a different way. You could even try installing the same Windows version, just in case (even though it's a long shot, it's a lot more likely than brute forcing it).

Yeah, right now is a lost case but I will try cause maybe the password I set is not a 44 characters, maybe much less, I really dont remember what happened, also if I cant crack it now then maybe in few years. Who knows what will be the price of the bitcoin by then hehe.

You must hope that some security bug in core client will appear. Without it will be hard to do something. So it's good to think before doing so important actions (like encrypting your wallet). I can't understand why you not copied it paper sheet or something like that.