Selling bitcoin wallet worth over 5 BTC

[brie]

It's very cheap, only 0.25 BTC.

There's a catch though, it's encrypted with a strong passphrase that not even I know.
It's not written down anywhere and the event of encrypting the wallet is but a faint outline in my memory now. Let me know if you are interested in purchasing this valuable wallet.dat file.

[velacreations]

an encrypted wallet that no one knows the passphrase to?  so, basically worthless?

[DannyHamilton]

I'm not interested in the contents of the wallet, but depending on how much detail that "faint outline in your memory" is, I might be interested in the challenge of trying to crack the password.  I believe there is a way for you to provide me with just a piece of the data from the wallet (so I can't access its contents) that I can use to check my password attempts against.  I'll see if I can find the thread about that. In the meantime:

Can you recall any of the following details?

• A range indicating the length of the passphrase (more than x characters less than y)?
• Does it contain any punctuation or symbols?
• If so would you be able to supply a range of more than x and less than y symbols?
• Does it contain any numbers?
• If so would you be able to supply a range of more than x and less than y numbers?
• Does is contain any capital letters?
• If so would you be able to supply a range of more than x and less than y capital letters?
• Does is contain any lower case letters?
• If so would you be able to supply a range of more than x and less than y lower case letters?
• Is there anything that you can say with certainty the passphrase does NOT contain? (such as "definitely doesn't contain a colon")?
• Does the passphrase contain any real words?
• Does the passphrase contain any modifies words (such as p@ssw0rd)?
• Any other details that you can think of about the passphrase? (How it was created, How you originally intended to remember it? etc)

[Malcode]

How do we know that this wallet isn't empty?

[brie]

I'm not interested in the contents of the wallet, but depending on how much detail that "faint outline in your memory" is, I might be interested in the challenge of trying to crack the password.  I believe there is a way for you to provide me with just a piece of the data from the wallet (so I can't access its contents) that I can use to check my password attempts against.  I'll see if I can find the thread about that. In the meantime:

Can you recall any of the following details?

• A range indicating the length of the passphrase (more than x characters less than y)?

Between 12 and 30 characters

• Does it contain any punctuation or symbols?

Possibly an @ sign.

• If so would you be able to supply a range of more than x and less than y symbols?

Probably just the @ sign if any.

• Does it contain any numbers?

Possibly.

• If so would you be able to supply a range of more than x and less than y numbers?

Between zero and five numbers.

• Does is contain any capital letters?

No.

• If so would you be able to supply a range of more than x and less than y capital letters?

None.

• Does is contain any lower case letters?

Yes.

• If so would you be able to supply a range of more than x and less than y lower case letters?

Between 12 and 30.

• Is there anything that you can say with certainty the passphrase does NOT contain? (such as "definitely doesn't contain a colon")?

No symbols other than a possible @ sign.

• Does the passphrase contain any real words?

Yes it is based on real words.

• Does the passphrase contain any modifies words (such as p@ssw0rd)?

No.

• Any other details that you can think of about the passphrase? (How it was created, How you originally intended to remember it? etc)

Nothing I'm sure of.
[/list]

[DannyHamilton]

• Does the passphrase contain any real words?

Yes it is based on real words.

Minimum and maximum lengths of the words?  Minimum and maximum quantity of words in the phrase?
Minimum and maximum number of characters in the phrase that are not part of the words? (example: "thisismy2passphrase@g3madeofwords" has 4 characters that are not part of the words 2, @, g, and 3)

[brie]

• Does the passphrase contain any real words?

Yes it is based on real words.

Minimum and maximum lengths of the words?  Minimum and maximum quantity of words in the phrase?
Minimum and maximum number of characters in the phrase that are not part of the words? (example: "thisismy2passphrase@g3madeofwords" has 4 characters that are not part of the words 2, @, g, and 3)

min 3 character words max 8 characters.
min 3 words max 8 words
Min 0 and max 9 number of characters in the phrase that are not part of the words

[DannyHamilton]

So, the good news is that we've established that you remember a lot more about the password than you initially indicated.  The information you've provided trims down the number of possible passwords that would have to be attempted quite a bit.

The bad news is that I don't think we've trimmed it down enough yet to actually attempt.  I'll think on it a bit over the next 24 hours and if I come up with more questions that you might have answers to that also might trim down the possibilities, I'll post them here.  If I don't come up with anything more though, I don't think I'm going to attempt this.

One last question for now . . .

I suspect that I already know the answer to this, but it doesn't hurt to ask.  There isn't any chance that you actually remember ANY of the words in the phrase at all?  You don't even remember what you used as a source of the words?

[brie]

If you'd like to take a crack at cracking the wallet, I can provide a list of words that I suspect were used in the passphrase. I'm thinking of eight words I may have used, but I'd rather not post them publicly as I've used them in other passwords.

[DannyHamilton]

If you'd like to take a crack at cracking the wallet, I can provide a list of words that I suspect were used in the passphrase. I'm thinking of eight words I may have used, but I'd rather not post them publicly as I've used them in other passwords.

Ok, now we are seriously getting into the realm of feasibility.

I'll get back to you in the next 24 hours and let you know what I need if I'm going to try to crack it.  I hope not to need the full wallet.dat.  No reason for you to give that up unnecessarily.

I always find it interesting how much people who say "a . . . passphrase that not even I know" remember about their password after you start asking them some questions.

[conv3rsion]

I wouldn't do this simply because anyone could copy their encrypted wallet and "sell" it without actually losing the coins. It would be a really easy way to scam people. I'm not saying you're a scammer, I'm saying it would be easy to scam using this method.

[brie]

Ok, now we are seriously getting into the realm of feasibility.

I'll get back to you in the next 24 hours and let you know what I need if I'm going to try to crack it.  I hope not to need the full wallet.dat.  No reason for you to give that up unnecessarily.

I always find it interesting how much people who say "a . . . passphrase that not even I know" remember about their password after you start asking them some questions.

Alright cool, let me know what you need. 

I wouldn't do this simply because anyone could copy their encrypted wallet and "sell" it without actually losing the coins. It would be a really easy way to scam people. I'm not saying you're a scammer, I'm saying it would be easy to scam using this method.

Yeah, I wish it were a scam... then I would still have access to my 5 BTC. 

[buddyrandom]

How do we know that this wallet isn't empty?

Everyone can tell how much is in every wallet... It's how we know who has coins to spend and nodes can confirm the validity of a transaction  

if you like to explore chech out http://blockchain.info if you want to look at a wallet it's just http://blockchain.info/address/<wallet address>

[Digigami]

Ok, now we are seriously getting into the realm of feasibility.

I'll get back to you in the next 24 hours and let you know what I need if I'm going to try to crack it.  I hope not to need the full wallet.dat.  No reason for you to give that up unnecessarily.

I always find it interesting how much people who say "a . . . passphrase that not even I know" remember about their password after you start asking them some questions.

Just for the fun of it because I find this sort of experiment interesting..

Assuming your going to use gpu's to brute this once you have narrowed down your scope, I would be willing to offer up some hashing power to assist (free of charge as long as this doesn't run on for too long..)

Let me know if ~4.5GH will go very far to help you out here.