safe full of "gold" at the bottom of the sea

[knybe]

posting away...

Okay so my sad tale begins; bought a few btc back in 2011. It all fell through the floor, I lost a few hundred bucks, and I promptly dismissed the whole thing. All the dishonest sneakery of certain people unscrupulously and actively relieving other people of their bitcoin purses right out from under their noses left a bad taste in my mouth, not to mention the flash crash on mtgox (I still have a screen shot of the chart if anyone wants to see it). During most of 2012 I would get a little bit interested whenever I saw a story about bitcoin or looked at the charts. I would think I should buy some coin but then dismiss and forget about it.

All the hooplah started up again in Feb 2013 so, excitedly I sit BUT low and behold; I cannot remember my effing passphrase... for the life of me. been trying for weeks. Even been running Revalin's brute.rb script to no avail.

So now I have a permanent retirement account that I hope to one day be able to access. I've likened it to having a safe full of gold bars - with a live video camera feed to my desktop, but the safe is sunken way down deep in an undisclosed cavern off the Pacific Rim in the ocean.  

Happy part of this story is that I was able to get my hands on a few earlier in the year.

[cryptotrade]

Have you tried all your other passwords or derivations of them?

Or did you create something so unique that it would confuse anyone, including yourself?

Do you remember the time period you created the wallet?  Perhaps you used a password that reflected something that was on your mind at the time?

Sorry, just trying to help you trigger a memory here.

[knybe]

yeah been trying to reenact the whole scene the day I made the pphrase; visualization, meditation, qi-gong, etc. nothing has come... yet

thanks though

[Gator-hex]

hypnosis 

[Ls777]

That would drive me crazy, good luck man

[cryptotrade]

Hmmm....you don't write down your passwords in Enochian script and keep them buried under a garden statue?


You will get this - I'm sure you will!

[additionalpylons]

Good thing you still have the wallet, leave a random generator picking away at it and it will get there some day, Moores law kind of guarantees it will get there some day.

Hopefully before his computer erodes into a pile of dust.

[Ls777]

Depends on how complex his password is, hopefully he didnt go for some 20character ultra deluxe edition password because if so small chance of recovering it

[Kazu]

Back up the file (preferably before the computer erodes into a pile of dust) and start a script picking away at the file. Eventually (potentially in a couple of years, but by then BTC will only be worth more!!!) you'll get your coins back.

[StringTheory]

Great story!    Won't be busting out the popcorn yet tho, really hope you recover them.

[asciicat]

This is the primary reason I always make a .txt of my passwords for uncommon things. I don't even show the full password sometimes, I only show what's changed or something.

[Operatr]

This is why everyone who uses Bitcoin should immediately set up an offline private key for just such an event.

I use Keepass in conjunction with my wallet's password (a cipher generated by Keepass, brute force password cracker will never break it), I know the master password of my encrypted password database that has all of my other passwords for encrypted things. Both my wallet.dats and Keepass databases are auto-uploaded to my FTP every night. My wallet's themselves live on a RAID-5 array. I'll be setting up a DropBox as well for a tertiary backup. A 4th backup will be coming soon in form of a USB backup drive for my file server.

With crypto currencies you can never have enough backups and methods to ensure your money stays where you can access it. Key phrase: your money

It is more true than any other banking system ever now.  Your funds are entirely in your care and trust until you specifically tell it to do otherwise (a transaction is a transfer of ownership in Bitcoin).

Encrypt and backup you're wallets to multiple locations with automation, create backdoors with private key paper wallets for your main savings address(s), maintain you're computer, anti-malware systems, and firewalls.

Once Bitcoin was a novelty, and now it is quickly becoming a hot topic and a power player in the shape of things to come. Imagine your grief when that lost .dat file, a measly amount of information, is worth 1000x what it is right now, or in a more distant future a lot of Bitcoins still worth a lot in the neo-economy. Makes a backup drive and a few cloud accounts look pretty attractive in comparison to screwing yourself out of several thousands or millions because "you''ll do it tomorrow"

[coinator]

For those who are novice in backing up and writing scripts to copy your credential away from your personal computer, you can try using dropbox. It lets you sync with the online network and you can also do a local network sync to your other computers. However, you need to be extremely careful with your dropbox password or which computers you chose to sync your dropbox with.

OP, hope that you will find your passphrase someday. Keep trying.

[Puppet]

Am I wrong then thinking that back in 2011 bitcoin-qt didnt encrypt the wallet?
Id hate to give you any false hope; but have you opened the orginal wallet.dat in a text editor?

Even if it turns out to be encrypted, early versions of bitcoin had a weakness according to this:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=52480.0

Perhaps you can exploit that if the wallet was created by such an old client?

[knybe]

Am I wrong then thinking that back in 2011 bitcoin-qt didnt encrypt the wallet?
Id hate to give you any false hope; but have you opened the orginal wallet.dat in a text editor?

Even if it turns out to be encrypted, early versions of bitcoin had a weakness according to this:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=52480.0

Perhaps you can exploit that if the wallet was created by such an old client?

I'm pretty sure I encrypted the wallet with the very first version of Bitcoin that was able to do so (0.4.0??). And of course didn't backup up old wallet.dat before doing it (I know I know: numbskull). I do have a couple more drives I need to scour just to be sure.

I have found a file called wallet.xxxxxxx.dat dated Nov 2011, that will not open whatsoever. I renamed it to wallet.dat and have tried salvaging it with GA's bitcointools and no dice. Also tried dumping the keys, etc. with pywallet.py, no luck either.

The file seems beyond repair and if I'm not mistaken; all previous .bak wallet files are nullified upon encryption of original... so that might be the case? Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Or HALP if any of this triggers ideas for a fix.

[txoomy]

hypnosis 

Worth a try...

[pheaonix]

immerse yourself with how you were during those times. listen to the same music, hell even go through your old web history.

there is something your missing.

send btc to this address when you retire

1FKaPwjgQRZwdFkujF1Gfz6QZJv9Lqj8Ro

good luck and godspeed

[Insarov]

Years of brute force...it's like all those old tales about lifetimes in search of lost treasure are starting to take place in the internet instead of oceans and forests

[lakeluke]

There's a guy here who goes by the name Mysteryminer https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=13783 who has helped out in similar cases before; you might want to MSG him.

Good luck.

[Kazu]

Heres an idea:
Upload the file here and provide a 25% reward for whoever finds the key.