Wilikon (OP)
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minds.com/Wilikon
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November 30, 2013, 06:12:27 PM |
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http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/it-pro-says-he-threw-out-7500-bitcoins-now-worth-7-5-million/Many people have a tale of a lost or broken hard drive containing some bit of precious data they wish they could recover. But perhaps no one on the planet has thrown out a hard drive as valuable as the one James Howells says is now buried in a landfill. According to an article in The Guardian today, Howells threw out the hard drive, "rescued from a defunct Dell laptop," this past summer. "And then last Friday he realised that it held a digital wallet with 7,500 Bitcoins created for almost nothing in 2009," the story notes. Howells, an IT pro, says his mistake likely occurred in mid-July, at which time a single bitcoin was worth about $90. Today, the value of a single bitcoin passed $1,000 for the first time, making 7,500 bitcoins worth $7.5 million.
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BitcoinBarrel
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Activity: 1987
Merit: 1027
Fill Your Barrel with Bitcoins!
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November 30, 2013, 06:16:24 PM |
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Well that sucks ![Undecided](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/undecided.gif)
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JTrain_51
Member
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November 30, 2013, 06:17:56 PM |
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I really feel bad for this guy but I have had some stuff happen to me I bought a laptop with 6.3 bitcoins and that was like 1k at the time now thats 6.3k for this thousand dollar laptop lol
But ya 7.5mill feel bad for the guy
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Minecache
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Merit: 1024
Vave.com - Crypto Casino
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November 30, 2013, 07:12:00 PM |
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He's not an IT 'pro' if he:
1. failed to take a hdd backup; 2. failed to check what was on a hdd before binning it; 3. failed to physically destroy the hdd before binning it.
Not a 'pro' in any means of the word.
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Pente
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November 30, 2013, 07:31:31 PM |
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He's not an IT 'pro' if he:
1. failed to take a hdd backup; 2. failed to check what was on a hdd before binning it; 3. failed to physically destroy the hdd before binning it.
Not a 'pro' in any means of the word.
And total lack of awareness of his situation. If he was an "IT Pro", one of the worse ever. I have absolutely no sympathy for him. Besides, I find the story incredulous.
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bennybong
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November 30, 2013, 07:34:26 PM |
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He's not an IT 'pro' if he:
1. failed to take a hdd backup; 2. failed to check what was on a hdd before binning it; 3. failed to physically destroy the hdd before binning it.
Not a 'pro' in any means of the word.
And total lack of awareness of his situation. If he was an "IT Pro", one of the worse ever. I have absolutely no sympathy for him. Besides, I find the story incredulous. I've read a follow-up article that states he is actually searching the local rubbish dump for it. Good luck!
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XBBlade
Member
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November 30, 2013, 07:36:00 PM |
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Yeah I agree with the above. No pro at all, come on if one should know about backups it had to be him..
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TheFootMan
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November 30, 2013, 08:01:23 PM |
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Wonder if that landfill now sees an increase of people searching for this harddrive. And I wonder if the story is true at all - we just have his words. I also lost a hdd of 2000 BTC, it got shipped off Kenya, and now some blacksmith is using it to make necklaces to the local women. True story. ![Roll Eyes](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/rolleyes.gif)
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jubalix
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November 30, 2013, 09:05:39 PM |
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at some point some speculator may see the 7500 BTC as worth more than the rubbish tip and acquire the whole thing, then make a systematic search
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Kenshin
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November 30, 2013, 09:09:49 PM |
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He's not an IT 'pro' if he:
1. failed to take a hdd backup; 2. failed to check what was on a hdd before binning it; 3. failed to physically destroy the hdd before binning it.
Not a 'pro' in any means of the word.
I totally agreed. How can he be a professional? Even my Grandma is better than him. ![Roll Eyes](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/rolleyes.gif)
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illpoet
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November 30, 2013, 09:31:54 PM |
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doh!
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Tym's Get Rich Slow scheme: plse send .00001 to btc: 1DKRaNUnMQkeby6Dk1d8e6fRczSrTEhd8p ltc: LV4Udu7x9aLs28MoMCzsvVGKJbSmrHESnt thank you.
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ooxtcoo
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November 30, 2013, 09:43:54 PM |
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many professionals are very lazy! ![Wink](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/wink.gif) you work to mutch on other computers and dont have time for your own things. you think, ahh.. next day i do make my backup... but next day no time for it, you again think ok.. tomorow i make my backup... one day you hdd crash and you think you are a lazy idiot. that happend to me when i lost source code of 2 month work. i had to rewrite all the last updates of my programms for the last 2 month... i just shutdown my laptop, all working like normal, next morning hdd.. click... click! fu..!
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TheFootMan
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December 04, 2013, 06:05:00 PM |
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i just shutdown my laptop, all working like normal, next morning hdd.. click... click! fu..!
Well, do you do backups now ?
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toroidmonster24
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December 04, 2013, 07:28:45 PM |
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He's not an IT 'pro' if he:
1. failed to take a hdd backup; 2. failed to check what was on a hdd before binning it; 3. failed to physically destroy the hdd before binning it.
Not a 'pro' in any means of the word.
Just because you're a pro doesn't mean you follow standard data protection procedures on your home computers. I'm a computer guru, and honestly only *some* things are backed up on my computer. If my hard drives die, I lose a lot of things--many of which are replaceable, and in 2011 after the mtgox hack, I guarantee you I wouldn't have cared too much if $200 worth of BTC could've gotten lost. Yeah I'd shrug it off, get a little irritated, and that's it. Sometimes you just forget things. There's a reason why in a professional work environment, if you work in IT, there's SOPs and checklists you follow before throwing equipment out with possibly important data. With personal stuff, you sometimes just do a quick check in your brain and then bam. I'm a prolific ROM flasher on Android and I love continuity. While I've managed to flash my phones probably 100+ times, I've managed to keep all my texts from 2007 and on. I've managed to keep my Whatsapp conversations intact since 2010 except the one time just one month ago when I accidentally wiped my /sdcard folder. Am I now a newb? It's easy to mess things up, but if I were doing this for work, I'd be extra careful. We all know that you *should* do a Nandroid before you flash, or you should have multiple layers of redundancy, and have offsite backup, blah blah blah, but hindsight is always 20/20.
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mrdavis
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December 04, 2013, 09:02:20 PM |
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Sure, I have a number of things here and there that are not backed up that I would be unhappy to lose, but BTC7,500 when a "single bitcoin was worth $90"? It clearly didn't have that value to him.
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Ryartran
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December 04, 2013, 09:36:05 PM |
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Sure, I have a number of things here and there that are not backed up that I would be unhappy to lose, but BTC7,500 when a "single bitcoin was worth $90"? It clearly didn't have that value to him.
Still, even if he had sold those bitcoins to Mt. Gox at the time, he'd have made 675,000 USD. A pretty good payout if you ask me. -_- Bitcoin is like the stock market in almost every aspect, buy low, mine low, sell high.
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GigaCoin
Sr. Member
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Giga
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December 04, 2013, 09:41:47 PM |
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http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/it-pro-says-he-threw-out-7500-bitcoins-now-worth-7-5-million/Many people have a tale of a lost or broken hard drive containing some bit of precious data they wish they could recover. But perhaps no one on the planet has thrown out a hard drive as valuable as the one James Howells says is now buried in a landfill. According to an article in The Guardian today, Howells threw out the hard drive, "rescued from a defunct Dell laptop," this past summer. "And then last Friday he realised that it held a digital wallet with 7,500 Bitcoins created for almost nothing in 2009," the story notes. Howells, an IT pro, says his mistake likely occurred in mid-July, at which time a single bitcoin was worth about $90. Today, the value of a single bitcoin passed $1,000 for the first time, making 7,500 bitcoins worth $7.5 million. shit happens, some people are not meant to be rich it's just the way of life seen it too many times.
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silvergoldandbitcoin
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December 04, 2013, 10:40:33 PM |
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Oh god.... That was just painful to read....... But on the brighter side, we all have bitcoin that's worth that much more! I still feel terrible for him though... ![Sad](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/sad.gif)
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MaW
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December 05, 2013, 01:26:06 AM |
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so disgusting, and I thought my situation was sick.. I sold 65btc a couple months back for 8k.. could have got 65k.. sigh
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