2021-01-13 BI - Man offers city $70M to dig up lost 7500 btc hard drive

[acquafredda]

A man who says he threw away a hard drive loaded with 7,500 bitcoin in 2013 is offering his council $70 million to dig it up from the city dump.
James Howells from Newport, Wales, has offered his city council a 25% cut of his 7,500 bitcoins if it allows him to excavate the landfill where he threw it away in 2013.
Howells' bitcoin is now worth around $275 million as bitcoin is trading around $37,000 at the time of writing.
However, Newport City Council told CNN in a statement that it was not allowed to excavate the site, warning of a "huge environmental impact on the surrounding area," "without any guarantee of either finding [the hard drive] or it still being in working order."

https://www.businessinsider.com/man-offers-council-70-million-dig-up-bitcoin-hard-drive-2021-1

And the winner is? This guy!

Howells threw the hard drive away between June and August 2013, believing he'd already backed up the files he needed from it.

Whenever you think you have already done a backup remember:
DON'T TRUST, VERIFY
 

[freedomno1]

Same guy from way back still at it at this rate I hope his harddrive survived the environment
Guessing his weekend hobby is dumpster diving ^^

[Lucius]

Well, that character should have said goodbye to his BTC a long time ago (if he had any at all), and not after so many years trying to save something that was probably already completely destroyed, considering how long it has been standing in the garbage dump. In addition, authorities have repeatedly stated publicly that they will not allow landfills to be excavated due to environmental impact.

To me, this character was always a bit suspicious - because he was trying to make money on his story, so he asked for "£250 for a quick interview" and claimed that the disk contained the real IP address of Satoshi Nakamoto. Also, this person is a supporter of BCH - so we know what he's really interested in.

https://coinrivet.com/the-man-who-lost-125m-in-bitcoins-now-wants-250-for-a-quick-interview/

[bryant.coleman]

Read this news today, while browsing Google News. I feel sorry for him, but now hardly anything can be done. Also, I am not 100% convinced by his story. He claims that he thought he had the backup ready and therefore he dumped the drive. How many of us do that? Hard drives contain a lot of sensitive information, and I have never dumped any of my laptop hard drives for the last two decades. It doesn't take a huge amount of space to store 2-3 hard drives.

[Usider]

I never throw away my hard drives or other data drives. I'd rather have a hard drive in my parents' basement than in a landfill somewhere.

[acquafredda]

Well, that character should have said goodbye to his BTC a long time ago (if he had any at all), and not after so many years trying to save something that was probably already completely destroyed, considering how long it has been standing in the garbage dump. In addition, authorities have repeatedly stated publicly that they will not allow landfills to be excavated due to environmental impact.

To me, this character was always a bit suspicious - because he was trying to make money on his story, so he asked for "£250 for a quick interview" and claimed that the disk contained the real IP address of Satoshi Nakamoto. Also, this person is a supporter of BCH - so we know what he's really interested in.

https://coinrivet.com/the-man-who-lost-125m-in-bitcoins-now-wants-250-for-a-quick-interview/

Remember the quote by Andy Warhol? "Everyone will be famous for 15 minutes."
I agree with you, whatever he had is long gone and he is only trying to make a quick buck out of all this story. £250 for a quick interview?
Yeah, wait! Journalists are all coming!

[Sithara007]

The first ever rally occurred only a few months after this alleged incident. If he was serious about Bitcoin, then he could have purchased a few BTC during this time (or during the correction phase when the price of Bitcoin went down to $200 per coin). There is no point in whining about it now, after getting multiple chances and doing nothing back then. And he seems to be really desperate. £250 for an interview? That gives away the real intention, IMO.

[bbc.reporter]

This appears to have become a treasure hunt hehe. Scammers might copy from this and make other claims of lost hardrives with bitcoins in them and promise to give a share of it in exchange for money as budget to begin the treasure hunt hehehee.

[Lucius]

Remember the quote by Andy Warhol? "Everyone will be famous for 15 minutes."
I agree with you, whatever he had is long gone and he is only trying to make a quick buck out of all this story. £250 for a quick interview?
Yeah, wait! Journalists are all coming!

Even if the whole story is true (and there is no evidence that this is so), why wait 7 or 8 years to make something concrete (offer money to find it), because every day the chances of saving data from that HDD are less and less. The whole story is even weirder to me when it happens to someone who works in the IT industry, and then I guess he should know the meaning of backup, and that one backup means nothing and sometimes not even two.

From the day one, I keep everything that has anything to do with crypto, no matter how insignificant it may seem - and I also keep all the old equipment, especially HDDs that are over 15 years old.

The man made a fool of himself, the chances of fixing it are certainly small or almost non-existent and are diminishing more and more every day. If you read the article from the link I posted then you could find out that there is at least one more person who did the identical thing - but he claims that he never tried to find the discarded HDD.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4543488/Man-throws-Bitcoin-hard-drive-worth-4-8billion.html

[squatter]

Even if the whole story is true (and there is no evidence that this is so), why wait 7 or 8 years to make something concrete (offer money to find it), because every day the chances of saving data from that HDD are less and less. The whole story is even weirder to me when it happens to someone who works in the IT industry, and then I guess he should know the meaning of backup, and that one backup means nothing and sometimes not even two.

He mined them in 2009 when they were worthless and then forgot about them. I suppose that's why he never backed them up. This is from 2013:

After he stopped mining Bitcoins in 2009, Howells hadn't given the currency much thought. "I hadn't kept up on Bitcoin, I'd been distracted. I'd had a couple of kids since then, I'd been doing the house up, and forgot about it until it was in the news again."

He's been lobbying the city since at least 2017, probably earlier, to issue permits to excavate. They have good reason to deny him considering the lack of any guarantee of recovery -- excavating landfills can release all sort of hazardous waste and gases, and can threaten the structural integrity of adjacent sites.

I don't even think it's technically his property anymore. If the city were interested in helping him, they could probably do a lot better than 25%.

The man made a fool of himself, the chances of fixing it are certainly small or almost non-existent and are diminishing more and more every day.

That's true, but if you had even the smallest sliver of a chance to recover thousands of bitcoins, wouldn't you try?

[Lucius]

That's true, but if you had even the smallest sliver of a chance to recover thousands of bitcoins, wouldn't you try?

Of course, I would give it a try, but one needs to be realistic and accept the reality that the HDD may be under tons of garbage, and that after so many years it is very likely completely destroyed. I have to admit I’m not sure, but when that news came up a few years ago it seemed to me that he threw away an HDD that ended up in an e-waste landfill - and now it turns out it ended up in the trash with organic waste.

Let's say I've been sorting all the waste for more than 5 years and everything goes separately - and if I want to throw away something like an old TV or computer, I just call the free service that picks it up for free. I mean, if his HDD ended up in some scrap intended for electronics, maybe he would have a better chance of finding it - although such waste is usually processed in a way that separates useful things like gold, silver, platinum or copper.

[Kakmakr]

If this was in India... and if this really happened... then this HDD would have been found years ago. Those people has got the best informal recycling operations in the business. A lot of the first world countries are dumping old electronic goods there and they are making millions from the recycling. (even Gold from the motherboard circuits)

On the other hand... the Hard drive might have been recycled, if it was in India.    Being serious for a moment.... most metals in the hdd would have rusted away or severely bend by the sheer weight of the things that was thrown on top of it over the years. 

[Betwrong]

"I offered to donate 25% or £52.5 million" — $71.7 million — "to the city of Newport in order to distribute to all local residents who live in Newport should I find and recover the bitcoins," Howells told CNN.
Citing a population for the greater Newport area of about 300,000, Howells said that would mean about £175, or $240, a person.

Idk, if I were living in Newport, I would never agree to such conditions. I mean, read this:

"The council has told Mr. Howells on a number of occasions that excavation is not possible under our licensing permit and excavation itself would have a huge environmental impact on the surrounding area,"

The real damage to the area cannot be evaluated, but most likely "$240 a person" is far less than what would be needed for compensation. Besides, what are the chances of finding the hard drive in such a place



after years of shredding the trash by bulldozers?

[bryant.coleman]

The real damage to the area cannot be evaluated, but most likely "$240 a person" is far less than what would be needed for compensation. Besides, what are the chances of finding the hard drive in such a place

It has been 8 years. If the hard drive wasn't shredded to pieces, it would have rusted away and the metal components would have disintegrated. It would be impossible to recover any information contained in the hard drive under such circumstances. IMO, James Howells should stick to his usual modus operandi, i.e charging £250 per interview from the journalists and bloggers to whine about the lost treasure.

[freedomno1]

If this was in India... and if this really happened... then this HDD would have been found years ago.  

No doubt about that haha and ya at this point I am pretty sure that its metal components are the only thing left and rusted ...

Well at least he has his reporter day job about the one that got away and ... if he decided not to buy more Bitcoin this whole time it's on him today.

[Betwrong]

The real damage to the area cannot be evaluated, but most likely "$240 a person" is far less than what would be needed for compensation. Besides, what are the chances of finding the hard drive in such a place

It has been 8 years. If the hard drive wasn't shredded to pieces, it would have rusted away and the metal components would have disintegrated. It would be impossible to recover any information contained in the hard drive under such circumstances. ~

Those were my thoughts too, at first. But don't you think Howells consulted with some specialists, who told him that the recovery of the data from the hard drive was theoretically possible? From what I read, hard drives, especially old ones, can last for more than 10 years. And since the platters are made of aluminium, glass or ceramic they are corrosion-resistant. So, if the hard drive isn't shredded to pieces, the recovery of data is possible, don't you think?

[orions.belt19]

The real damage to the area cannot be evaluated, but most likely "$240 a person" is far less than what would be needed for compensation. Besides, what are the chances of finding the hard drive in such a place

It has been 8 years. If the hard drive wasn't shredded to pieces, it would have rusted away and the metal components would have disintegrated. It would be impossible to recover any information contained in the hard drive under such circumstances. ~

Those were my thoughts too, at first. But don't you think Howells consulted with some specialists, who told him that the recovery of the data from the hard drive was theoretically possible? From what I read, hard drives, especially old ones, can last for more than 10 years. And since the platters are made of aluminium, glass or ceramic they are corrosion-resistant. So, if the hard drive isn't shredded to pieces, the recovery of data is possible, don't you think?

Perhaps that were the case if the hard drives were kept in a sterile environment. It may be a different story considering the dirt and water exposure from the dump, plus possibly getting crushed and run over by dump trucks and cranes. I've read in the article that he will bring the hard drive to data recovery specialists to rebuild it and have any the parts replaced if needed, but can the data be recovered once the pieces have been replaced to new ones?

[bryant.coleman]

Perhaps that were the case if the hard drives were kept in a sterile environment. It may be a different story considering the dirt and water exposure from the dump, plus possibly getting crushed and run over by dump trucks and cranes. I've read in the article that he will bring the hard drive to data recovery specialists to rebuild it and have any the parts replaced if needed, but can the data be recovered once the pieces have been replaced to new ones?

Most of the landfills contain some amount of chemical and industrial waste as well. Even if parts are made of aluminium or plastic, they can get corroded in this environment. Data recovery agents may face difficulty in retrieving the data even if it is in a stable condition. If the hard drive is corroded, then I'd give it less than 0.0001% chance. I read that he is earning good amounts by charging anyone who wants to interview him. Why can't he stick to that business and leave the hard drive where it is right now?

[stomachgrowls]

Would really be a hard one considering one the scope of area that you will tending to search on and imagine that its been already almost 8 years since it was thrown away
and that would surely be had covered tons of garbage.There's no way that you can just easily try to dig 1 by 1 and search from it.

Also, i wont really be trusting up government if ever because once they know that they might able to dig up about $275M on a dump site then they will be the ones who would
try to seek it out. Prohibiting you and telling those various reasons about environmental changes are a bit on the alibi side.

Well, i cant blame that guy on having that desperation since we do talk about hundreds of millions on here. Its really worth to try than on sitting and just regretting.

[sunsilk]

Most of the landfills contain some amount of chemical and industrial waste as well. Even if parts are made of aluminium or plastic, they can get corroded in this environment. Data recovery agents may face difficulty in retrieving the data even if it is in a stable condition. If the hard drive is corroded, then I'd give it less than 0.0001% chance. I read that he is earning good amounts by charging anyone who wants to interview him. Why can't he stick to that business and leave the hard drive where it is right now?

Right. There is no problem with data recovery as long as the HDD is still in good condition even physically it's teared off, as long as the disc inside is readable. I have seen some recovery tools that can do that and even retrieve data that has been wiped out and reformatted for many times. But if it has been years and no hope for him just like the guy who have forgotten his password for his saved bitcoins.

AFAIK, he's being interviewed years back and just put it back on the line because of the crazy pumps that we've got weeks ago.