I don't know if this will still help us to recover lost passwords and our coins

[Gozie51]

Charlie and Chris Brooks run Crypto Asset Recovery, a small business in New Hampshire.

They have helped to recover some amount of lost passwords and coins.

Reading further, the Crypto Asset Recovery site made mention of bitcointalk.org to my amazement and I was glad to see that a thread in 2011 was linked to it on the site called Nakamoto's Forum and undoubtedly; that is here, this wonderful forum with lots of opportunities.
This is the thread titled: Let's add up the KNOWN lost bitcoins

Excerpts from the site

For Chris and Charlie Brooks, finding lost passwords to cryptocurrency wallets requires figuring out how their clients' minds work - and that effort can help their customers retrieve a slice of what the pair estimates is about $4.7 billion worth of recoverable bitcoin stranded in locked wallets.

The Brookses narrowed it all down to 72 posts that described the loss of at least half of a bitcoin. They determined that 14% are potentially recoverable cases and that from their own work in recovering wallets for clients, they can decrypt about 35% of passwords. That led to their conclusion that about 2.45% of lost bitcoin is retrievable. With a range between 68,110 and 92,855 bitcoins, that would make up to $4.7 billion in bitcoin recoverable based on the asset's price of about $50,372 on Friday.

One of our most recent cracks had about $250,000," in a blockchain wallet, said Charlie, who majored in computer science in college. He's put school aside for now to work at the business. "This is something I've always liked. I would follow along with my dad ... Online treasure hunting, it seemed really cool

We get as good a list of passwords as we can from a client and then we put our heads together and spend some time extrapolating the way that they make their passwords and try to get in their mind when they are actually creating a password," said Charlie. "That's the most helpful thing, just seeing their practice," he said. "That's the cornerstone of our business, essentially."
The duo will run "hundreds of millions or billions of variations" of password patterns and test those against the encrypted version of the wallet, said Chris.
"If you don't have a very good [password] guess, there are more possible passwords than there are atoms in the universe, and I'm not being facetious when I say that," Chris said.

I also think sometimes when we lose our passwards we can do a near guess of it from our bunch of passwards or stuff close to that and that has been one of the secret of the duo father and son.

I don't know if this particular link was on the above thread HERE

Lets see if this will help anybody , thanks

[1713539258]

1713539258

[Charles-Tim]

The sole purpose of recovery service is when you have tried all options to get back you coins and never worked out, this is because recovery service are not advisable to use because:

• The recovery services can recover your coins and tell you they did not, if they actually did, how would know? You can not know, so if they are telling the truth or lying, you can not know.
• Also recovery services have been the scammers den of the recent era, there are many sites online that will even promising to recover any coin lost while misleading people and receiving payment from them without anything coin recovered, some scammers have been using this method to scam people successfully also through completely scam recovery services, tou should try all your best to avoid recovery services.

Some people lost Bitcoin because they did not believe in it in the past, they were not expecting Bitcoin that was worth $100 to worth $10000 this day, but which actually happened to be, they lost what can be used to access it, and this makes them not to feel good as Bitcoin price is increasing. But now that people know bitcoin's worth, they should try all their best to protect their information needed to access their Bitcoin like seed phrase (and passphrase if included).

There are many methods someone can use to backup seedphrase successfully, like having it on paper, separated from passphrase, it can even be on laminated paper or metallic sheet, having like two other copies and have it in locations that are safe from attackers and damage.

Suggestions about the best ways to backup seed phrase
Store your bitcoin seed / private key safely (Water, Fire, Shock-proof)
Best Place To Store Your Seed?
Bitcoin Seed Backup Tools

Prevention is better than cure, protect your Bitcoin by protecting your seed phrase (and passphrase if included) rather than depending on any recovery service, anything about Bitcoin should not involve any third party, only you and you alone will guarantee privacy and safety.

[BlackHatCoiner]

I also think sometimes when we lose our passwards we can do a near guess of it from our bunch of passwards or stuff close to that and that has been one of the secret of the duo father and son.

It's pretty obvious that some people didn't pay the required attention when they were making their wallets years ago. They chose to set a password, but then forgot it and possibly chucked up with the thing.

I'm against password encryption if you haven't backed the wallet up in a plain format (e.g., a seed). The reason most of those people lost access to their coins is because of that; HD wallets weren't existing. Even an idiot would acknowledge that they have to write down the mnemonic. Anyway, now that we have a securer way to save our funds, we're fine.

The recovery services can recover your coins and tell you they did not, if they actually did, how would know? You can not know, so if they are telling the truth or lying, you can not know.

You can't know if the addresses are unknown. If you know them, it's a matter of a block explorer search.

[Charles-Tim]

I'm against password encryption if you haven't backed the wallet up in a plain format (e.g., a seed). The reason most of those people lost access to their coins is because of that; HD wallets weren't existing. Even an idiot would acknowledge that they have to write down the mnemonic. Anyway, now that we have a securer way to save our funds, we're fine.

Yes, HD wallet make use of seed phrase, word backups shouldn't give much problem if wallet file backup fails. I think we should focus more on how to safely have the backup in a way to avoid it lost or stolen should be the approach unless someone has indeed truly lost his/her backup.

You can't know if the addresses are unknown. If you know them, it's a matter of a block explorer search.

That is true if the coin is moved from an address to another, but what if the recovery service just do not move the coin but have access to it for long time, scammers can be so tricky, and anyone can scam anyone. But, you are indeed right about this.

[Mpamaegbu]

Yes, HD wallet make use of seed phrase, word backups shouldn't give much problem if wallet file backup fails. I think we should focus more on how to safely have the backup in a way to avoid it lost or stolen should be the approach unless someone has indeed truly lost his/her backup.

Well, we can't be careful enough as not to have situations sneak up on us once in a while. I could've beaten my chest to say nothing would've made me lose access to my wallet because of forgotten seed phrase. But it happened to me. How I misplaced that seed phrase is still something I can't figure. Normally, I don't just back up my recovery seed phrase by saving it on my phone or taking a screenshot. I always write it out on paper. On this particular wallet, I couldn't gain assess when I tried to unlock my wallet. My phone was acting up so I uninstalled the wallet app and then made a frantic effort to restore it. I couldn't. That was when the problem started. Till date I still see how much funds I have got in that wallet whenever I check with my public address but I can't assess it like the biblical Moses who saw the promised land but couldn't venture into it like the rest of the Jews.

[Ryker1]

Well, though their purpose is good, however, it seems they are not to be trusted --anyone who will run a service like this should not be trusted not unless if you know them very well personally or they are your family member. I agree with the comment above, after a long time if they know the password and secretly recover, your coin will perhaps be in danger and becomes not yours when they have access to it.
But it is up to us if we are desperately want to open the lost password and hand off our private documents to this kind of service without trying by ourselves hard to open our own wallet. If you are willing to take a risk and being desperate about your wallet, it is up to you.

[cryptoaddictchie]

The purpose is good however this kind of approach isnt good for decentralized concept of crypto. Everyone like above people said should really pay attention with the process of saving password and etc. Bypassing it could be a big blow, what if those guys bypass other people account. Of course they can do whatever they want with that and thats terrible. Im not saying those guys would do that but this kind of business or activity isnt much like by majority.

[Jawhead999]

I wouldn't ever trust any third parties with my money especially if I don't have any access of my wallet (worst than put your money on an exchanges), since there's no guarantee they are trustworthy and would return your money.

There are some open source tools and brute force (e.g. btcrecover) to help you recover lost passwords, but if you lost the whole password it's almost impossible to recover it. Even if you doesn't know how to install or run the programs, this forum or reddit would help you to explain detailed instruction how to set up the tools.

[crypto-charles01]

Hi All, My name is Charles - I'm the son side of that father-son duo

I've read through the thread and I appreciate the coverage and consideration you folks gave us! I completely understand where you are coming from - from a security standpoint, you should always be very VERY cautious of sharing any wallet details to strangers on the internet. That being said, our service is in place for folks to employ as a very last step, once all hope is lost and your funds appear gone we offer our service as a last resort and a hail marry to recover your coins (quick note - do extensive research before working with a company like mine, or a scam recovery company - they should have public founders, a solid media presence, thirds party reviews and NEVER take payment upfront!)

However, I do see the password recovery issue as one that needs addressing - the saying "not your keys not your coins" is well and good but self custodian ownership of cryptocurrency is not a viable solution for many people who are less security inclined and do not understand the concept of non-custodial wallets and decentralization.

Keeping that in mind, we are always searching for and open to ideas for a more trustless recovery system. Are there legal or technical securities that we could employ which would make the majority of Bitcoin holders more comfortable with working with us? I would love to hear anyone's opinion on this space and how we can work with you better to help recover as many BTC as possible which giving our clients peace of mind and a sense of security.

[Refrumatrix]

Don't call me a weirdo it's just the way I feel about this, if your key is lost and I don't have a way to get it back then it will remain is its lost state, if you spread the news and give your keys out for recovery and they denied they don't recover them what will you do?

[jrrsparkles]

Don't call me a weirdo it's just the way I feel about this, if your key is lost and I don't have a way to get it back then it will remain is its lost state, if you spread the news and give your keys out for recovery and they denied they don't recover them what will you do?

It is just the last option you can try and there are some legitimate wallet recovery services are available for Bitcoin wallets but they don't give 100% success rate on recovering the lost passwords and also they charge premium amount of fee from the total bitcoins recovered. We can find that they actually recovered our bitcoins or not simply by knowing the address where it belongs since it's public we can know the available balance with the help of blockchain explorers.

[nc50lc]

Don't call me a weirdo it's just the way I feel about this, if your key is lost and I don't have a way to get it back then it will remain is its lost state, if you spread the news and give your keys out for recovery and they denied they don't recover them what will you do?

I don't get the point of the question,
is it in case the recovery service recovered the key from the wallet, spent the funds but told the owner that they failed?
If so, it's easy to tell if the funds were spent because the user can always check the funds through various blockexplorers or using a 'watch-only wallet' made from the bitcoin address.

If that happens, you can create a scam accusation thread with enough evidence like screenshots of the wallet and conversations, etc.
Most of the time, it's enough to crush a service's reputation if provided with strong evidence.

[tbct_mt2]

If a password is very strong, chance to brute force it is very very low. I could be wrong but if a password can be brute forced, it might be not a strong and good one.

[GUIDE] How to Create a Strong/Secure Password

There are guides and Youtube videos to brute force wallet or password as well. Chance is nearly zero if a password is very strong and if you don't have any hint to brute force it.

[Crypt0Gore]

I read a news about some rich guy that lost some BTC to a damaged hard disk he hired some professionals and unfortunately they sti can't get access to the private key, he spent money to recover the key for nothing.

[Igebotz]

Don't call me a weirdo it's just the way I feel about this, if your key is lost and I don't have a way to get it back then it will remain is its lost state, if you spread the news and give your keys out for recovery and they denied they don't recover them what will you do?

~snip~
If that happens, you can create a scam accusation thread with enough evidence like screenshots of the wallet and conversations, etc.
Most of the time, it's enough to crush a service's reputation if provided with strong evidence.

How can you file a scam complaint on bitcointalk against a random stranger you met on the internet who offered to restore your password but ended up deceiving you?

I read a news about some rich guy that lost some BTC to a damaged hard disk he hired some professionals and unfortunately they sti can't get access to the private key, he spent money to recover the key for nothing.

Yes, it's better to die for something than to live for nothing; at the very least, he tried to retrieve it; password recovery services have a 50/50 chance of working, and everyone would want to go to such lengths to recover such a valuable wallet.

[nc50lc]

Don't call me a weirdo it's just the way I feel about this, if your key is lost and I don't have a way to get it back then it will remain is its lost state, if you spread the news and give your keys out for recovery and they denied they don't recover them what will you do?

~snip~
If that happens, you can create a scam accusation thread with enough evidence like screenshots of the wallet and conversations, etc.
Most of the time, it's enough to crush a service's reputation if provided with strong evidence.

How can you file a scam complaint on bitcointalk against a random stranger you met on the internet who offered to restore your password but ended up deceiving you?

Against a random stranger, of course no.
Against something like what's being discussed in this topic (a recovery service), yes.

If you read the article, they have a website that offers crypto recovery service.

[Odusko]

Like what a lot of people said on this platform that you can't trust strangers with your wallet password I agree with them,but anybody can make mistake at anytime, no one is perfect,and when this mistake happen we don't have option that to try possible means to recover the key,but we should try our best to protect our account password so that we will not involve third party in case we need help to recover it.