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Missing hard drive containing Bitcoins worth £4m in Newport landfill site
- batbomb 13y agoAssuming there's not too much iron and steel in the land fill, it's might be possible he could find it with a sensitive enough magnetometer at 1 meter, maybe more so if you built a motor to move it around rapidly. I think the field strength at 1 meter might be something like 1 milliGauss, which should definitely be detectable. Walking the field and recording the magnetic fields might be possible, you'd at least know the range you needed. Secondly, any recent dated arial photos could maybe be used to determine a better approximation of depth, i.e. looking for a marker in the actual photo, then going to dig to find that marker, record the depth.
- joggg 13y agosomething about the platter in the HD being a magnetic medium...
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- topynate 13y agoThe attitude of Newport council - everyone, really - seems pretty nuts to me. $7 million is about 185 kilos of gold. Imagine what would happen if someone lost that in a rubbish tip!
- judk 13y ago200kg of gold is of course easier to trawl out of a pile than one (possibly destroyed) hard drive is. Look forward to treasure hunters attacking the site though. Bitcoin disks may be the future of buried treasure.
- kamjam 13y agoI wonder how many hard drives are retrieved and then somehow rescued - which may no longer power up so expert help to recover data off the platters is required. Rinse. Repeat.
- DanBC 13y agoA soccer / football pitch has an area of about 7140 square metres. They say the drive could be "3 or 4 feet deep" - let's just call that one metre. So it's only 7140 cubic metres to search. Admittedly, that's 7140 cubic metres of foul trash. It will include soiled babies diapers, rotting food, female sanitary products, tins, bottles, etc etc. Assuming you could find the drive at a cost of one million. (roughly £140 per cubic metre) That'd give you 6 million to share between you and the council. I guess you could add some environmental fixing thing in there (removing any electronics that are found, recycling any glass or metals vent methane, etc, and give them £2m, and keep the rest?
- hnha 13y agoWould you be willing to bet that it would still be worth as much when you find it? It's not gold, it's bitcoins. This sounds like it would be an incredibly unwise and risky investment, even if you pretend that you will definitely find the hdd.
- DanBC 13y agoSure, but you can say that about a whole bunch of start ups.
- brazzy 13y agoThe problem: even if you find the derive after spending all that money, there is a very good chance it is completely unreadable after spending months in a landfill.
- warbastard 13y agoSeeing as he has a good idea of when it was thrown away surely that narrows down where it could be quite considerably. He just needs someone to invest some money in finding it with him for a share of the wealth. I wouldn't have given up if I were him.
- MichaelApproved 13y agoThat's assuming the data will still be intact when the drive is recovered. Edit: I'd guess the odds of the data still being intact are close to zero. A drive is so fragile I doubt it survived. Consider it being thrown around in a garbage truck and then slowly buried under several feet of other trash. Several inches of trash at a time, over time, with trucks rolling over the area each time. Then, consider the weather and other garbage juices drenching the device. It's a goner...
- nitrogen 13y agoFor millions of pounds, it might be worth using an electron microscope to try to pull the bits off if the platters can be recovered.
- DanBC 13y agoelectron microscope have really low odds of recovering anything useful. At beast it's a speculative attack to be considered in a risk assessment, not a real attack anyone ever actually uses. I'd welcome any information about people really using electron microscopes to get better than 63% per bit recovery.
- kintamanimatt 13y agoHard drives are fairly robust when unpowered and can take quite heavy shocks and still be fine. The drive itself might be fucked but so long as the platters are in one piece there's a decent hope a good data recovery co could retrieve the data. The danger is it got bent or crushed, and that'd be what I'd guess has happened.
- abrichr 13y ago
- yafujifide 13y agoAnother way to mine for bitcoin.
- erikig 13y agoMy favorite quote from the article: "Howells stopped mining after a week because his girlfriend complained that the laptop was getting too noisy and hot while it ran the programs to solve the complex mathematical problems needed to create new Bitcoins." He should definitely have found another way...
- orblivion 13y agoHmm... Or a great practical joke.
- simplemath 13y agoPeople keep saying 21 million bitcoins. There are a significant percentage lost forever.
- dmix 13y agoWhy does every bitcoin comment thread have this conversation? It doesn't matter if a tiny percentage of the currency does not exist in the marketplace or gets lost. 21 million / 0.00000001 = how many bitcoins can "exist". So considering that there's no real blocking factors in how many bitcoins can be distributed, why does it matter if some get lost? The value of the coins are hardly affected now that such a high level of adoption has occurred. Those coins weren't even in previous circulation in any marketplaces affecting prices.
- Jtsummers 13y agoThe divisibility of the currency doesn't matter for this calculation. Currency represents wealth. There is a finite amount of BTC that will ever be available. Any BTC that is locked away like this means there is less BTC to represent the same amount of wealth (actually, it's a growing amount of wealth presently). This means the value (or potential value) of each BTC has gone up.
- dmix 13y ago> This means the value (or potential value) of each BTC has gone up. By an ever decreasing significancy as the market cap expands and BTC of value are held onto with care.
- Jtsummers 13y agoI think there may be some confusion on my part in understanding your point. To the second part, BTC loss will hopefully decrease. If loss/theft continues it's represents a significant UX issue that will inhibit the growth of bitcoin. To your first part, why would 1 BTC lost when it's worth $1000 have a greater significance than 1 BTC lost when it's worth $1,000,000? EDIT: Unless you mean any individual wallet's share of BTC is likely to be less, in which case the odds of losing as much BTC in a single incident is significantly reduced.
- celticninja 13y agoperhaps they could use a magnet to try and find it. seriously though, every bitcoin owner can thank him for reducing the available supply.
- vinhboy 13y agoForget the bitcoins, why would you throw away a perfectly good, supposedly working, hard drive? That's a shame. And before secure formatting it?
- sliverstorm 13y agoLaptop drives just aren't as useful as desktop drives (most towers can take 3-5 3.5" drives, most laptops can take exactly 1x 2.5"), and this particular platter was probably only 64-256GB?
- marincounty 13y agoData recover guys need old drives. I always wondered why anyone would want my toshiba 5gb drive--some guy on craigslist drove to my house in the middle of the night. A client of his business fried his harddrive, with all the company account on it. He needed my drive for parts.
- sdoering 13y agoWell, why not take a cheap case and have a nice, small, portable external.
- sliverstorm 13y agoYeah, you could do that. But not everyone needs an external (I've got one I haven't powered up in at least two years) and considering externals are rarely backed up (heck often they ARE the backup) I don't know that I'd be jumping to have a played-out system drive as my external.
- brazzy 13y agoBecause for the price of the case you can get a flash drive with similar capacity than a 5 year old laptop drive, and much nicer, smaller and more portable?
- idupree 13y ago
- akkartik 13y agoA not-unreasonable penalty for risking pollution of his ground water, especially since he probably did the same thing to electronics many times before. I can't believe nobody is talking about this. Illegal in many US states. http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=132204954 http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?story...
- eterm 13y agoSince this is in Europe, it's probably better to refer to the European legislation. However, it looks like the UK implementation of the WEEE[1] is fairly narrow in scope. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Electrical_and_Electronic_Equipment_Directive#UK_implementation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Electrical_and_Electronic...
- kbutler 13y ago£4m penalty for discarding one hard drive is "not-unreasonable"? boggle You weren't on the Apple-Samsung or Newegg juries, were you?
- hnha 13y ago£4m in bitcoin today might just be £40 tomorrow
- akkartik 13y ago1. I believe penalties for polluting our externalities should be greater, yes. As evidence I cite the fact that people keep polluting with existing penalties/enforcement. The tragedy of the commons is a very real thing. 2. I wasn't recommending that be the legal penalty. But if karma decides to be a bitch to this guy, hey I ain't complainin'. 3. I was exaggerating for effect. Seemed for a good cause: We human beings are total bastards towards the environment.
- baddox 13y agoI wonder what the negative externalities of a 4 million pound fine for minor littering would be.
- edubart 13y agoHe is not the only one, back in 2010 I did mine 160 BTC, however at some point I stopped caring. Months later I had to format hard disk because ArchLinux did a great job breaking the whole system with an update, in the moment I just didn't remember that there were a BitCoin wallet in my system. Damn ArchLinux. Although I didn't lose much as him. Now I kinda feel relieved knowing his mistake, he lost much more than me, I am sure that there are much others at the same spot. We all just contributed to elevate the bitcoin price by making misery out of our selves.
- ed209 13y agoWhen bitcoins are lost, are they lost forever? So the total pool of bitcoins will be 21m - your 160 and his 7000?
- pilgrim689 13y agoYes. The "total pool of bitcoins" is actually less than 21m, considering the lost ones. Does it matter, though? Whether the max is 21m or 20.1321029 ...
- Jtsummers 13y agoPotentially. There's a chance that someone could recreate the same keys for the lost wallets, but the odds are not in their favor (gross understatement). If this happened they'd be able to create transactions moving the bitcoins in the formerly lost wallets to their own wallet(s). However, until someone gets so lucky these bitcoins are locked out of the economy.
- maxerickson 13y agoThey are pretty much lost, unless a plurality of miners decide to change the rules.
- aric 13y agoNo. They are still there, accounted to that address in the blockchain. In the rare event that someone discovers the private key used to derive that address: happy days. In the near term, practically speaking, you can negate them from circulation. It's a very low probability that it'll be spent.
- ck2 13y agoHowells ran a program on his laptop for a week to generate his stash CPU based bitcoin mining, probably solo without a pool, 7000+ coins. Ha. Those were the days.
- giarc 13y agoSomething about hindsight being 20/20.....
- ck2 13y agoActually a good lesson about being an optimist vs pessimist. Many of us wrote it off. I dug up a year old hard drive to get back 0.05 BTC the other day :-)
- Buge 13y agoWith 50 bitcoins per block, 6 blocks per hour, that would be 7200 bitcoins generated per day total. So this guy made up more than 1/7 of the entire bitcoin network? There were less than 6 people besides him that had as powerful of computers?
- yitchelle 13y agoGives a different meaning to buried treasure...
- chuckd1356 13y agoPardon my ignorance, but how do you prove a) He doesn't have a copy of the private key? b) He's telling the truth about mining them? c) Actually threw away the drive?
- john_b 13y agoWhat incentive would he have to lie about any of this?
- chuckd1356 13y agoHe's already set up a wallet to receive donations. Imaginary internet points. Exposure.
- Crito 13y agoCollecting the donations changes everything. It seems like going to "the internet" with a sob story and a paypal account (or bitcoin wallet in this case) has been getting pretty popular recently, or at least has been getting more attention. I absolutely cannot understand why anybody would ever throw money at some unverified sob story...
- smtddr 13y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6806056 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6806056 I do; and I do it because I'm not completely cynical about the general public. I actually think most people are telling the truth. I could be very wrong, but nothing in my life has indicated as such. I have no idea what that indication would look like, but my default is to believe people unless I have a reason not to.
- Crito 13y agoI'm not completely cynical about the general public. I firmly believe that most people are good trustworthy people who are kept in line by their own sense of what is right and wrong, not the law. However I am aware that there is a small fraction of the general public that makes a living scamming the largely innocent and trusting general public. If I hear about somebody's house burning down on the local news, I might chip in a few dollars so that they can get their kids new clothes or whatever. I hear the same story, on reddit, 4chan, HN, whatever, from the alleged victim, and they are coming to me with this story and a collection jar? I'm sorry, I am going to require at least some local news confirmation, and it seems like even that isn't good enough with some of these scams. And don't even get me started on how in most of these cases the jump from "here is my sob story" to "and that is why I need money" is completely missing. The connection there is clear when a house burns down, but "I threw something out, then later learned it was worth a lot"? "I am a server who was insulted/was not tipped"? Uhuh. If I see a donation cup, and no connection between "sob story"->"now I need lots of money", I don't think that there is any rational conclusion besides "it's a scam".
- FrankenPC 13y agoThe next time I misplace my keys or forget to pay taxes on time, I'll be more forgiving of myself.
- tux 13y agoIt amazes me how people keep loosing money O_o Even if it only worth $1,000 why would you ever put it in the bin ? What a waste =(
- Jtsummers 13y agoIt's essentially the same as throwing out holiday or birthday cards with a cash gift inside (if it's a check it could be recoverable by contacting the sender). Shit happens and people forget about things.
- hkbarton 13y agomine bitcoin in trash
- JanezStupar 13y agoWell if Bitcoin really takes off, then someday it might be wise to go buy the landfill and go search for the "Treasure of Newport". I could imagine the headline: "Retired computer tech regrets telling everyone of the Bitcoin treasure trove". Talk about bad financial decisions.
- lcuff 13y agoSo, I can feel bummed for the guy, but my understanding of what happened here is that he accidentally threw out something incredibly valuable. Don't blame the victim for his stupidity, but don't feel required to reimburse him, either.
- ams6110 13y agoThere's a fair chance the drive is unreadable. Exposed to the elements, and when trash is put in a landfill it's not just dumped, it's mixed with earth and pushed around with bulldozers. I would not be surprised if it has been crushed. But who knows?
- acomjean 13y agoIts probably all right. I worked in landfills and dug up old trash in expanding a site. Unopened glass soda bottles from 30 years ago, books in great condition, metal lunch boxes in great shape. The lack of moisture means it just sits there. It depends on how deep it was buried when it came off the truck and it survived the first pass at burying. "Does anyone have a power adapter for this notebook? the battery is dead...."
- Jagat 13y agoMore than that, there would be tons of metals. The magnetic field generated would be enough to destroy any remaining data in the hdd.
- incision 13y agoI have a 50 BTC wallet encrypted with a password I can't remember. Been meaning to figure out how to script something to run through variations on the type of password I would have used.
- citricsquid 13y agoTalk to these guys, they're highly regarded in r/bitcoin and you can do it without compromising access to the coins: http://www.walletrecoveryservices.com/ http://www.walletrecoveryservices.com/
- incision 13y agoInteresting. I'll have to give that a look. I figured someone would have come up with a service like this.
- ericb 13y agoThere are some people who believe a realistic value for bitcoin in the success scenario could be circa 1 million dollars (if it were to partially supplant gold or USD). As a thought experiment, if I google for landfill prices, I see prices like 40 million dollars for a landfill. So if you can mine one hard drive in that scenario, landfills should be massively more valuable.
- acomjean 13y agoPeople throw away money all the time. I used to do landfill design. Summers were spent on sites doing inspections. My former boss tells the story someone came looking for trash from a specific location. They ask, did anyone see metal box? They went to look for it and couldn't find it. Asked what was in the box, the response was "Money, a lot of money..." If you throw something away by mistake your only chance is to get to the landfill before the truck does and hope they'll dump in a separate area you can pick through.
- Datsundere 13y agoThe more people loose bitcoins, the more expensive it will get too.
- vijayboyapati 13y agoIronically, some real mining might be needed to get those bitcoins back!
- dnyce 13y agoABCs of the data society we live in...Always Be Copying... your own data.. "Cmon son".
- mangotree 13y agoI feel bad for you son, I've got 99 problems but a non backed up HDD ain't one.
- TomGullen 13y agoOffer a £1m cash reward to landfill owner
- georgemcbay 13y agoThe original owner has less of a legal claim to the harddrive than the landfill owner, so if the landfill owner were to find it why would he return it for 1/4th the value?
- boyter 13y agoIf its encrypted like the guy says it is there is little chance of getting the coins anyway. If he can crack the encryption then why not just crack the largest wallets instead.
- bane 13y agoEventually over time, once all the bitcoins are mined and out and about in the world. They'll get lost for various reasons. Is there a way to recover these lost bitcoins and return them to circulation or is the artificial scarcity of bitcoins going to turn into real scarcity and drive up prices even more?
- adventured 13y agoThe short answer is, no. A digital currency could be designed with this in mind, but it would seemingly require an official ownership registry or something equally effective on identification (if you can't prove loss, you can't return them to circulation). Much like with physical currencies, or gold, the reduction of outstanding supply increases the value for everyone else holding. There's no across-the-board right argument to whether that's a good thing or not.
- Jtsummers 13y agoThe bitcoin network demonstrated that with enough cooperation they can fix some issues (see the blockchain fork from a while back). However, as adventured said, there's no way to verify that any individual bitcoins in an old address are actually lost. Unless that address is strongly associated with you (very, very strongly) you can't simply assert that it's a lost address (especially since you can't use it anymore to send anything as verification). It's quite possible, especially with the way some people are using cold wallets/paper wallets, that a lot of inactive addresses are just people waiting for the value to go up (invest and forget). Or people who got a bitnickel from a faucet a couple years ago and have the wallet, but haven't found a use for it yet.
- nnq 13y agoSearching for it would give a whole new meaning to "bitcoin mining"...
- rcthompson 13y agoSo, this raises an interesting question for me. Since the total supply of Bitcoins is limited by design, doesn't every forgotten or lost Bitcoin reduce the total supply? In other words, suppose, hypothetically, that after all Bitcoins have been mined, I bought them all, stored them on a hard drive (with no backup, obviously), and then destroyed that hard drive (let's say I threw it into a black hole). Does Bitcoin still exist?
- tedunangst 13y agoMore plausible scenario: Bill Gates converts all his wealth to bitcoin, as will inevitably happen when bitcoin overtakes the dollar. He dies, but forgets to put his password in the will. oops. Normally, if a rich person dies without a will (or without specifying their bank password), there are legal procedures for the heirs to fight it out in court and collect. With bitcoin, poof, it's gone.
- PeterisP 13y agoWell, just as if you buy a pile of gold, bury it someplace deep and obscure, and forget to tell your heirs where exactly it is. You may happen to 'find' the bitcoin keys with some forensics, or it may never be found.
- tedunangst 13y agoIndeed. I wouldn't recommend Bill Gates keep all his wealth in gold, either.
- MAGZine 13y agoYes. The lost currency is essentially removed from the pool. The result is deflation--because there is less supply, the currency is worth more. Goods cost the same, so the bitcoin value for a certain product/service drops. At least this is what economics would seem to dictate. You can send tiny partitions of bitcoin, so it's really easy to send a millionth of a bitcoin, where if $40t disappeared from the USD, you can't give 1/1,000,000 of a dollar (not that you would anyhow, since you can't irreversibly dispose money--you just print more)
- bafjohnson 13y agoI have misplaced Bitcoins currently worth in excess of $700,000 / £430,000. They were purchased a couple of years back. I've not even started the search for them properly as I know how gutted I will feel if I definitely can't find them. At the end of the day, it's only money and there's always time to make more. Time is the one thing of which we have a finite amount!
- wlievens 13y agoErr, with more money you'll have to spend less time on making money you know :-)
- ep103 13y agoIf I lost 700,000$ of anything, I'm fairly certain I would quit work and devote myself to finding them. I mean, even if I spent a year doing it, that's a larger rate of potential return than anything I'll see in my lifetime.