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Remember the Bitcoin landfill guy?

Wrexis

Wrexis

Member
Nov 4, 2017
21,253
Seems he's gone full Captain Ahab.

gizmodo.com

Bitcoin Dumpster Guy Has a Wild Plan to Rescue Millions in Crypto From a Landfill

James Howells said he’ll use Boston Dynamics robotic dogs to scan for a drive containing a passcode to 8,000 bitcoin, worth nearly $176 million.
gizmodo.com gizmodo.com

Former IT worker James Howells—who once stood on the very forefront of the crypto boom and could have been a multimillionaire—is desperate to scour a UK landfill located in Newport, Wales where he might find a missing drive that contains the passcode for a crypto wallet containing 8,000 bitcoin, worth close to $176 million as of writing. Howells said he accidentally dumped the wrong hard drive back in 2013.
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Howell said he has a foolproof scheme to rescue his bitcoin from an actual trash pile. He's put together an $11 million business plan which he'll use to get investors and the Newport City Council on board to help excavate the landfill. His proposal would require them to dig through 110,000 tons of trash over three years. A $6 million version of the plan would go over 18 months. A video hosted by Top Gear alum Richard Hammond said the bitcoin "proponent" has already reportedly secured funding from two Euro-based venture capitalists Hanspeter Jaberg and Karl Wendeborn, if Howells can get approval from the local government.
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But wait, there's more!

The garbage would be sorted at a separate pop-up facility near the landfill using human pickers and an AI system used to spot that hard drive amidst all that other refuse. He's even brought on eight experts in artificial intelligence, excavation, waste management, and data extraction, all to find a lone hard drive in a trash pile.

The plan also involves making use of the Boston Dynamics robotic dogs. The former IT worker told reporters the machines could be used as security and CCTV cameras to scan the ground, looking for the hard drive. When they were released, each "Spot" robot model cost $74,500. Even with that price tag, Howells said he already has names for the two. Insider reported he would name one Satoshi, named after Satoshi Nakamoto, the person or group behind the white paper that first proposed bitcoin back in 2008. The other one would be named "Hal"—no, not that HAL—but Hal Finney, the first person to receive a bitcoin transaction.
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The city council has not wanted anything to do with Howells since he first came to them with his plight.
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I'm trying to figure out his angle here or if he's just gone nuts.
 
LegalEagleMike

LegalEagleMike

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
2,455
zBGeYN.gif
 
HomerSimpson-Man

HomerSimpson-Man

Member
Oct 30, 2017
3,629
Bruh.

9 years in a land fill? For a mechanical hard drive? That thing is far gone even if by some miracle he found it.
 
Lightning Count

Lightning Count

Member
Jan 27, 2019
16,080
Fuck off
Desperately digging through garbage is a great metaphor for the scam that is crypto.

Also good luck finding the drive after all this it's go to be under several million tonnes of rubbish by now.
 
Smitington

Smitington

Member
Oct 27, 2017
635
Denver
I don't understand why the city council is so opposed to this. Just name a price and be done with it. If someone really wants to dig through trash and is willing to accept costs and liability for doing so go for it.
 
Cantaim

Cantaim

Member
Oct 25, 2017
33,371
The Stussining
It's spent almost a decade in a landfill exposed to all the elements of nature essentially. Would the drive even work anymore and if it didn't could it even be repaired?
 
McSmiggins

McSmiggins

Member
Oct 28, 2017
113
"Former IT worker James Howells"

Didn't back up a hard drive worth 176 million..... sounds about right.

As for the data itself, don't forget they pulled data off the hard drives that where on the Space Shuttle Columbia when they found them on the ground.
 
Krakatoa

Krakatoa

Prophet of Regret
Member
Oct 29, 2017
3,093
what about if it didn't even get to the landfill and went to a recycling plant. As painful as it must be it's time to move on.
 
Vapelord

Vapelord

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,832
Montreal
Current IT worker chirping in. I don't buy for a second that this HD is the sole way to access this crypto wallet. Someone stole the contents of that wallet years ago and its long gone.
 
hobblygobbly

hobblygobbly

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,575
NORDFRIESLAND, DEUTSCHLAND
i know people wanna rip into this guy, but realistically, if you understand how mechanical hard drives work and how you can access data, and given that it's a landfill, the chances of recovering the data is actually quite significant.

if it hasn't been directly exposed to the elements, and if it physically wasn't broken, there's a very good chances of recovering that data, especially if it's buried. in other words if its magnetic field strength is good then there's a high % of sectors that are recoverable

the thing is its a gamble whether or not it has been preserved in a good state in the landfill. if for example it was buried underground with a lot of trash above it, it's actually pretty reasonable. it's all about the fields/tape. depending on the housing, if water hasn't got in to corrode the platters itself, it's good a good chance.
 
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The Albatross

The Albatross

Member
Oct 25, 2017
39,046
Cantaim said:
It's spent almost a decade in a landfill exposed to all the elements of nature essentially. Would the drive even work anymore and if it didn't could it even be repaired?
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Physically damaged drives are usually somewhat easier to pull data from than one that's been intentionally wiped by professional/industrial deleting software. At least, if $150m is on the line, they'll usually find a way.

Titanpaul said:
Yeah this is nonsense. The drive, if it even exists in that landfill, and in a drive-like form, is beyond dead.
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Really? Hmm, my impression was that with the right tools and money most data that hasn't been professionally/industrially wiped is usually retrievable. We're a talking about yknow, $150m, and so spending several hundred thousand to recover even a portion of that would probably be economically feasible.

Most recommendations on hard drive integrity don't really apply for industrial grade, multi-million dollar worth of data.
 
Starwing

Starwing

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 31, 2018
4,122
Assuming that its still even there in one piece, would the drive even work or be recoverable after nearly a decade of being exposed to whatever hazardous material is caked up in while under the elements?
 
L Thammy

L Thammy

Spacenoid
Member
Oct 25, 2017
50,054
hobblygobbly said:
i know people wanna rip into this guy, but realistically, if you understand how mechanical hard drives work and how you can access data, and given that it's a landfill, the chances of recovering the data is actually quite significant.

if it hasn't been directly exposed to the elements, and if it physically wasn't broken, there's a very good chances of recovering that data, especially if it's buried. in other words if its magnetic field strength is good then there's a high % of sectors that are recoverable

the thing is its a gamble whether or not it has been preserved in a good state in the landfill. if for example it was buried underground, it's actually pretty reasonable. it's all about the fields/tape
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It isn't so much that I don't think it's possible, it's that I enjoy the idea of a guy spending millions of dollars to search for the scam money that he accidentally threw out.

It's like the villain's defeat at the end of a kids' movie.
 
Poppy

Poppy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
18,273
richmond, va
it's funny that i still have a hard drive from 2006 because it has a photo of my first ragnaros kill in wow on it and i managed to keep that over 4 cross country moves but this guy couldnt even commit to safeguarding his monopoly money investment
 

Deleted member 95442

User-requested account closure
Banned
Apr 26, 2021
1,800
We all have been there where we lost a file and want it back. I still keep looking for my Fallout 4 save.
 
sangreal

sangreal

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
10,890
I have every hard drive I've ever owned, going back 30+ years. Data hoarding redeemed

Too bad I thought bitcoin was overpriced when it hit $1
 
kradical

kradical

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
6,570
Vapelord said:
Current IT worker chirping in. I don't buy for a second that this HD is the sole way to access this crypto wallet. Someone stole the contents of that wallet years ago and its long gone.
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I'm sure you're a great IT worker, but this makes no sense. Anyone who wants to can see easily exactly how much bitcoin is or isn't still in the wallet - that's the entire point of blockchain. The keys are needed to do anything with it.
 
Ferrio

Ferrio

Member
Oct 25, 2017
18,076
Starwing said:
Assuming that its still even there in one piece, would the drive even work or be recoverable after nearly a decade of being exposed to whatever hazardous material is caked up in while under the elements?
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With enough money ya. The problem with recovering drives that have gone through hell is it isn't easy or cheap. In this case that's not much a problem if they actually found it.
 
Merv

Merv

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,465
Damn good luck.

My wife accidentally threw her phone away. We were able to meet the truck that had her phone at the dump and had a good idea where in the dumped pile our stuff was. We even found our neighbors trash. Never found the phone after about an hour of sifting.
 
sangreal

sangreal

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
10,890
Vapelord said:
Current IT worker chirping in. I don't buy for a second that this HD is the sole way to access this crypto wallet. Someone stole the contents of that wallet years ago and its long gone.
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Why? 1) you could easily see if it still contains bitcoins and 2) there wouldn't be anything weird (albeit ill-advised) about someone storing their key on their HDD. Bitcoins used to be worthless so there are tons of lost high-value wallets out there.
 
Dyle

Dyle

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
29,948
If they had started looking immediately in 2014 when he first contacted the city there's a chance they could have found it and for it to still be functional. But 8+ years later? No way in hell could they ever hope to win the lottery finding it and for the data to still be retrievable
 
InvisibleMan

InvisibleMan

Member
Oct 27, 2017
139
Is this the same guy who had his Bitcoin wallet stored on an encrypted HDD and he only had 10 tries to decrypt before it essentially became a paperweight?
 
big_z

big_z

Member
Nov 2, 2017
7,797
Even in the chance that hard drive isn't dead from heat/cold, moisture and pressure odds of finding it is going to be slim. You would have to sort all that trash by hand as doing it by machine would risk destroying the drive.

But watch this guy end up being a hoarder and the drive has been behind his desk the whole time.
 
Protome

Protome

Member
Oct 27, 2017
15,697
Wrexis said:
Seems he's gone full Captain Ahab.

gizmodo.com

Bitcoin Dumpster Guy Has a Wild Plan to Rescue Millions in Crypto From a Landfill

James Howells said he’ll use Boston Dynamics robotic dogs to scan for a drive containing a passcode to 8,000 bitcoin, worth nearly $176 million.
gizmodo.com gizmodo.com

But wait, there's more!

I'm trying to figure out his angle here or if he's just gone nuts.
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I mean, the angle is clearly that he gets to rip a bunch of money off of venture capitalists and underpay people to sort through trash for him.
Then if by some miracle he finds it he'll be super rich, but even if he doesn't he'll have the money he got from the VCs 🤷‍♀️

The "I'll buy Boston Dynamics dogs" shit is just glitter to get the press to pick it up because nobody cares about a man trying to pay people to rummage through a landfill.

Like all cryptobros and their shit, it's scams all the way down. It's all they know how to do.
 
Tavernade

Tavernade

Tavernade
Moderator
Sep 18, 2018
8,635
How does one throw away the wrong hard drive? Like, maybe I'm forgetting what a hard drive is all of a sudden, but it's kind of an important thing? Did he toss it on trash day and then by time he went inside and turned on his PC he discovered he'd… put the bad hard drive back into the computer and threw the wrong one out? Was he building a new one and didn't test it all first?

Like, I have all my hard drives going back 15-20 years I think.
 
Jakenbakin

Jakenbakin

Member
Jun 17, 2018
11,835
Kind of a brilliant plan to get an these experts and venture capitalists that can stand to profit from essentially giving the dude a loan if it works out. I respect the hustle, and honestly even though I've always been fiercely anti crypto and Blockchain blah blah, the nightmare of knowing you have this fortune that you can't access is a nightmare and I hope he pulls it off. I went pretty nuts trying to access a wallet because I had the vague feeling I might have had a Bitcoin for novelty sake from back in the day before calling it quits. But millions and millions of dollars, damn.
 
hobblygobbly

hobblygobbly

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,575
NORDFRIESLAND, DEUTSCHLAND
L Thammy said:
It isn't so much that I don't think it's possible, it's that I enjoy the idea of a guy spending millions of dollars to search for the scam money that he accidentally threw out.

It's like the villain's defeat at the end of a kids' movie.
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true lol, but realistically speaking this guy has a higher chance of recovering that data than people playing the lottery or gambling at casinos
 
DekuBleep

DekuBleep

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,712
How does he know someone else hasn't already found the hard drive. I mean there is $176 million in it… used to be almost half a billion. That's a lot of motivation!
 
kradical

kradical

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
6,570
DekuBleep said:
How does he know someone else hasn't already found the hard drive. I mean there is $176 million in it… used to be almost half a billion. That's a lot of motivation!
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I'm sure he's keeping a close eye on the contents of the wallet. If someone has already found the drive and recovered the keys, they haven't yet tried to move any bitcoin.
 
take_marsh

take_marsh

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,284
Commence "Operation Find My Money".

I dream of the guy who finds it and just pockets it. Or stomps it. That would legit make me laugh. Shoe on the other foot, I'd be pretty mad though.
 
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