Startup Unciphered has developed a secret cracking technique and claims it can help the owner of a USB containing 7,002 Bitcoins recover his password.
According to Wired, Unciphered engineers have developed an IronKey S200 password-cracking technique that they claim will unlock a wallet containing 7,002 Bitcoins.
Kingston IronKey S200 is a USB that combines hardware and software security, which is programmed to erase all content after 10 incorrect password entries. But Unciphered engineers have developed a secret IronKey password cracking technique that gives them virtually limitless entry attempts
editor To test this claim, Wired sent an IronKey S200 to Unciphered with a 3-word password. The team returned the results the next morning with a description of the billion-time entry process using a high-performance computer.
However, the focus of Unciphered is a specific IronKey USB containing up to 7,002 Bitcoins with a value of about 235 million USD, currently stored in a Swiss bank. The device belongs to Stefan Thomas, this crypto entrepreneur has forgotten his password and only has 2 attempts left before his assets are permanently erased
However, according to Wired, Thomas did not seem to want to receive help. Unciphered reached out to Thomas, assuring the company of the company’s IronKey unlocking capabilities. However, Thomas refused because he said he had been in agreement with two other jailbreaking teams a year earlier. He also pledged to give both of them a portion of the proceeds if either team was able to unlock it.
The Unciphered situation is quite strange as the company holds the most valuable key cracking tool in the cryptocurrency world, but has no key to open it. Thomas said he had been working with another team of experts on the recovery process, so there was no time to negotiate with someone new. There is also a possibility that the current team could decide to sub-contract to Unciphered if they feel that is the best option.
In previous interviews, Thomas said his 7,002 Bitcoins were the remaining funds from a payment he received for making a video titled “What is Bitcoin?”, published on YouTube in early In 2011, 1 Bitcoin was worth less than 1 USD. At the end of 2011, Thomas said he accidentally deleted two backup copies of the wallet containing thousands of cryptocurrency coins and lost the piece of paper containing the password to decrypt the third copy – stored on IronKey. At that time, his lost money was worth nearly 140,000 USD