
Show HN: Lost BTC wallet password? We might be able to help - dolfje
https://uwsoftware.be/index.php/bitcoin-recovery-service/
======
fiatjaf
When I set my first BTC wallet in 2011 I was basically illiterate in computer
things. The wallet software told me to create a very hard password, which I
did, I thought of a very long password, however memorable -- and I remember it
to this day.

I thought my bitcoins were safe because I had remembered that long password (I
have probably written it on paper somewhere also), just to discover, 2 years
later, that it was worthless without the wallet file that hold my private key,
which was washed down the toiled after a Windows breakdown followed by a full
computer format (the default solution to all things Windows).

Why didn't the wallet software let me know I had to take care of that single
file remains a mistery to me. Why did it put so much focus on the hardness of
that password, that would only protect my wallet from my family and my dogs,
is beyond my imagination.

\---

Ok, in fact I imagine the password was used to somehow encrypt my secret key
so viruses of all kinds wouldn't be able to read it. I, despite being
illiterate, understood more of computer things than anybody nearby and had at
that time the only Windows computer without a virus in the whole town,
probably, so maybe the software should have been clearer to me.

I would prefer to memorize or store my secret key in paper, thank you, than to
keep a vulnerable file on my computer, or to memorize a worthless password.

~~~
quickthrower2
Electrum lets you do this. You create a seed of about 10 words. Write them
down and you can delete the wallet. I tested this. The issue in 10 years time
might be that the original wallet source is lost so at least keep a copy of
the exe.

------
googletazer
What prevents you from running away with the money? There isn't a contact page
with real people on it, nor a registered business in the background, I
suppose?

~~~
dolfje
We cannot walk away with the mony, because we never have access to the full
funds. We let the users send a partial wallet only containing the bits needed
to check if we have bruteforced the wallet. But without the actual private
keys. So therefor we cannot scam our clients. There is a real registered
company behind it. USW bvba. We exists already for 5 year HQ Brussels, mostly
in creating software solutions. As we did have the knowledge about Bitcoins,
we wanted to help lessen the sad stories of Bitcoins (e.g. we have lost our
Bitcoins)

------
swarnie_
This would require me to submit known passwords around the time i lost my
wallet and details of the variations i use.

I'll need a week to reset every other password i use first.

~~~
dolfje
You are correct. That is also something I tell the clients before they are
providing the passwords. That they should make sure that all their passwords
are changed. Even so, never reuse your password for Bitcoins as they are too
valuable.

------
matt_the_bass
Cool idea. HN readers are probably not your target audience, but I’m sure
there are lots of non-tech-savvy bitcoin owners who could be.

~~~
dolfje
Good point, but you never know. Also first pitching to tech savvy people. As
we try to reduce the scammy part (not a lot of business really trying to
recover the coins for the customer). Thus any advice is welcome ;)

------
_maverick_
There is a free tool to do this on your own without trusting anyone else:

[https://github.com/peterjkrey/bitcoin_recover](https://github.com/peterjkrey/bitcoin_recover)

~~~
dolfje
Definitely helpfull as other tools. But this recovers the secret key only if
you didn't add a password to your wallet. Also we provide a service, because
not everybody knows the inner workings of Bitcoin. Luckily we have a lot of
these tools for tech savvy people. We also pledge to send Bitcoins to the
third party tools that we use while recovering!

------
orliesaurus
This very vaguely reminds me of the rainbowcrack services back in the day!

------
bluesign
"Thus we created mechanism of extracting the information we need from the
wallet to verify the password, but without actually sending the full wallet. "

how this part works, can you explain?

~~~
dolfje
In you wallet, not all addresses have budget. But they are still encrypted. So
we can check the decryption phase with parts of the wallet that have no coins.

~~~
bluesign
Sorry but it doesn't make sense:

You are getting a percentage, 15%

\- how you will know how much BTC I have, only thing I am giving you is one
empty address, no?

~~~
dolfje
That part is based on trust. Most clients are happy enough that we have
recovered their funds and are also doing their end of the deal. If there are
to much clients not doing their end, then we will have to scratch the partial
wallet deal. But at the moment we didn't have any client rejecting the fee.

~~~
bluesign
Wishing you good luck, sounds like totally legit, even trusting service, I
will refer in the future for sure.

