Security Firm Claims to Unlock USB with 7000 Bitcoin but Owner Declines Help
Security Firm Claims to Unlock USB with 7000 Bitcoin but Owner Declines Help
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Security Firm Claims to Unlock USB with 7000 Bitcoin but Owner Declines Help
Stefan Thomas acquired 7,002 bitcoins over a decade ago in exchange for helping create animated videos about the emerging cryptocurrency.
The programmer stored the digital currency on a highly encrypted USB drive known as IronKey and wrote the password on a piece of paper for safekeeping.
However, that piece of paper eventually went missing, locking away this stash of cryptocurrency within a USB drive ever since.
To make matters worse, IronKey devices have a built-in mechanism that only allows 10 password guesses before its contents are destroyed.
In 2021, Thomas told The New York Times that he had only two more guesses left.
The story did not end there, though, and it took a peculiar turn.
Around the same time, a team of hackers and cryptographers established a company called Unciphered, dedicated to cracking the locked drive Thomas possessed.
In early 2023, they embarked on the mission they referred to as the “Mount Everest Plan,” assuming that Thomas had a similar device.
Slowly but surely, the team discovered chinks in the armor – some seemingly sloppy code or less than ideal coding practices. They acquired all available samples of the aging devices and used high-end technologies like CT scanners to reverse-engineer the drives, even creating a full 3D model of the secure enclave within. In July, their efforts paid off as the team successfully read the decrypted contents of the IronKey drive for the first time.
“We’ve just summited Mount Everest,” proclaimed Eric Michaud, the CEO of Unciphered.
Since then, the team has unlocked the IronKey devices over a thousand times (all non-destructively) and even demonstrated it three times to the media outlet Wired. With such a success rate, one might expect Thomas to eagerly strike a deal with Unciphered and finally access his bitcoins. However, that’s not the case.
According to Wired, Unciphered contacted Thomas through a mutual colleague, but Thomas politely declined their assistance. In an email to the publication, Thomas stated that he was already working with another group of experts on the recovery effort and was unable to negotiate with others at this time. “If the current team believes this is the best path, they might decide to subcontract Unciphered,” he added. “We’ll have to wait and see.”
It’s worth noting that Thomas may not be particularly hurt by the financial loss. In a 2021 New York Times article, he mentioned that he already held enough bitcoins (and hadn’t lost the passwords) to the point where “the wealth he’d acquired was overwhelming.”
Given the current value of Bitcoin at approximately $34,300 per coin, as of the time of writing, the bitcoins locked in Thomas’s USB drive are worth over $2.4 billion.
