Uhmmmm, I think asking for permission might be in order. A mean, his talking about excavation and probably that would be him altering the site and possibly, the suspension of further dumping of dirt on that site.
Again, its a really serious one from what's his offering and I'm also supposing he doesn't have the resources to get the work going and would need the help of his city in funding the process too. A process that could be said to be a high stake probability of success looking back to the time this hard drive was dumped (8years+). So much for a rash action!
I've read an article from last year about
this guy and there was a company that offered to excavate for him. They have heavy equipment and were ready to strike a deal.
They'd look for free and if they were to find it he'd give them half of the coins. I feel like the biggest problem here is all that red tape.
Also was thinking since it was 10 years ago, ssd drives were in existence then so it might be one of those that have their data collected on the drive differently and I think last longer and in harsher conditions than one with moving parts.
SSD data is much harder to recover. Unlike HDD, an SSD data can be completely wiped and it's much easier to damage the memory chip than a metal plate inside a metal case.
Never tried to recover a hard drive so wouldn't know which hardware would be more difficult to recover. But if all resources were available to do it, I would assume anything is possible to get the data. Just look at what the police and interpol's forensic departments can do when they are investigating anything related to cyber crime.
You wouldn't happen to have reference to this article about the company wanting to do the excavation for free and splitting the coins?
Didn't hear about this offer to the victim before.