I meant stolen computing resources. By the owner of 3Emiwzxme7Mrj4d89uqohXNncnRM15YESs. It's not a business...

It makes you wonder what kind of person would leave it unspent for more than a year... My guess? Either someone who doesn’t need money, because anyone who’s ever wanted to buy a car or whatever, would have spent at least some of it right away. Or someone scared as s**t, since they've used stolen resources. In that case, they might think they’re being watched — and... they’re probably not wrong. Bitcoin is not untraceable since txns are on a public ledger. Even the best get trapped once they start spending...

So it's more likely this isn’t someone honest who spent all his f*****g savings to rent GPUs and prayed every night... This is someone who knows he’ll be in deep trouble the moment he starts cashing out.

Anyone knows if pubKeys of range 2^120 -2^121 have been saved somewhere? Even for lower ranges like 2^118-2^119 if available. I understand there might be Kangaroo work files already saved in this range? We are trialling something at the college and I remember reading about this but can't find the post anymore. Reward is possible for verified files.

Interesting...seeking legal advice and avoiding exchanges... However, how does one convert the coins from these puzzles into spendable cash without an exchange? And it’s somewhat disappointing not being able to spend it all at once if one wishes to, minus taxes and so forth. I haven’t found any legal provision that clarifies the management of bitcoins you ‘find’, or earn from solving a puzzle, or inherit... especially if you aren’t one of the big whales, who I suspect have their systems in place already )

No. This may be true for keeping the coins for your grandkids. But people usually want to use them to buy real stuff, like houses or cars. Saying “my keys, my coins” when someone asks where your $2 million is from? That just sounds silly.

Also, this idea that having a key means ownership has its limits. If I steal someone's key, does that make it legally mine? Definitely not. This argument doesn’t hold up in the real world; it only proves a cryptographic relationship and virtual proof of access.

I may be lacking some understanding on this matter—can anyone clarify? Let's hypothetically say someone has the ‘luck’ or the means to resolve these puzzles and acquire the BTC. Is this presumed to be legal, and if so, to what extent? Suppose the fortunate individual or team decides to convert it to fiat. How feasible is this, practically speaking? Is selling the BTC to platforms like Coinbase and then transferring to your bank a viable option? I don't think we can realistically expect that BOA, Wells Fargo, etc will overlook a client suddenly receiving hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of dollars... And there’s the potential of platforms like Coinbase restricting high-value transfers. This might work for smaller amounts, but some of these addresses are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars each.

Returning to the legal bit, how does one justify these funds? Informing the IRS that it was a giveaway from a random forum user is bound to raise eyebrows, right?

I'm not intending to discourage anyone; I'm genuinely curious about how such a substantial BTC to fiat exchange would occur without legal repercussions...

Yes, it seems that quite a few here are making false claims. Especially when it comes to improving the speed of BitCrack or KeyHunt outside of what is already available on GitHub. We haven't seen any actual proof yet, even for small test ranges like 2^45 despite even offering cash rewards. Just a fair warning for others out there.

Hello! I have a few inquiries that I hope you can address when you have a moment.

1. Is this the tool you've mentioned it has a 900% speed improvement? https://github.com/albertobsd/keyhunt
2. When employing the bsgs mode, does it concurrently search for all the points listed in the .txt file?
3. Similarly, when using the x point mode, does it perform a simultaneous search for all the points in the .txt file?

Should the answer to either question 2 or 3 be affirmative, would it be possible for you to develop a custom feature for me? Instead of .txt files, I am interested in a database-like system that can accommodate a large volume of points. For such an arrangement, we are willing to pay 50% of the agreed fee upfront, with the remainder to be paid upon successful testing on our side. If interested we can discuss via private message. For the sake of transparency, I want to mention that we have reached out to other developers with a similar request in the past.

BP

There is no such thing as 'division' on EC points. But your efforts are getting closer to an understanding.

Given a point P on an EC, with G as a generator on the curve, and k as the secret scalar so that k*G=P, we can try and find k using Modular Inversion (not division).

Choose a random number k₂ so that P*(k₂^^-1%n) gives you a point P₂ on the same curve.

We know that P₂ can also be the result of some other unkown scalar, let's call it k₃, where k₃*G=P₂.

IF AND ONLY IF k₂ is a divisor with no remainder of k, THEN k₂*k₃=k

*Find k₃ using something like Pollard's kangaroo on P₂(x,y) to solve k - only possible if k₃ is small of course.


Exemplification and proof


k=45487748454224151829376801203708731704859664260873605888712451703154788855856

P(x,y)=(10053685140205676278799957889590673151335008206090829831680224379203557168306, 4791849545765797566764759476528403966287896066924010656116759518571082174095)

k₂=29067368096886031192247117546360432506854781537574226047992899174

P*(k₂^-1%n)=P₂(x,y)=(4091563663952832524301734215298365027000606967193056236423486827624564787617,13486322253259545937968834971886446900575284808236467273248905944659764682801)

k₃=1564907710344

k₃*G=P₂

k₃*k₂=k



BP

We cannot expect for a general understanding of online threats. Each individual is responsible for doing [or not] their own due diligence. Yet, I believe your advice should be taken very, very seriously.

Certainly not everyone working with open source has suspicious intentions. In fact, many are doing a lot of good when working with open code.

But surely there must be an educational front, where people can at least grasp some ideas of what harm could be hidden within a compiled release. Others more advanced can easily bypass any malware when running such files.

The safest way to proceed is probably to compile from source. And if that's not possible, then there should be some trust when it comes to shared releases.

BP

"The people of Israel are evil [...] finish them off now" - This is how this thread begins.

The problem here is not the title of the thread. Rather it is the difference between a State and its citizens. This discussion starts by asking to "finish off" the people of a certain country. It doesn't even matter what country. What matters is the clear instigation to violence which goes against forum rules even if we employ a more liberal interpretation.

Rule #8: No threats to inflict bodily harm, death threats.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=703657.0

I have the greatest respect for the people in charge of this forum. I hope they will see how this thread is breaking quite a few rules as established here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=703657.0

Any cordial, political discussion should always be welcomed. But to call for a nation to be 'finished off' on a public forum is something else.

 

The main problem we are dealing with when trying to understand what a ‘famous’ individual like Elon is really after, can be diverged in two paths.

One is the public show, their charismatic approach to various subjects. Their ‘cool’ and 'crazy' behavioural and social presence. The second path we could take relates to pure finances – gains and losses.

Let’s try the first path.

Once we identify an individual as having not only a nice presence / charisma but also a strong background of accomplishments, we tend to agree with them. This is natural and has to do with our ancestors, long story. But the reality is that all of this can be incredibly deceptive, and we can easily fall into actual traps.

The second path we could take begins with asking the right questions. Not exteriorly at first, but within ourselves. For example, why would someone so famous who works in a completely different area i.e. engineering, would say the things they are saying about something like Bitcoin? What can they gain from their actions and what can we loose if we follow them? 

Instead of jumping to read whatever a 'cool and rich' guy shares online, we should try and understand how valuable TIME is for them. Time spent on their efforts/tweets is not random, it is most likely calculated. It is time they could have spent gaining something, doing some other stuff. But don’t trust me, trust yourself. Look carefully and you will realise that he is actually paying attention to almost every reply and every mention as he is acknowledging some quite often. That is A LOT of time for someone who gave interviews and said he doesn't have time for his own kids and he sleeps at the Tesla factory working till late am. But he does have time to comment and even reverse his opinions on specific crypto coins. So those actions of his must have some really important meanings.

Let’s try and scrutinize more. Let’s try and be more confident in our own judgment. And if we are not, let’s learn some more stuff and become more confident.

BP

A lot has been said so far but here's my two cents on what you could try.


1. Try to access any of his other passwords. Laptop, PC, paper trail. Try to find physical evidence. See if the same passwords were used on multiple platforms.

2. Is there anyone closer to him than you? Can you ask them if the password was shared? What was their fav thing? Any children? DOB's? Loved places...

3. Forget about brute forcing unless you are convinced that the password is only a few chars long.

4. Don't trust people offering you any recovery service. Unless they are group of verifiable scientists - there might be a few willing to try and help.

5. Learn if the wallet has actually anything of value in it. Check bank statements for deposits to exchanges. He might have bought some coins and transferred them for safe keeping. If you can access an exchange on his behalf you can find the receiving/withdraw  address and check if it has any unspent funds.


Good luck!

BP