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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
James Howells, a British IT worker, mined over 7,500 Bitcoins back in 2009, when they were worth next to nothing. Now a single Bitcoin is worth nearly $100,000, valuing his stash at well over $700 million. Unfortunately, Howells accidentally threw the hard drive he stored the key on in the trash. He has a scheme to get that money back, according to The Guardian. He wants to buy the landfill where it could be buried and dig it up.
Howells doesn’t exactly know where the hard drive is, but has a solid guess based on when he tossed it in the trash. He has it narrowed down to a particular section of a South Wales landfill that houses 15,000 metric tons of waste. The landfill is approaching maximum capacity, so Howells wants to buy it off the city. Officials have warned that the hard drive is “buried under 25,000 cubic meters of waste and earth” as it has been there for almost 12 years.
While the city hasn’t made a final decision, it doesn’t look good for Howells and his “needle in a haystack” plan. There are serious ecological dangers to haphazardly digging up a landfill. The excavation process would be risky and costly. Afterward, the landfill would have to be resealed, another expensive project. The city also has plans to build a solar farm on part of the land.
Finally, there’s the hard drive itself. Would there be anything recoverable after laying underneath tons and tons of trash for 12 years? It seems highly unlikely, though Howells and his investors must have some serious data retrieval specialists standing by.
[...] This is just the latest attempt by Howells to treat the landfill like an archaeological dig site, looking for his lost fortune. He’s been at this for over a decade. In 2017, he pleaded with the city to allow him to dig and officials said no, citing safety concerns and a fear of inciting treasure hunters to descend upon the landfill with shovels.
In 2021, he tried to sweeten the pot by offering the city 25 percent of the recovered Bitcoin. Once again, the city said no. In 2022, Howells came up with a particularly bizarre scheme that involved sending in Boston Dynamics robot dogs to do the digging. You can imagine what the city said to that one (it was no.)
There was another attempt to turn the landfill into a mining facility, which didn’t gain traction. Finally, Howells decided to sue the city of Newport for the right to go traipsing around in the landfill like a really gross, poop-encrusted Indiana Jones. A judge put the kibosh on the lawsuit, ruling that the case had “no realistic prospect of succeeding.”
Previously:
• High Court Ruling Ends Man's Hopes of Recovering $750M Bitcoin Hard Drive From a Welsh Landfill
• UK Man Sues City Over Discarded Bitcoin-filled Hard Drive
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Gaaark on Sunday February 16 2025, @09:06PM (6 children)
I knew a guy who went after the Canadian 'Tax Man', over a loop-hole he had discovered. They said he needed to pay taxes on something and he said he didn't.
He spent all his free time putting together his case and fighting it. He had retired and had no life except for this 'fight'.
Then he died. The fight was over about $1500 dollars.
Retired, had no life.
This British guy is taking a huge gamble and spending all his time on this. Yes the payout would be big if he could recover even half, unless of course his out-lay is significant, but...
...is this guy enjoying life?
Is he surrounded by anyone loving him? Wanting to spend time with him? Does he travel, enjoy life, make others happy?
Sounds like a net loss to me.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 4, Interesting) by progo on Sunday February 16 2025, @09:29PM
(Score: 3, Touché) by Tork on Sunday February 16 2025, @09:38PM (2 children)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈 - Give us ribbiti or make us croak! 🐸
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Monday February 17 2025, @02:12AM (1 child)
It depends a lot on what they're looking for. If it's gold or something similarly durable and it's a matter of not knowing where it is, that's one thing. But, if it's something like this where even if they do locate it, which they will eventually if they acquire the whole dump, they aren't guaranteed that the data can be recovered. IMHO, that puts it somewhere in between a treasure hunt and the lottery.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by zocalo on Monday February 17 2025, @08:33AM
The a reason why former landfills in the UK now tend to get turned into things like pasture, nature parks, and solar farms - you can reuse the land without having to dig down too deep and disturbing the crap underneath until it's had a chance to properly break down, and that takes a *long* time. We know this because due to land pressure in the UK we learnt the hard way what happens if you build things like houses or business parks on a former waste sites, and it's an environmental, legal, and financial nightmare for all involved. A housing developer was knocked back not so long ago because they were looking at a former local landfill that hadn't been used since 1970, and that was just going to involve excavation of down to foundation and drainage level for which they supposedly had a handling plan. That's maybe a couple of meters at most, a lot of which would be into the backfill used to cover the waste, and Howells would need to go a lot deeper than that.
It's not happening, and the sooner he realises that and gets on with his life the better it's going to be, but from the sound of things he's already past that point and is allowing this to consume him. That is not going to end well.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 16 2025, @10:04PM
If you want to make all those people happy, then just put some electrodes in their brains to make them happy. It wouldn't be that hard.
If you want to do it naturally, then you have to accept that some people just can't be happy in the obvious way. If this guy could just walk away from this, he'd have done so.
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Monday February 17 2025, @08:45AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleak_House [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Frosty Piss on Sunday February 16 2025, @10:18PM
The ridiculousness of this is obvious: Even if he finds the drive (unlikely), the possibility of recovering anything from it is so infinitesimal as to be essentially zero.
I think it's even possible that the guy is completely full of shit, and is making it all up, or has a mental issue that has created this fantasy.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Username on Sunday February 16 2025, @10:51PM (2 children)
It should be an easy recovery, most of those older drives could survive a dumptruck driving over it. The platters are what matter. The arm and controller can be taken off another drive of same type. The hard part would be finding it. If he has a reasonable bid, why not? There is no loss to the state. They still can build their solar farm there after he's done. Unless, there is something there they don't want him to uncover. Makes you wonder.
I RTFA on The Guardian, and half of it is about Trump. I wouldn't think a european island website would have this level of TDS.
(Score: 4, Informative) by aafcac on Monday February 17 2025, @02:14AM
I think the issue is that the areas of the landfill that emit the most gases are the ones that have been disturbed. The other bits still emit some gases, but not anywhere near as much. There's also issues in terms of the extra emissions that happen due to the solar farm being delayed.
(Score: 2) by corey on Tuesday February 18 2025, @09:38PM
I agree, spinning hard drives are pretty damn robust. The platters are 1-2mm thick. The main issue is probably heat and magnetic sources. Heat (as in say 90C+ would start to erase the magnetic information - remember to denagnetise a tool, you heat it?). In a landfill with lots of biological composting, it can get hot. Otherwise, I’d do the same. I think he’s got a much better chance at this than winning the lottery.
Re the Guardian - I used to read the Australian edition every day. Can’t any more. The level of pro Palestinian content and spin got too much. They are fully cranked anti Trump, too.
(Score: 2) by mrpg on Sunday February 16 2025, @11:25PM
" though Howells and his investors must have some serious data retrieval specialists standing by. "
Maybe the specialists said "it is difficult but sure, there IS a possibility, lets's do it", thinking of making money out of this person or investors.
(Score: 2) by donkeyhotay on Monday February 17 2025, @12:31AM (1 child)
Assuming he can get access to the site, he's going to need money to dig, correct? Where is that going to come from? Isn't it going to cost millions to do the digging and searching? Isn't it going to take a very long time? How is this guy going to pay for this? He's a crackpot.
(Score: 4, Funny) by looorg on Monday February 17 2025, @12:47AM
He could probably borrow from someone against that. But if he doesn't find the drive I wouldn't want to be him, or his kneecaps.
(Score: 2) by FuzzyTheBear on Monday February 17 2025, @10:27AM
Some people just don't know when to quit.
Drive's gone , he should deal with it and be glad he's got one hell of a story to tell his grandchildren.
After all that time spent buried in a landfill we can all imagine easily that the drive's past recovery.
For his own sanity , time to let go ,
Talk aabout loosing one's marbles.
(Score: 2) by Ox0000 on Monday February 17 2025, @01:11PM
Price bidding starts at 700,000,001 USD. After all, apparently there's 700M worth of assets in the ground there...
Oh, and the sale conditions should contain a requirement to sanitize and redevelop the area into a healthy, beautiful public park with personal non-severable liability by the buyer on failure to complete this sanitizing and redevelopment.