The Greatest Password Recovery Story Ever

I wasn’t familiar with Joe Grand until a few days ago. But I am familiar with the story of Stefan Thomas, a German-born programmer who had two guesses left to figure out a password that would unlock $220 million in Bitcoin.

While Thomas still hasn’t recovered his funds (and probably has many sleepless nights to show for it) he may want to contact Grand and his fellow hacker friend Bruno.

This dynamic duo recovered $3 million trapped in a Bitcoin wallet that had been locked since 2013. I won’t spoil the story in my blog post, but it’s definitely one for the ages when it comes to password retrieval. I admire Grand and Bruno’s unorthodox approach towards finding a solution, which involved reverse-engineering a proprietary password manager , frankfurters, and a wee bit of “time travel”. Chef’s kiss for the superb visual storytelling, which gives this segment the feel of an “Ocean’s 11” film. Don’t miss it. 

-Krishna