How a Lost Password Cost a Top Computer Programmer

Passwords and Personal Identification Numbers (PIN) are always very useful in many people’s lives, but it can also be quite annoying if you forget one. Passwords enhance data integrity as well as protecting fraud and privacy. But if you forget your password, then you would have a great challenge to access your account.

Passwords behave like tyrants of our modern life; just like the not-so-friendly police in our real lives. Password amnesia could have a life-changing impact. German Programmer Stefan Thomas went public after forgetting the password to his account with a fortune of $240 million.

Around ten year ago, Stefan, a San Francisco computer programmer, was awarded 7,002 bitcoins. He had been rewarded after he made a video explaining how cryptocurrency works.

According to The Guardian, the value of the bitcoin ranged between $2 and $6 each. He then stashed them into his digital wallet and forgot about it. Stefan went public when he had already entered the wrong password eight times. There were only two chances left before his hard drive gets encrypted.

The device auto-encrypts if the user enters ten inaccurate entries. Just after going public with the frustration he had for losing a password, Alex Stamos, an internet security expert stated that he could crack the password and demanded a 10 percent tax of the digital fortune.

Stamos tweeted: “Um, for $220M in locked-up Bitcoin, you don’t make 10 password guesses but take it to professional to buy 20 IronKeys and spend six months finding a side-channel or uncraping.”

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