Friends. I have a question and need some assistance.

In January of 2022, we lost my older brother to suicide. An amazing man in every regard and loved by all around him.

He left behind all of his belongings, among them a few Android phones and his Windows desktop computer.

My brother was a spectacular musician and very interested in technology. He was curious and open minded.

His desktop computer holds most if not all of his music. We really want to recover the sounds he created to hold onto those dear memories.

I know one of his phones may have a little bit of Bitcoin on a wallet, so if possible I’d like to gain access to the phone. If able, I would love to give his Bitcoin to our Dad, who outlived his oldest son.

A roadblock that I’ve run into is, folks more educated on the topic than I have informed me Android encrypts the phone when a password is set. Along with that, as my brother was fairly tech literate and also a privacy focused individual, his computer drives are likely encrypted as well.

Is all hope lost in accessing my brothers old phone?

Would we be able to get into his computer to recover his music?

Anything would help.

#asknostr #privacy #encryption #hacking #bitcoin #music

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Appreciate your repost friend 🫂💜

There are Bitcoin recovery services, but I don't know how that works.

There are also Certified Ethical Hackers. Maybe they could get in.

This is heartbreaking and I'm so sorry for you and your family.

I think about it and will write you a DM 💜

Thank you so much! 💜

That’s so sad!

If your brother RIP was as computer literate as you claim, look through his belongings for a paper with a list of either 12 or 24 words (most likely hand written).

These would be the keys to his bitcoin that you can use to recover them from any legitimate bitcoin wallet on any phone or computer you like.

That was my first thought as well! However after going through all the notebooks and other writings, I couldn’t find anything that resembled a 12 or 24 word phrase or a private key. I am sure he would’ve backed it up somewhere, but there’s a large possibility he hid them somewhere only he would know to look.

Did you go through his books (all books)? Page by page? He could have hidden the piece of paper inside one of his books.

The books I have of his are just notebooks for writing. The majority of his belongings were dealt with by our father and some friends that helped clean his apartment. At the time I had come down with the covid plandemic and couldn’t be there to assist & lookout for things like that, so there is unfortunately the possibility that it may have been discarded if it did exist.

If he had a desktop computer, I would open the outer case and look inside as well.

I’ll double check this. Didn’t see anything the first time but I didn’t fully inspect. I don’t expect anything super complex though, he /was/ tech literate but not a Bitcoiner by any means.

Maybe then it’s on an exchange. Coinbase for example.

Hate to say it, but the bitcoin could be so many places… of course you’ll be the best judge, but if it is truly a small amount, then I’m sure time spent getting the music would be more cathartic 🫂

At the end of it all that’s what’s most important

It all depends on how literate he was with bitcoin.

This is actually the first lesson in holding your own bitcoin, and it's about securing your keys.

So if he was paying attention AND actually followed everyone's advice, he should have a paper somewhere containing his keys.

On my cold wallet there is a numerical code first, and then you enter your keys. Not trying to gum up the retrieval operation, just a caution that if there is one of those, one has to get that right in 3 attempts or be locked out.

But that's different.

In OP's case, all he needs to do is have a fresh install of a new hot software wallet and just recover the old wallet using the seed phrase. Cold wallets are an overkill for this simple recovery procedure.

I’m very sorry for your loss and hope you can recover precious data

Can you request access from google?

https://support.google.com/accounts/troubleshooter/6357590?hl=en

I should be able to as we have all the appropriate paperwork, however he had multiple emails under various pseudonyms and I’m not 100% sure which his phone was connected to, if at all, but I will definitely look into this!

Hoping you have success

Did he backup his wallet seed phrase anywhere that you have access to? If so, you can use that to recover the wallet onto another device without needing his phones. I have no advice about the encrypted drives/phones.

Not anywhere I was able to locate unfortunately. I’ve checked all his notebooks and drives that I can access, it’s likely he hid it away somewhere.

Other common ways to store them are stamped into a steel plate. Also a lot of people stamp them into metal washers kept on a metal bolt (a couple of example pictures below). So sorry about your family’s loss.

so sorry losing loved ones is so hard

take time to remember and to grieve

🫂

Sorry for your loss

I know this is not Reddit - most users on nostr are quite honest and friendly beings at the moment... But there's one important rule to follow in such a case. If you ever gain access to your brothers phone:

But be sure to never trust anyone when it comes to DMs + Bitcoin. Anything that can be said about how to recover a Bitcoin wallet can be done publicly. If you are not too much into Bitcoin there are many ways to scam you without you noticing it.

Sorry for your brother... As for the data, instead of searching for lost coins it might be easier (and probably more valuable to you) to recover his music.

Try to contact Microsoft - if he was signing in with his MS account, they might be able to help you.

If that doesn't work, detach hard drive(s) from his PC and get them to someone who knows how to deal with data recovery. If you're lucky and he didn't encrypt the drives it could be very easy to get all data from them.

I’ll definitely look into the MS account. I think it was local but always worth a try!

I’m sorry for your loss