61 sats \ 5 replies \ @TwoLargePizzas 30 Aug 2023 \ on: Need help recovering wallet from 2010 bitcoin
A quick computer science lesson...
In computers, large numbers are often represented in hexadecimal format. Hexadecimal uses the characters (0-9) and (A-F) which are equivalent to 0 through 15 in decimal.
If you're counting in decimal numbers you would say 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18.
If you're counting in hexadecimal numbers you would say 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F, 10, 11, 12.
It's important to notice that 10 in hex is not the same as 10 in decimal. This can be pretty confusing to wrap your head around but you get the idea. So, for example the hexadecimal number A455 is actually to 69,420.
When dealing with really large hex numbers it's common practice to group them into blocks of 4 characters for readability. But this grouping has no impact on the final number. Additionally, hex numbers are often prefixed with 0x just as a reminder that its hex and not decimal.
Here's an example of a Bitcoin private key format represented in hex.
0xFFFF FFFF FFFF FFFF FFFF FFFF FFFF FFFE BAAE DCE6 AF48 A03B BFD2 5E8C D036 4140
A Bitcoin private key is just a really, really large number (sometimes known as a 256-bit number). But assuming you have all 64 of the hexadecimal digits you should be able to recover it I believe.
I did write the code in a way I split up each group of four characters. I have 20 blocks with 4 characters in each block. the first or last 10 blocks of 4 characters don't have any question marks, but the questions marks are all in the first or second half of the characters, depending on the way to read from top to bottom or bottom to top.
Below is the exact format including the location of the question marks, but I did change each character to something random and different than the original. When I get off work later I will try adding the 0x in front of each side, but still unsure of significance of the question marks.
0486 | 4AE5F | 41BC
A58F | 3FB3A | 1AD7
34F6 | 2AEB9
37A4 | 4AE5F
7?A4 | ?42? | 6F?? | ??D8
71?D | 6?A? | ?FCA | 86B?
32?F
7F?B
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Sorry, every block of characters is four, not five. That was an error in the example.
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Is it possible the question marks are words? Maybe taking a look at common word people make with hex will jog your memory.
https://stjerneskinn.com/hexadecimal-words.htm
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Also, maybe you laid it out this way for a reason. The first word might be 7 letters?
DEFACED
FACED
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I’m reading the book Grokking Bitcoin and there they explain all these hex codes. Way above my payroll! I have to read these chapters over and over again to understand it.
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