ARTICLE · 27 JANUARY 2023

Evolution Of Computer Storage – Part Three

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The latest developments in the now 9-year long saga of a discarded Hard Drive containing 8000 Bitcoin (or roughly 2.5 billion Dogecoin for adopters of a rival, Shiba-Inu-faced alt-coin)...

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The latest developments in the now 9-year long saga of a discarded Hard Drive containing 8000 Bitcoin (or roughly 2.5 billion Dogecoin for adopters of a rival, Shiba-Inu-faced alt-coin) involves plans to search a Welsh landfill site using mechanical arms to pick through the rubbish and robotic dogs to scan the rubbish-heap with cameras (rather than to ward off potential light-fingered data-poachers – to my disappointment). Backed by £10m in hedge fund assets, the infamous James Howells plans to use data recovery experts to extract his fortune from the recovered disk – should it ever be found.

In the infancy of electronic storage, even removing the Hard Drive from the rest of the computer took considerable effort. Had James' Bitcoins been physically bound to the rest of his system, perhaps throwing them away might have taken additional, physical effort, and provided him with a moment to consider checking if there was anything he was accidentally

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