Ask HN: Lost $400k USD in a deleted email, how contact a Gmail engineer? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Lost $400k USD in a deleted email, how contact a Gmail engineer?

#41

Post by bengotow » Wed, May 31, 2017, 3:21 PM UTC

chinathrow wrote: post #24

Did you ever use any other mail client to connect to Gmail? If so, there might be a way, i.e. from an uncompressed mbox file or similar.

This is definitely your best bet. Were you using an iPhone or an iPod Touch in that time window? Maybe iTunes still has a backup of the device in its backups folder? If you were using Mail.app, also check your Mac's Mail Downloads folder. It's totally possible the attachment was downloaded and not deleted when the email was. On my machine, that folder is full of ancient files for some reason.

Also if you power on any old devices to look for the email, put them in airplane mode ASAP!

Re: Ask HN: Lost $400k USD in a deleted email, how contact a Gmail engineer?

#42

Post by throwaway642739 » Wed, May 31, 2017, 3:26 PM UTC

Throwaway because I work at Google (but not on Gmail) and don't want to associate any of my HN posts with anything even remotely related (as a matter of personal policy).

That said, you're out of luck. Google has pretty strict data policies, and if a user deletes some their data (e.g. an email), it's my understanding that we're required to purge it from our all our systems (with maybe a couple months or so of leeway since we've got a lot of users and a lot of data). After a couple years of being deleted? Yeah, that email is gone. Forever.

Re: Ask HN: Lost $400k USD in a deleted email, how contact a Gmail engineer?

#43

Post by andars » Wed, May 31, 2017, 3:27 PM UTC

k33n wrote: post #25

rrggrr wrote: post #15

You are young. I promise you that life will present you with challenges and rewards in the future that will make this seem like nothing. Put it behind you, close the door, lock the door, and move on.

Hilarious par for the course HN response. Zero empathy for OP. "Oh you only lost 400K. Since it didn't happen to me, it's not a problem."

He probably got the 1970 ETH during the presale for ~500 USD.

Re: Ask HN: Lost $400k USD in a deleted email, how contact a Gmail engineer?

#44

Post by scottshamus » Wed, May 31, 2017, 3:30 PM UTC

I talked with some people who work in Data Retention at Google and they said this wasn't possible...

Re: Ask HN: Lost $400k USD in a deleted email, how contact a Gmail engineer?

#45

Post by Dzugaru » Wed, May 31, 2017, 3:32 PM UTC

rrggrr wrote: post #15

You are young. I promise you that life will present you with challenges and rewards in the future that will make this seem like nothing. Put it behind you, close the door, lock the door, and move on.

That's quite a bold promise.

Re: Ask HN: Lost $400k USD in a deleted email, how contact a Gmail engineer?

#46

Post by droithomme » Wed, May 31, 2017, 3:34 PM UTC

lostethpresale wrote: post #20

droithomme wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He has access to his account Well, he has access to an account in which he believes an email with valuable information was once deleted by the owner of the account. Whether this is one person or two is not determined.

I'm sure my login history + 2 factor + geographical location + personal information inside would be enough to establish me as the owner.

Hopefully there is more of a solid track record than your brand new account here that you created exactly 5 minutes before posting this thread.

The advice in this thread is good. It's certainly true many Google employees read this forum and so this is a convenient place to find them for private work without creating a electronic record trail on Google's own servers. However, doing an end run around Google in order to find an employee there willing to violate their employment agreement and possibly commit crimes because of an offer of large financial compensation is not an appropriate use of this discussion forum.

Re: Ask HN: Lost $400k USD in a deleted email, how contact a Gmail engineer?

#47

Post by charlesdm » Wed, May 31, 2017, 3:36 PM UTC

lostethpresale wrote: post #22

nsxwolf wrote: post #4

You are in awfully good spirits for someone who may have lost $400k. In 1999 I passed on an opportunity to buy a working Apple I for $10k.

Although this fail is a bit expensive, I'm optimistic that more opportunities will come.

They sure will. Don't worry.

One of mine: a few years ago I almost ported over (it was 99% done) an interesting piece of technology to mobile. Something fairly technical and low level. In the end I thought it wasn't possible to get it working, so called it a day.

Five months later some other guy ported the exact same thing, and made a million euros. It was something that basically marketed itself; something you upload to the App Store and it would've sold. So that money would've been mine.

And then I revisited my old code, and noticed I _could_ have gotten it working.

It happens. Ah well. I still made plenty from other apps.

Re: Ask HN: Lost $400k USD in a deleted email, how contact a Gmail engineer?

#48

Post by atonse » Wed, May 31, 2017, 3:36 PM UTC

redeemedfadi wrote: post #29

atonse wrote: post #6

My wife always says that growing up, all her dad and brother used to talk about at the dinner table was "I should've invested in that stock when it was cheaper!" or "I should've sold when it was higher!" I feel that way about Bitcoin/others. It's always regret all the way. It's like buying a stock. I had a chance to mine lots of bitcoins in 2011... never got around to doing it. It's now the same as "I should've bough…

You always remember the successful investments you didn't make, but not the unsuccessful ones. Think of all the money you didn't lose making bad investments.

Agreed! I have a couple of those as well, but you're right, you tend to forget them.

Re: Ask HN: Lost $400k USD in a deleted email, how contact a Gmail engineer?

#49

Post by k33n » Wed, May 31, 2017, 3:46 PM UTC

redcalx wrote: post #21

I assume you already tried this, but here is google's data download page: https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout If it aint in there then I assume it's gone and only the NSA and/or GCHQ will have a copy.

Cue a black budget program of retrieving all the lost cryptocurrency and selling it off.

Re: Ask HN: Lost $400k USD in a deleted email, how contact a Gmail engineer?

#50

Post by hdhzy » Wed, May 31, 2017, 3:58 PM UTC

kierenj wrote: post #35

So since there are many eyes here, I'd like to hijack a little. I have some old wallet files from a year ago - armory_xxx_encrypt.wallet, bitcoinwallet.dat, dogecoinwallet.dat and a key backup PFX. I haven't looked at cryptocurrencies since, and so don't even know what tool I'd use to check the value of these wallets. Can anyone advise?

Yes, send these files to me via email and I'll send you a personalized value report, free of charge. (just kidding of course)

Probably it'd be best to install old versions of armory etc and export raw keys, then import it to new wallet. Or if you just want to check then export only public keys (addresses). You can check the amount on blockexplorer.