Stranger discovers lost wallet — then comes up with cryptographic puzzle to find the rightful owner

In a world where most people prioritize their own needs, only a few unsung heroes selflessly think about others. While most people chase money and power, you have to be lucky to encounter someone who values humanitarianism more than material gain. An individual who goes by u/mixalv proved to be one such gem when they shared a heartwarming story on Reddit. The author stumbled upon someone's lost wallet and came up with a brilliant solution to reach out to its rightful owner.

The author didn't simply leave the wallet in a mailbox, perhaps fearing that it would end up with the wrong person. Rather, he decided to give the wallet's true owner a chance to contact him directly. Where he found the wallet, the author left a note with a clever cryptographic code that only the rightful owner could solve.

By using the owner's date of birth mentioned on the wallet, the author asked the owner to solve a sequence of numbers that revealed their contact details. In the end, the author informed them that he would submit the wallet to the police station. Moreover, while replying to comments, the author revealed that the legal owner had contacted him, and he only returned the wallet after verifying their ID. "I had watched a Computerphile video on cryptography and hashing recently that gave me the idea," the author added.

Meanwhile, u/nightoperator shared, "Hah, smart. I found an iPhone at the post office. A worker told me she could keep it. The phone was unlocked, so just in case, I left a message on a WhatsApp family group: 'Hey, I just found this phone. I'm leaving it to the lady at the post office in [address]."' u/discussionmuted9941 commented, "That was f****** incredible! How did he even come up with this? Because it's literally only going to be solvable by one person. It's so highly unlikely for someone to have the same exact birthday and be in the same exact area that just lost a black wallet. This should be so much more common." Similarly, u/xxxiamian praised the author and wrote, "Smart! You ensure that only the owner will be able to claim it and protect yourself from spam calls!"

u/repulsive-music-6874 revealed, "I once found a wallet on the street without contact info. It held, however, their insurance card, so I called the insurance company and gave them my phone number to forward it to the owner. Worked like a charm!" u/possible_actuator944 said, "This is a good way to make sure someone doesn’t falsely claim the wallet, but I can’t imagine having a bad day because I lost my wallet, panicking, and then finding a math equation I need to solve to get it back." u/toboein pointed out, "The only issue I see is more than half the population is probably too stupid to figure it out even with their own birth date."

On the other hand, u/spongegirlcs called out the author and shared, "All you have to do is turn it in to a post office. They will package it and send it to the address on the ID in the wallet. For free. This is unnecessary and insulting to the person who lost their wallet." u/wienerpatrol173 revealed, "Damn, that’s f****** smart. When I was on Tinder, I’d send girls this easy math question that would always be my number lol!"