"Lost" password to BIP38 encrypted private key, encrypter may be faulty (Bippy)

"Lost" password to BIP38 encrypted private key, encrypter may be faulty (Bippy)

Few years ago I encrypted my Bitcoin private key for cold storage with an offline app called Bippy. Recently I tried to access my wallet by decrypting the private key, but my password was rejected.

I've checked out this Bippy program again, and I'm beginning to suspect it's faulty somehow. It seems that private keys beginning with a '5' - encrypted with Bippy - won't decrypt with the same password. Other prefixes seem to work OK.

Now, this Bippy app is open-source and written in Python, and I got it from here. I've tried, as a test, to encrypt the private key 5Ka1Bv4RpKayZygPhZbBcREejqeYwq2iSRzWPKsg49SPgVRTnpW with password testingOneTwo (it's a fresh pk, no bitcoins there ;)). In Bippy this encrypts to 6PYMN8WT4CW7xLYczLvYfXZCtQWND7XEesk32QbXujMgKhf2v5A2ZQANpL, however, using the above password fails to decrypt it to its original... I've tried several other '5'-private keys and passwords, and the same happens every time.

Luckily the program is open-source; sadly, the project seems abandoned a few years back and my knowledge of Python and encryption is not at a level good enough to pinpoint the bug at play here, and hoping for some help here :)

http://ift.tt/2AlV7Zp