As computing power increases (especially with quantum computing on the horizon), the "work" to solve this may eventually succeed. Until then, the 1,700 BTC remains a monument to a tiny software bug that cost someone a fortune.
The technical transformation from a random sequence of bits to the infamous 1Feex address follows a rigorous pipeline: 1feexv6bahb8ybzjqqmjjrccrhgw9sb6uf public key work
He claimed that "hackers" deleted the private keys from his computer and sued Bitcoin developers to force them to write a "backdoor" into the code to move the coins without a key. This case was met with fierce resistance from the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) 1feexv6bahb8ybzjqqmjjrccrhgw9sb6uf public key work