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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because cryptography. It's impossible to brute-force "decrypt" this message, you need to know it before hand. More technically: you need to generate a pre-image of the sha-256 hash.
No one broke any cryptography in this situation.
I'm honestly not sure there could be a more unreliable source for this
In case you wonder who Paul Le Roux is, here’s the Wikipedia page [0] and what I believe is the original investigation by Evan Ratliff [1]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Le_Roux [1]: https://magazine.atavist.com/the-mastermind/
And from the above: > Le Roux was arrested on 26 September 2012 for conspiracy to import narcotics into the United States, and agreed to cooperate with authorities in exchange for a lesser sentence and immunity to any crimes he might admit to later. He subsequently admitted to arranging or participating in seven murders, carried out as part of an extensive illegal business empire. > Le Roux was sentenced to 25 years…
On 12 June 2020, Le Roux was sentenced to 25 years in prison. According to the presiding judge, Ronnie Abrams, "the scope and severity of Mr. Le Roux's criminal conduct is nothing short of breathtaking. I have before me a man who has engaged in conduct in keeping with the villain in a James Bond movie." However, she also added that the sentence reflected Le Roux's cooperation and the danger he faced.
In case you wonder who Paul Le Roux is, here’s the Wikipedia page [0] and what I believe is the original investigation by Evan Ratliff [1]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Le_Roux [1]: https://magazine.atavist.com/the-mastermind/
1. The signature was created using a private key that corresponds to the address "1Q2TWHE3GMdB6BZKafqwxXtWAWgFt5Jvm3". 2. 1Q2TWHE3GMdB6BZKafqwxXtWAWgFt5Jvm3 is Hal Finney's (Not Satoshi's) address. 3. Hal Finney passed away in 2014. 4. Some coins that belonged to that address were spent in 2017. [1] It appears that someone else (definitely not Hal) has the private key to that address. [1] https://www.blockchain.com/b…
I see. Are you implying whoever has access to Hal's wallet could have produced this signature after his death?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can verify yourself here: https://reinproject.org/bitcoin-signature-tool/ Use the Bitcoin-QT tab, and don't include the "---- BEGIN" and "---- END" comment lines. It checks out.
OK (and thanks)...so how should I interpret this? As in, how is it possible to decrypt an encrypted signature, and what does that mean for the security of cryptocurrency?
The signature isn't encrypted at all, it's just a piece of data (a hash, if you will) that was generated using the private key associated with the wallet in question.
In order to generate the signature, you need to have a message to sign, and a private key. All Shkreli has shown is that the signature he posted is valid for the given message and the wallet (which is in fact an old wallet of Hal Finney’s). I’ve posted elsewhere in this thread about this, but so far I can’t find any evidence that the signature he posted actually appears in the blockchain associated with that January 2009 transaction. Until we have proof of that, the most likely alternative explanation is that the wallet’s key is compromised and someone is signing random messages with it that say whatever they want.
How did Martin Shkreli figure that out?
Convenient for the author to discover the link to Le Roux. Then talk about it on podcasts while promoting his book, and have articles written about him.
All Shkreli does is promote himself to get eyes on whatever he's doing next. You can't ignore the incentives. It's difficult to prove who Satoshi is or is not. Craig Wright made a succesful career out of it.
Also, Shkreli has been critical of Bitcoin. Picking Le Roux, a criminal, as Satoshi helps to paint Bitcoin in a bad light.
Could someone please clarify the connection between the wallet: 1Q2TWHE3GMdB6BZKafqwxXtWAWgFt5Jvm3 And the signature: HM7vpPSUbNsfDHRX6gv8xxWcVNHEc/3pOk0YrVehaGoUdbWizznfzOdELkLd1EjSXsW1oE5vHAkNAPzrAVzhuoI= how do we know that the two are connected? (I'm guessing one of them hashes to the other.)
I know next to nothing about the internals of bitcoin, but based on a high-level understanding of public key cryptography: - 1Q2TWHE3GMdB6BZKafqwxXtWAWgFt5Jvm3 is the wallet address but can also be thought of as a public key. The owner of the wallet also has a private key corresponding to that public key. - HM7vpPSUbNsfDHRX6gv8xx...[etc] is a cryptographic signature generated by signing an arbitrary message using a p…
Could someone please clarify the connection between the wallet: 1Q2TWHE3GMdB6BZKafqwxXtWAWgFt5Jvm3 And the signature: HM7vpPSUbNsfDHRX6gv8xxWcVNHEc/3pOk0YrVehaGoUdbWizznfzOdELkLd1EjSXsW1oE5vHAkNAPzrAVzhuoI= how do we know that the two are connected? (I'm guessing one of them hashes to the other.)
I know next to nothing about the internals of bitcoin, but based on a high-level understanding of public key cryptography: - 1Q2TWHE3GMdB6BZKafqwxXtWAWgFt5Jvm3 is the wallet address but can also be thought of as a public key. The owner of the wallet also has a private key corresponding to that public key. - HM7vpPSUbNsfDHRX6gv8xx...[etc] is a cryptographic signature generated by signing an arbitrary message using a p…
This.