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Paul Le Roux is Satoshi?

martinshkreli.substack.com

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Re: Paul Le Roux is Satoshi?

#81

Post by mjfl »

raingrove wrote: post #26

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…

> It appears that someone else (definitely not Hal) has the private key to that address.

So Paul le Roux, by the message?

> 1Q2TWHE3GMdB6BZKafqwxXtWAWgFt5Jvm3 is Hal Finney's (Not Satoshi's) address.

Where do you get this?

EDIT: I am proposing not that Paul LeRoux is Satoshi, but that he is in possession of Hal's key, and produced that signature as a troll.

Re: Paul Le Roux is Satoshi?

#82

Post by kxr »

orangepurple wrote: post #12

Satoshi is a German or Swiss. Nobody in the world has GMX email addresses except the Germans and the Swiss.

I have a GMX account and I'm neither. A few decades back they were one of the few free email providers offering POP3 access.

Re: Paul Le Roux is Satoshi?

#83

Post by tripplyons »

cmatthias wrote: post #38

Can someone who knows more than me about the internals of bitcoin help me understand: 1) Is there a place on a blockchain explorer somewhere where I could find the signature that Shkreli has posted? I tried looking up the wallet address and found the transaction from Jan 2009, but I don't see that signature anywhere. 2) The reason I ask the first question is that I believe that if the private key is compromised, then…

1) Not all signatures are on chain. All that is needed is to post the signature somewhere and verify it with the message and public key. 2) Whoever has the private key can produce the signature, and the signature can only be produced by someone who has the private key (assuming the cryptography is secure)

Re: Paul Le Roux is Satoshi?

#84

Post by ggm »

kvathupo wrote: post #9
ggm wrote: post #4

Does this make all his historic bitcoins property of the state for crimes committed? That's a lot of public debt to retire.

Assuming no shenanigans, there is a layer of deniability since the message was made from Hal Finney's address and private key, i.e. Finney is lying.

Hal Finney is dead, his keys were used in 2017 after he died in 2014.

Somebody knows his keys == nothing said to have been done by his key can be demonstrably proved to be him, even back to the beginning: how do we know when his private key was compromised?

Re: Paul Le Roux is Satoshi?

#85

Post by stainablesteel »

nkzd wrote: post #37
retrac wrote: post #13

Hal Finney passed away in 2014. But the address has been active since: https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1Q2TWHE3GMdB6BZKafqwx... I see four possibilities: * An absurdly elaborate conspiracy. (This is always a possibility.) * Ghosts can do cryptography. * ECDSA is cracked. * Someone else has a copy Finney's key. Occam's razor: spectral signatures!

I am not sure I understand, how could this be a conspiracy?

its plausibly debatable

someone who isnt paul le roux left their signature saying it was paul le roux, in case it ends up being read one day

Re: Paul Le Roux is Satoshi?

#86

Post by lostmsu »

simplyinfinity wrote: post #20

After some digging I found this: 1) The address that was used to send this message is not the first address that the genesis(the first "mined") block sent money to. 2) The "genesis"/Satoshi address has been used through the years a lot 3) The "Paul le Roux" address is far less active 4) this transaction was made 9 days after the first block was mined My conclusion here is: Paul le Roux _MIGHT_ be Satoshi, but unlikel…

5) the transaction in question does not contain the message in the post. The message was just signed by the receiver's key, whose current owner is unknown.

Re: Paul Le Roux is Satoshi?

#87

Post by jdthedisciple »

1. 1Q2TWHE3GMdB6BZKafqwxXtWAWgFt5Jvm3 is Hal's address, so that means the message was written by someone with Hal's private key (not from Satoshi's).

2. Hal died 2014, that address last sent btc in 2017, so someone else (estate?) had access to the private key. I wouldn't be surprised if the private key got leaked (maybe even sold), so it's entirely possible that someone else signed that message (and recently at that).

3. Not sure if there's evidence that Hal even knew who satoshi was

But yeah, crazy... I verified the message too, I just don't think it's conclusive evidence of who satoshi is/was

Interesting and important note from playerTwo in the comments.

Re: Paul Le Roux is Satoshi?

#88

Post by dibt »

jdmoreira wrote: post #51
rOOb85 wrote: post #44

If this is true, wow. I've read about Paul Le Roux before as he is likely the person behind Trucrypt. While he's a criminal, if he really created Truecrypt and Bitcoin and also ran an international drug/gun running operation...I'm impressed. I think this dude's story could make a awesome book/movie some day...

The book exists. It's named "The Mastermind". It's wild, really wild!

Also, the author of that book brought up the link to Satoshi. It's in his interest for the idea to be out there. Nobody would be looking up this book today, otherwise.

Re: Paul Le Roux is Satoshi?

#89

Post by kevinmchugh »

drclau wrote: post #54

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/

Ratliff says in his book that he could find no evidence that Le Roux had any connection to Bitcoin, though many people suspect him

Re: Paul Le Roux is Satoshi?

#90

Post by hcs »

cmatthias wrote: post #76
anigbrowl wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Unless I'm grossly mistaken, it seems Shkreli doesn't understand the basics of cryptography because he's using incorrect terminology here. 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 i…

A public key signature works by encrypting the hash with the private key, to verify you decrypt the hash with the pubic key and check it against your own hash of the payload.

Edit: No argument with your second point, just pointing out the mechanism does involve the signature being an encrypted form of a plaintext hash/message digest.

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