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Paul Le Roux is Satoshi?

martinshkreli.substack.com

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Re: Paul Le Roux is Satoshi?

#131

Post by kobalsky »

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…

Maybe the key was inherited by someone? I don't intend to take my cryptos with me to the grave, or redistribute my wealth between holders, however you prefer to see it.

Re: Paul Le Roux is Satoshi?

#132

Post by TacticalCoder »

retrac wrote: post #122
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…

At its core, a Bitcoin address is a public/private key pair used to sign data. One type of data you can sign is a Bitcoin transaction, which when signed and valid, gets processed by the Bitcoin network. "Send 0.01 BTC to xyz" -- signed retrac. But it's standard public key cryptography, and you can use that key to sign any kind of data. The signature in question was not posted to the Bitcoin network. It's almost exact…

> 2) Yes. Anyone with the private key could sign a message. And for clarity, such things are not date-stamped in a secure way, so there's no way to know when it was signed.

Certainly if the message included a hash of the last Bitcoin block that'd be a very strong date-stamp.

Re: Paul Le Roux is Satoshi?

#133

Post by ElijahLynn »

dibt wrote: post #115
ElijahLynn wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, my question means: How did he figure out how to decrypt that hash into the plain text message?

Someone gave him the signature to verify the hash. He explains it during this stream here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjE4dEX2z9E You can just watch the first 10-ish minutes to get the gist. He gets the same push back he's getting here. Still confidently says "Paul Le Roux is Satoshi."

I'm watching the video and from where I started Martin is talking to the person who gave him this info and he is reading these very comments and the comments on his blog post and being very skeptical and also thinks it is fake now too. Very good watch, and I like the non-attachment to the specific outcome Martin has towards all of this. He is looking at this objectively.

Re: Paul Le Roux is Satoshi?

#134

Post by 1ark »

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...

Not a movie but a documentary on Netflix, The Big Boss: A 21st Century Criminal.

Re: Paul Le Roux is Satoshi?

#135

Post by baobabKoodaa »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #130
jaycroft wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that particular message could be created by anyone (including people who are not Paul le Roux), who has the key to the 1Q2 address, at any time, past or present. All we have to go on right now is that someone knows the private key that corresponds to the 1Q2 address and used it sometime before the last hour to generate a hash of a message that says that Paul le Roux sent bitcoin to Hal Finney.

How do we know the message was signed during the last hour and not in 2017 or 2014 or whatever? Does it include the hash of a Bitcoin block created in the last hour?

Your parent didn't write "during the last hour", they wrote "before the last hour"

Re: Paul Le Roux is Satoshi?

#136

Post by ashpool37 »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #132
retrac wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At its core, a Bitcoin address is a public/private key pair used to sign data. One type of data you can sign is a Bitcoin transaction, which when signed and valid, gets processed by the Bitcoin network. "Send 0.01 BTC to xyz" -- signed retrac. But it's standard public key cryptography, and you can use that key to sign any kind of data. The signature in question was not posted to the Bitcoin network. It's almost exact…

> 2) Yes. Anyone with the private key could sign a message. And for clarity, such things are not date-stamped in a secure way, so there's no way to know when it was signed. Certainly if the message included a hash of the last Bitcoin block that'd be a very strong date-stamp.

Such a timestamp could only be interpreted as a "no-earlier-than" proof. You couldn't use it to prove that the message was created before a certain date, as all existing bitcoin blocks can easily be referenced in any future messages.

Re: Paul Le Roux is Satoshi?

#138

Post by retrac »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #132
retrac wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At its core, a Bitcoin address is a public/private key pair used to sign data. One type of data you can sign is a Bitcoin transaction, which when signed and valid, gets processed by the Bitcoin network. "Send 0.01 BTC to xyz" -- signed retrac. But it's standard public key cryptography, and you can use that key to sign any kind of data. The signature in question was not posted to the Bitcoin network. It's almost exact…

> 2) Yes. Anyone with the private key could sign a message. And for clarity, such things are not date-stamped in a secure way, so there's no way to know when it was signed. Certainly if the message included a hash of the last Bitcoin block that'd be a very strong date-stamp.

I would consider that a strong date-stamp too, but it doesn't do what we would need here. It can only set an earliest possible date for the message. It does not bound it on the other end.

It's like using today's newspaper to prove when a photo was taken. If the front page of Dec 13 2022's New York Times is in the photo (and the photo is authentic) then the photograph must have been taken on or after Dec 13 2022. But I could use that same newspaper in 2025 to prove the same thing. The photo was taken on, or after, Dec 13 2022.

Bounding the other end -- to prove that this key was not used after a certain point in time -- is really quite a puzzle with no particularly elegant solution, as far as I know. Trusted central authority that date-stamps and signs messages when it receives them. Or a blockchain, ironically.

Re: Paul Le Roux is Satoshi?

#139

Post by ElijahLynn »

Octokiddie wrote: post #112

Summary: a private key associated with the very first non-coinbase transaction in Bitcoin appears to have signed a message making the claim in the title. For those downplaying the claim based on the source, this is irrelevant. The signature and the public key are all that are needed. The author is irrelevant to verification, although he probably has an interesting story to tell about how he came about this message an…

#4 doesn't seem to be plausible either now...

From Gregory Maxwell (Bitcoin developer) on the OP comments:

> That signature type didn't exist until after Hal's was out of comission, so it was presumably created by someone who obtained hal's private keys after his death FWIW. You can see that address was actively sending transactions long after hal's death so unambiguously someone else has control of the key.

> The signature you posted isn't compatible with the Bitcoin blockchain, it's a new signature type we introduced specifically for message signing which was first released in Bitcoin 0.5.0 on November 1st 2011. But the specific format that it's in is an electrum style which wasn't even proposed until mid 2013 -- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=218471.0 I'm not sure when it was first implemented. By the time signmessage was created in late 2011 Hal was profoundly disabled and only able to use a computer with someone elses help, it wasn't widely used until years after. Other commenters have pointed out that this address was active in 2017 so that gives an obvious explanation: The message wasn't signed by Hal but whomever is using his keys now.

Re: Paul Le Roux is Satoshi?

#140

Post by [deleted] »

Octokiddie wrote: post #112

Summary: a private key associated with the very first non-coinbase transaction in Bitcoin appears to have signed a message making the claim in the title. For those downplaying the claim based on the source, this is irrelevant. The signature and the public key are all that are needed. The author is irrelevant to verification, although he probably has an interesting story to tell about how he came about this message an…

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