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Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? My quest to unmask Bitcoin's creator

nytimes.com

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Re: Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? My quest to unmask Bitcoin's creator

#151

Post by ozten »

sho_hn wrote: post #142
ozten wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Carreyrou give reasons for eliminating Hal Finney from being (part or all of) Satoshi?

Yes, he mentions he was photographed running a foot race during a date and time Satoshi sent emails (of course that's a bit weak).

Thank you!

Reasoning: They have the chops to create the world's first system where consensus, scarcity, and ownership exist without a central authority... But, they also lack the ability to write a Perl script to "Send Later". Checks out.

Re: Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? My quest to unmask Bitcoin's creator

#152

Post by shawn_w »

modeless wrote: post #88

I don't believe anyone claiming that Satoshi is still alive. There is zero chance any human who put so much effort into creating something would remain silent while it became a $2 trillion phenomenon that succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Satoshi is certainly dead.

Maybe they're embarrassed to admit they lost the password for their wallet.

Re: Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? My quest to unmask Bitcoin's creator

#153

Post by Lerc »

torben-friis wrote: post #143
Lerc wrote: post #112

I found this amusing. >P.G.P., a free encryption program used by antinuclear activists and human rights groups to shield their files and emails from government surveillance. I find it fascinating to see how the users of a program change, based on how a reporter wants to build or diminish. At least it's going in a positive direction today.

>Water, a drink consumed by nobel price winners and European kings...

Oxygen, an element serial killers need in order to kill again.

Re: Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? My quest to unmask Bitcoin's creator

#157

Post by philistine »

Lerc wrote: post #133
lumirth wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What struck me in particular was the fact the reporter noticed that Back had theorized how to evade stylometry. Obviously, if one of the people in question had specifically come up with ways to evade methods, you’d want to re-roll those methods to account for that. That, alongside a number of other tidbits (Back’s activity and inactivity patterns lining up with Satoshi’s appearance and disappearance, his refusal to p…

> his financial incentive to hide his identity as Satoshi under US securities law I don't think you can attribute this to financial incentive. The actual Satoshi could forfeit 90% of their BTC and still have more than they could know what to do with. At those kinds of levels I can see personal security being a higher consideration. Either way it would give no indication who might be Satoshi because all candidates wou…

why does everybody assume that whoever is Satoshi still has access to their wallet? It's absolutely possible whoever is Satoshi has simply lost the key.

We're talking new technology where you're running fast and loose. It's absolutely possible, and I'd say a big reason why someone would not want to admit to being Satoshi.

I'm Satoshi, but I also lost billions because I messed up a Debian upgrade.

Re: Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? My quest to unmask Bitcoin's creator

#158

Post by sho_hn »

DeliciousSeaCow wrote: post #68
kgeist wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I read up to here, but I wasn't convinced that this is the revelation that the author claims The rest of the arguments is as weak: 1) both released open-source software 2) both don't like spam 3) both like using pseudonyms online 4) both love freedom 5) both are anti-copyright etc. Basically, the author found that Adam Back used the same words on X as Satoshi did in some emails (including such rare words as "dang,"…

It's weird they spent so much time on the written word similarities, when the biggest reveal here is that Back disappears off the email lists (on a topic he is VERY interested in and has historically corresponded on) when Nakamoto appears, and then comes back when Nakamoto disappears.

Befitting a writer, though.

Re: Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? My quest to unmask Bitcoin's creator

#160

Post by kgeist »

refulgentis wrote: post #109
hardwaregeek wrote: post #102

A fun counter factual: try “proving” that famous scientists are their collaborators based on this methodology. Obviously Hardy and Littlewood are the same person. They’re both British mathematicians who use analysis and number theory and have similar sensibilities in politics and math.

The Hardy-Littlewood comparison cuts the other way. Two collaborators in the same subfield sharing terminology is the baseline, not evidence of anything. What makes the Back case interesting is convergence on things that have nothing to do with cryptography: the same Napster vs Gnutella analogy, the same celebrity email filtering idea, the same obscure FDR gold ban interest, the same weird hyphenation errors. Pick an…

>the same Napster vs Gnutella analogy, the same celebrity email filtering idea, the same obscure FDR gold ban interest, the same weird hyphenation errors

Dunno it assumes their cypherpunk group must always discuss strictly cryptography and never discuss anything else. It could be just some off-topic ideas floating around in their community.

For me, the only solid, damning evidence would be statistical methods of text analysis like they do to prove authenticity of a literary work.

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