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

nytimes.com

261–270 of 905 posts

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

#261
post #79

Pretty compelling story. Not necessarily for its revelations, but for the fact that John Carreyrou and the NYT decided to publish it at all. If it were by anyone else, I would have stopped reading after the first thousand words of meandering narrative, but Carreyrou is staking his massive and impeccable investigative journalistic reputation on this mountain of circumstantial evidence and statistical analysis. Him tor…

> Pretty compelling story. Not necessarily for its revelations, but for the fact that John Carreyrou and the NYT decided to publish it at all. When is the line crossed from journalism into doxxing? Whoever created Bitcoin has a legitimate safety reason to stay anonymous. Anyone suspected of holding that much wealth becomes a target - as does their family.

[deleted]

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

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% of people who've ever had DHMO have died. This is scientifically verified and yet nobody does anything about it.

I know this is a joke, but you did it wrong. There are obviously people (like me) who have had DHMO and are not dead. 100% of the people who have died have been exposed to DHMO.

You aren't fooling anyone, you know.

http://montypython.50webs.com/scripts/Holy_Grail/Scene2.htm

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

#265
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.

I see your point, but PGP was literally invented by an anti-nuclear activist and intentionally disseminated to human rights groups.

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

#266
post #233
post #34

The refusal to provide email metadata is the most damning evidence. Adam Back clearly has the emails; he is the one who provided them in the first place during the previous court case. Everyone knows he has the emails. If Adam Back and Satoshi are two different people, the metadata should be exculpatory, and easy to share. There's literally no reason whatsoever to hide the metadata unless he is the one. In a court of…

The author didn't make a serious effort to obtain the email metadata. The email w/ metadata has previously been part of litigation, -- if it indicated that Adam was Satoshi it would have come up. Adam has no reason to further fuck up Satoshi's privacy by sharing private information. But I can get how people who see no issue invading Adam's and Satoshi's privacy would have no concept as to why someone wouldn't publish…

[dead]

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

#267
post #195
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.

"antinuclear activists and human rights groups to shield their files and emails from government surveillance" You mean the people responsible for not allowing us to embrace Nuclear 30 years before we should have?

No - Zimmerman was an anti nuclear weapons activist with the Nuclear Freeze campaign when he invented PGP.

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

#268
> Ancestors of today’s message boards, mailing lists were large group emails in old typewriter font that subscribers received in their inbox. To communicate, respondents replied-all.

There was no HTML email in the early 90s. The font was the display font of whatever you read it on. Sheesh NYT.

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

#269
post #123
post #79

Pretty compelling story. Not necessarily for its revelations, but for the fact that John Carreyrou and the NYT decided to publish it at all. If it were by anyone else, I would have stopped reading after the first thousand words of meandering narrative, but Carreyrou is staking his massive and impeccable investigative journalistic reputation on this mountain of circumstantial evidence and statistical analysis. Him tor…

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

  (part or all of)
Your aside suggests you might already have considered what I'm about propose, but why not Finney and Back both as Satoshi?

The reporting already establishes all three parties (Satoshi being the third) were familiar/friendly with one another. The reporting says that Finney was the recipient of the first ever Bitcoin transaction, which seems like a completely natural thing to do if the two of you are working together.

Finney's name also rises to the top in a few of the author's analysis, while also noting:

  > "But his analysis had been hampered by the fact that most of Mr. Back’s papers were coauthored with other cryptographers, which made it difficult to know who really wrote them."
Again, why not both of them as Satoshi?

Hal Finney's passing also helps explain how such a monumental secret of Satoshi's identity has remained a secret for so long. The only other person who's in on the secret is Back himself.

Edit: To add further conjecture, it wouldn't surprise me if Satoshi's wallet is locked away in a trust or tied up with Finney's estate. I can imagine a scenario where the keys to the wallet are legally unobtainable until such time that both Finney and Back have passed, at which point the wallet is liquidated and its proceeds donated (Finney previously raised money for ALS research).

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