Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

431–440 of 905 posts

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

#431

Post by contubernio »

gyomu wrote: post #312

Simple question for anyone who’s familiar with this world of journalism: how does the author and the NYTimes cope with the fact that making such claims paint a huge target on the person they claim to have “unmasked”? Satoshi’s wallets are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and there have been kidnappings/torture/murders for much less than that. Do they just not care about the ethical implications? And really, for…

The NYTimes is basically a mouthpiece for US government interests. The US government has an interest in outing cryptocurrency actors of all kinds.

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

#432

Post by fauchletenerum »

timr wrote: post #375
adventured wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An estimated 22,000 addresses, 1.1 million Bitcoin. Present value $78 billion. That would make him the 23rd richest person in the world. Bill Gates by comparison is 'only' worth $102 billion these days. If you priced Gates backwards in gold, his $102 billion is about $13 billion two decades ago. He hasn't kept ahead of the destruction of the dollar very well.

> He hasn't kept ahead of the destruction of the dollar very well. The dollar is trading pretty much at 30-year historic highs relative to all other currencies. You have to go back to ~2000 to find a stronger era, and then the 1980s before that. https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/index/dxy

They're talking about the decline in the purchasing price of a dollar over the past decade, not its value relative to other currencies at the moment

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

#433

Post by arowthway »

whatshisface wrote: post #412
testdelacc1 wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you share a link to where he promotes race science?

This one is more direct than most, but comments about the subject are not uncommon on the older blog. I think reading this material is why the journalist turned against him but never stated why. "Psychiatrist has dozens of charts on their secret personal blog comparing the achievements of different sub-ethnicities in Israel" is a headline you might try to hide out of politeness to the uninvolved. https://slatestarcod…

What's wrong with comparing the achievements of different sub-ethnicities in Israel? What's wrong with talking about any real phenomena? Is the assumption that he must have a hidden bad-faith agenda?

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

#434

Post by ghaff »

otherme123 wrote: post #420
DeathArrow wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Satoshi’s wallets are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and there have been kidnappings/torture/murders for much less than that. So if Forbes publishes a list of the richest people in the world, it makes them targets?

Those people are on alert and already protected. Satoshi is probably a regular guy without any other security other than being anonymous. We are also assuming that they are doxing the real guy, and not some bystander that now have to deal with all the consequences without having the resources to protect himself. Lets suppose they are wrong, they dox the wrong person, "opsies, let us add a footnote to the text saying…

And if you do have a big pile of money but are flying under the radar so far you sadly should have some investments in security. I thought people around here didn’t really believe in security through obscurity.

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

#435

Post by vintermann »

refulgentis wrote: post #113
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,"…

[flagged]

I agree with the parts worth engaging with. I hate when people weak-man arguments.

But interesting as this is, there are others who fit at least as well. That bit gold was the closest proposed scheme to Bitcoin is well known, and we know the proposer of bit gold (Szabo) was actively soliciting partners to help implement it as a real system right before Bitcoin appeared.

Also, people leave mailing lists and come back randomly months later all the time. Adam could have simply been unlucky, and busy with other projects at the time of the launch. Lots of people were, and kicked themselves for it (which honestly, it seems Adam did too!).

Adam Back is credited in the Bitcoin whitepaper as the inventor of Hashcash. W. Dai is credited as the inventor of b-money. But Nick Szabo is not credited as the inventor of bit gold, by far the most mature of these ideas floating around at the cipherpunks mailing list at the time. That's a conspicuous absence.

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

#437

Post by farfatched »

tavavex wrote: post #310
farfatched wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious about his life, in the same way I might read a biography or the Early Life section on a Wikipedia page. Some people like mysteries.

What I'm saying is that the overall amount of effort being spent on this isn't very proportional to sheer curiosity. Curious people may go out of their way to do something difficult, but years-long research campaigns with a single person in the crosshair feel like a step too far. Not even the perpetrators of famous unsolved crimes receive this much scrutiny. I don't doubt there's many people in the mix who are just c…

> Not even the perpetrators of famous unsolved crimes receive this much scrutiny.

The zodiac killer still has an active subreddit! https://old.reddit.com/r/ZodiacKiller/

> Maybe hurting him or trying to profit off of the knowledge somehow, or even just becoming famous for being the person who found Satoshi Nakamoto.

Yeah, there's likely some pride/ego involved, and sadly trying to hurt the person most responsible for cryptocurrency.

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

#438

Post by ghaff »

chii wrote: post #363
bluecalm wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking along the same lines. Isn't it just doxxing? Going deep into someone's online history and making hypothesis about who they are in real life, then publishing their name and what they do?

Indeed, unless they're already a public person (such as celebrity or public figure of note).

Mini-celebrities are probably far more likely to attract attention than a lot of “rich people.”

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

#439

Post by vanviegen »

throwawayk7h wrote: post #428
Barrin92 wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always found that case a bit odd. For one he was blogging under his real name and had made his medical practice known, so you could just google him. It was upending his psychiatry practice because he blogged, albeit in anonymized fashion, about his patients without disclosing it to them which I'd say is unethical but at the very least in the interest of his patients to be made known to them. I would be pretty pisse…

He was not blogging under his real name. Scott Alexander is not his real name.

It's his first and middle name. At least that's what he said in the post about shutting down the blog.

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

#440

Post by bobanrocky »

gbibas wrote: post #426
gyomu wrote: post #312

Simple question for anyone who’s familiar with this world of journalism: how does the author and the NYTimes cope with the fact that making such claims paint a huge target on the person they claim to have “unmasked”? Satoshi’s wallets are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and there have been kidnappings/torture/murders for much less than that. Do they just not care about the ethical implications? And really, for…

Exactly right. Unfortunately, this is likely a reporter who is just looking for something that will get attention. I remember a time when reporters wrote things based on importance, not chasing clickbait like everyone on social media. Whoever Satoshi is/was, they wanted privacy. Let them have it and move on.

You do realize the author is the one that exposed the Theranos fraud ?
Post reply on HN