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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

#451

Post by vintermann »

adastra22 wrote: post #418
vintermann wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can tell you that neither Szabo nor Back are Satoshi, as anyone who knows them would attest. I'm sure you can tell us, and I'm sure you all will attest it, but is it true though? You probably wouldn't "out" Satoshi if it was one of you working on anonymous payment systems on the mailing list, and it very obviously is - there were like ten people at most, if we're generous, who were working on what was at the time…

I co-founded a company with Adam Back. If he is Satoshi, I'd be pissed that we had to take money on really bad terms while he was sitting on billions. And I'd find it strange that I had to correct minor misconceptions about how bitcoin worked back in 2013/2014. That's all non-transferable evidence though that you just have to take, or not take at face value. On the other hand, just go read Adam's twitter. Half the ti…

I'm not one of those who thinks it's Adam Back, I believe it's Szabo - which means of course that I find your anecdotes perfectly convincing :)

And it seems also the thing you mention about taking money on bad terms should be independently verifiable, which the journalist writing this article should probably have checked.

I have trouble believing Satoshi would pursue a venture capital startup founder life in his personal life, assuming he didn't burn his wallets. I would find it a lot more likely that he pursued an academic career at his own tempo, writing a paper here and there, maybe teaching undergraduates even, etc. But that's a lot closer to my dream life, so maybe I'm biased there as well!

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

#452

Post by Topfi »

voldacar wrote: post #311

The common linguistic quirks are interesting and extremely convincing at first glance, but the article doesn't investigate C++ coding style, which as others have mentioned, seems quite different between Back and Satoshi. And Satoshi didn't believe the blocksize should be set in stone, the notion that he just casually changed his mind on that isn't impossible but deserves a closer look than the article gives it.

The fact that both knew that C++ is a programming language at all, must suffice as evidence, at least for the purposes of this Article. Weirdly a real divergence from the Theranos reporting, which on top of that, also was absolutely in the public interest as it affected both the health of patients and was on actual fraud. Here it it exposure for exposure sake and not well reasoned to boot.

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

#453

Post by system2 »

tavavex wrote: post #301

Can I just ask why people are so fixated on revealing Satoshi's identity? This article phrases it as some pure, innocent and almost academic pursuit, driven by curiosity and the mystique itself. But the amount of effort spent on trying to find Satoshi is immense. He must be the internet's most doxxed person by now. Is it just because of his wealth? Is someone trying to exact revenge on him? Or is he wanted by the aut…

There are some legitimate reasons. First one: a government-backed operation that can have even deeper conspiracies. The second most important one is Bitcoin's long-term stability. If people figure out who created it, they can also predict what kind of major crashes can happen, especially Satoshi's wallet with million+ bitcoins used one day.

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

#454

Post by gamblor956 »

johnfn wrote: post #346
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 infamously doxxed Slate Star Codex[1], despite him basically begging them not to because it would upend his psychiatry practice, back in 2020 for no reason other than because they could. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23610416

You can't doxx someone who already publicly identified themselves.

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

#456

Post by Reimersholme »

arthurofbabylon wrote: post #386
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…

This is a journalistic publication with a foundational value of transparency. If you study the history of institutions that favor transparency, they rarely ever need to further justify efforts of transparency beyond that underlying value. Transparency needs no further analysis of second order effects. “What is gained…?” is simply not a question asked, for the same reason that advocates for privacy rarely if ever circ…

[dead]

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

#457

Post by adastra22 »

silisili wrote: post #448
adastra22 wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I founded a company with Adam. He is not Satoshi. Neither is Szabo. Best not to speculate publicly as no good comes from it - not least of which there are organized crime rings targeting potential suspects for violent kidnapping or home invasion.

Not to be a jerk, but it'd be helpful for a reader to know how and why you came to that conclusion.

Not to be a jerk, but none of this is anybody's business.

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

#458

Post by IanCal »

armchairhacker wrote: post #449
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…

It’s legal to publish anonymous patient data, doctors do it frequently e.g. in “case studies”. As long as it can’t be traced back to the patient I don’t see why they should care (I wouldn’t). And since it increases public knowledge (e.g. how to treat future patients) I think it’s not only ethical, but should be encouraged. Doxxing also increases public knowledge, but knowing who’s behind some online pseudonym is much…

Case studies are done with consent, typically. That’s pretty different.

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

#459

Post by [deleted] »

gamblor956 wrote: post #454
johnfn wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NYTimes infamously doxxed Slate Star Codex[1], despite him basically begging them not to because it would upend his psychiatry practice, back in 2020 for no reason other than because they could. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23610416

You can't doxx someone who already publicly identified themselves.

[deleted]

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

#460

Post by flir »

jmyeet wrote: post #319
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…

I think the wallets go well beyond "hundreds of millions". Aren't there like a million Bitcoin in dormant wallets associated with Satoshi? Personally, I'd assumed that whoever the person or persons were, they're dead because nobody can resist the pull of tens of billions of dollars regardless of their ideological position on cryptocurrencies. But that's just a guess. There's absolutely a public interest in this. Sorr…

More likely they were playing with the system when they were the system in the early days, and just didn't keep those keys (IMO). Remember, even into the GPU era people were still giving bitcoin away; those wallets weren't worth anything.
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