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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

#561

Post by [deleted] »

Lio wrote: post #520
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

It's the use of the word "quest" here that really bothers me. It seems ignoble. Much like the "unmasking" of Banksy or Belle de Jour. Why do it other than nosiness? Is the person committing a crime? No? Then leave them in peace. This is just a journalist using the resources of NYTimes to show off that they can exert control over someone else.

[deleted]

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

#562

Post by ap99 »

mike_hearn wrote: post #521
acjohnson55 wrote: post #393

I think there's a pretty good chance Adam Back is Satoshi, but I don't think this is a great article. Perhaps he's rendering a careful scientific process in a way that makes for a readable narrative, but as written, it sounds like a lot of gut feel and confirmation bias. The biggest new contribution to the Satoshi question seems to be ad hoc stylometry. To have faith in his methodology, he should be testing it on ide…

It seems very unlikely to me. I've had personal correspondence with Satoshi, and met Adam Back in person, and I can't see it. Actually I don't see how anyone involved with Blockstream could be identified as Satoshi. They never believed in what Satoshi was doing and built their whole company around the claim that Satoshi had screwed up the core of the system's design, despite that nothing about the design or its assum…

I have no idea about any of this stuff - but if I were trying to hide my identity I would go out of my way to misalign my real self with my hidden identity.

e.g. Pick a name that puts people on a false trail.

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

#563

Post by Angostura »

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…

You mean, why is it worth noting that someone who frequently speaks at conferences about Bitcoin, has businesses that utilise Bitcoin and is influential in the Bitcoin community is - the inventor of Bitcoin?

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

#564

Post by ap99 »

olalonde wrote: post #547
Thorrez wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>why would you do that if you were rich? Satoshi can't spend any of his bitcoins without tanking bitcoin's price. So Satoshi needs to find some other way to support himself. Creating bitcoin related companies is one way.

He could tank the price to $1000 and still be a billionaire. There's a much more plausible reason for why Satoshi's coins haven't moved.

Who would realistically not want to cash out?

1. Someone so purely interested in the tech and not money they'd give up the wealth 2. Governments, specifically the ones that don't consider a few billion to be a lot 3. Someone who's dead

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

#565

Post by sva_ »

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…

> hundreds of millions

More in the range of 100 billion

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

#567

Post by psychoslave »

alyxya wrote: post #470
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 of journalism like any other job where there's an expectation to produce results, where the main objective here is to write an article that lots of people read. It's a topic that catches a lot of people's attention, so in a sense they've succeeded by getting a lot of people to read and talk about it.

It’s like saying chirurgeon job is like any other job, and the most people operated in a minimum amount of time is all that matter to optimize. But even in the most cynical Machiavelli™ hospital, reputation and actual operational results have to be taken into account if the institution want to continue to be frequented.

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

#568

Post by FinnKuhn »

Thorrez wrote: post #554
olalonde wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He could tank the price to $1000 and still be a billionaire. There's a much more plausible reason for why Satoshi's coins haven't moved.

What's the much more plausible reason?

That the person is dead would be a pretty convincing one.

Or they just lost access.

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

#570

Post by incompatible »

prmoustache wrote: post #399
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?

Let's keep in mind that doxxing is not a universal concept nor are its mechanisms universally perceived as negative/frowned upon outside of specific online areas. I don't know of any law against it except for specific populations like law enforcement and even those usually have exceptions for journalism.

Australia has a law against "menacing or harassing" doxxing.

https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display....

(nice permalink URL guys.)

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