Live data from Hacker News

The Face Behind Bitcoin?

mag.newsweek.com

241–250 of 703 posts

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#241
post #67
post #22

Being labeled Satoshi regardless of truth is pretty much going to get you robbed, kidnapped or killed. This dude lives in this town and has $400M of untraceable currency? The article gives his name, face, address and relatives. You can be sure as hell that somebody will do something stupid to try and get to it. I wouldn't wish this label upon anybody, it's exactly why the community tries to avoid speculating about it…

Doxxing? That is such a stupid term. It’s called journalism. Reporting on people with a huge impact on the world is sort of what journalists do. Of course that includes identifying information. Sure, publishing identifying information of people who did nothing special is unethical but that can hardly be said about Satoshi. If the story is correct then this is some insanely rich dude who got rich by inventing Bitcoin…

The press has a lot of knowledge of high interest to the public that they never publish for various reasons.

Sometimes they can't prove a relation, other times they don't feel the public can deal with the information and finally sometimes they are simply asked not to post it.

the primary kind of stories where this is normal is with politicians.

In other words. You argument would have some more weight if it was used everywhere else too.

The press always have a choice and they also did here. It's not in the public interest to figure out who the creator of bitcoin is. It serves no purpose. It ads no value to bitcoin.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#242
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-fing-sequitur straw-man. We can point at ANY part of the sociopolitical spectrum and find hypocrites. I could spew the same sort of such outrageous examples about liberals/leftists/progressives/socialists but won't because it has nothing to do with the topic. Suffice to say Nakamoto did have a change of mind and did do something world-changing about it. And, golly, he is a libertarian who made a herculean effort…

> Suffice to say Nakamoto did have a change of mind We actually don't know that. On the surface sure look like it, but he could have had a similar personal philosophy before during and after his time working for the government. > We can point at ANY part of the sociopolitical spectrum and find hypocrites. Absolutely agree. I could add also the large number of pacifist liberal vegan types I know who work for the DoD o…

Just because you live/work in close & frequent proximity with people exemplifying such outrageous cognitive dissonance does not negate the outrageousness thereof.

And just because you don't know whether Nakamoto suffered & acted on such cognitive dissonance doesn't justify posting outrageous examples of what you're imputing.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#244
post #55

"What?" The police officer balks. "This is the guy who created Bitcoin? It looks like he's living a pretty humble life." That quote smells totally fake to me. There's just no way some random office would know what Bitcoin is, and even if he did, that's not something a police officer would say. I don't know what that says about the rest of the article, but that quote doesn't read very factual to me.

Why couldn't a random officer know what Bitcoin is? My father heard of it and knows nothing about technology. It's no longer a secretive online currency, it's everywhere.

[deleted]

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#245
post #101

Topic other than discussing the irresponsibility of "outing" a guy using the clever tricks of using his name and public records look ups. > A libertarian, Nakamoto encouraged his daughter to be independent, start her own business and "not be under the government's thumb," she says. "He was very wary of the government, taxes and people in charge." > What you don't know about him is that he's worked on classified stuff…

My favorite are the guys who rail against socialized medicine while simultaneously praising the care they get from the VA. I think a lot of these people just subconsciously see "the government" as simply not including the security apparatus.

So because the government feeds its soldiers it would be hypocritical or illogical to rail against nationalizing farms and supermarkets?

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that Nakamoto lives in LA.

Isn't Nakamoto the only person who lives in LA who also controls >10% of a currency?

Yes, but he's not the only person in LA with a net worth that large. And people who hold a large amount of stock in a company are in a similar situation.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#247
post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a young AF lieutenant here: Taxes are theft! My response: But you're paid with those taxes. His response: Oh, right. I live in a military town, 20k people work directly for the base (there are only 120k people in the county, 250k in the counties most of the employees live in). They rail against the fat, then when furloughs happened last year railed against that. No shit, you want the government to spend less, yo…

[search saver :] Personal protective equipment (PPE) refers to protective clothing, helmets, goggles, or other garments or equipment ... ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_protective_equipment )

Thanks for that.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#248
post #226
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you didn’t understand me. A. You have to put in the work and actually find stuff out. That’s what journalists do. B. You have to report on something relevant and interesting to the public. Some random person who didn’t do anything of any note is not relevant. Publishing identifying information on them is unethical. Publishing identifying information on someone hugely influential is very much ethical.

Who decides what is "anything of note" or who is considered "highly influential"

Society? People have always wanted to know who Nakamoto was in real life and would consider creating Bitcoin something of note. Any news story about Bitcoin in the past couple years have included something about the mystique of Nakamoto.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#249
post #22

Being labeled Satoshi regardless of truth is pretty much going to get you robbed, kidnapped or killed. This dude lives in this town and has $400M of untraceable currency? The article gives his name, face, address and relatives. You can be sure as hell that somebody will do something stupid to try and get to it. I wouldn't wish this label upon anybody, it's exactly why the community tries to avoid speculating about it…

I read this book a few years ago: http://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Invisible-Protect-Children/dp/1...

In it there is a section where he asks "Why would you want privacy anyway?" and this is exactly one of those reasons. You get labelled in some way, even if its not true, and that label sticks with you forever, potentially ruining your life or putting you in danger...

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#250
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people have that much money in the US. SN might have to actually take precautions appropriate of someone of his net worth. Boo hoo.

Except his actual net worth is probably a fraction of what his theoretical net worth is. It's assumed for instance that he still has access to all those bitcoins, but something could have happened to that wallet. There's also the difficulty of actually converting those coins into something the average business will accept. It's like suggesting that handing someone a billion dollars in un-vested bonds suddenly makes t…

Fair point. It's a tricky situation. But, hey, sometimes, life hands us lemons. I'm sure there are many reasonable solutions. Perhaps not his preferred solution, but solutions nonetheless.
Post reply on HN