The Face Behind Bitcoin? • Hacker News Board

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#301

Post by wpietri » Thu, Mar 06, 2014, 4:06 PM UTC

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #81

nwh wrote: 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…

Also, if Nakamoto wishes to remain private, then it's their right to remain private.

Could you explain how you think this right works, and to what extent it protects people aiming to effect the world from scrutiny by that world?

The US does have a right to privacy, but invoking to suggest nobody should have asked about Nakamoto suggests you are talking about something entirely different.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#302

Post by cgore » Thu, Mar 06, 2014, 4:07 PM UTC

spindritf wrote: post #169

bane wrote: 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…

the paradox of the deeply conservative anti-federal government types who work for the government - directly or as a fed contractor Those are the people who have a realistic, first hand understanding of the government innerworkings. Also, a contradiction between believing that allocation of capital would be more efficient under a less centrally-influenced system, and being willing to accept higher pay and benefits fro…

I think a lot of people seem to be confusing Libertarianism with Anarchism. Libertarians typically do see roles for SOME government, and those roles are typically the military, judges, roads, police, and the like.

Not other things though, so no Social Security, no Obamacare, no National Endowment for the Arts, and no space program (other than for space weapons, so get rid of NASA and establish some sort of "US Star Force.")

So with that world view, working at a defense contractor isn't a conflict at all, instead, it is the one "true and legitimate" reason for government in their eyes.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#303

Post by nwh » Thu, Mar 06, 2014, 4:08 PM UTC

unclebucknasty wrote: post #155

nwh wrote: 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…

Not for nothing, but it's a bit ironic that you rail on against the irresponsibility of the paper for publishing this, then throw up a non pay-walled link to help ensure that people can access it. But, thanks.

Streisand effect.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#304

Post by gonehome » Thu, Mar 06, 2014, 4:09 PM UTC

bane wrote: 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…

I think it's more nuanced than that, maybe not always - but usually.

A person can dislike some things an organization does while finding value in others, government systems are complex. You can ignore the government and work outside of it or you can work within it to try and push things in a certain direction.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#305

Post by wpietri » Thu, Mar 06, 2014, 4:09 PM UTC

smacktoward wrote: post #150

liopleurodon wrote: post #118

"The punctuation in the proposal is also consistent with how Dorian S. Nakamoto writes, with double spaces after periods and other format quirks." wtf!! That's how you're supposed to write!!

Actually, no. Double spaces after periods are an artifact of the formatting limitations of typewriters (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_spacing#Mechanical_typ... ). In an age of properly kerned digital type, there's no reason to use more than one space. As a result of this, you can get a rough sense of a person's age by looking at how they handle sentence spacing. People old enough to have learned how to ty…

Exactly. In high school I took a typing class, and there, two spaces after the period was the rule. I switched to one space later on, probably because early word processing and desktop publishing tech produced over-spaced results if you used two spaces.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#306

Post by robotcookies » Thu, Mar 06, 2014, 4:10 PM UTC

potatoman2 wrote: post #265

"This man is Satoshi Nakamoto." "What?" The police officer balks. "This is the guy who created Bitcoin? It looks like he's living a pretty humble life." - I do not believe this exchange took place. The police would've had his name from his initial call to them, and a random officer from the Sheriff's department would not likely recognize that name as the creator of Bitcoin. Just saying.

He did change his name from Satoshi to Dorian and maybe that's what the officer had.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#307

Post by jdjb » Thu, Mar 06, 2014, 4:14 PM UTC

johngalt wrote: post #217

bane wrote: 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…

If anti-government and inexperienced then: 'These libertarians are just backwards and don't understand government' If anti-government and experienced then: 'Hypocrites!' else: more government It's a stronger position to oppose something you are experienced with and benefit from. Imagine a nuclear engineer who's advocating that the new plant she's working on is being built dangerously by the people in charge. Would yo…

I wouldn't refuse to listen her but I'd question her morality if she continues to knowingly put the lives of people in danger just for her pay cheque.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#308

Post by bane » Thu, Mar 06, 2014, 4:14 PM UTC

jeremyt wrote: post #290

bane wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something I've learned over the years is that there are a tremendous number of highly different personal philosophies that call themselves "conservative" or "libertarian" that share only the loosest similarities, but the people who self-identify these ways also seem to comfortably self-group and display similar behavior and thought patterns. This is regardless of the textbook definitions of what these philosophies sh…

I'm going to take you at your word that you're actually curious. I think you're seeing hypocrisy here when there is really a lot less in reality. People who are in favor of a certain outcome have no obligation to act as if that outcome has already come to pass. This is why I don't give liberals a hard time because they are in favor of higher taxes but don't voluntarily pay higher taxes themselves. First of all, most…

> I'm going to take you at your word that you're actually curious.

I actually do find it curious, but frustrating. I have a great many friends, who I quite like in normal face-to-face interaction, who I've FB friended, and found I had to unfollow their feeds because in private they turn into rabid ideologues...from every part of the political spectrum. In this case I'm isolating conservative/libertarian folks, but I see similar kinds of things from people in various liberal parts of the spectrum as well...endless huffington post, MSNBC and planned parenthood links or whatever.

> People who are in favor of a certain outcome have no obligation to act as if that outcome has already come to pass.

Yeah that's true in theory. But it can get out of control. It's like attending a rally about having too many strip clubs in your neighborhood, then chilling out after the rally in your local neighborhood strip club.

It's not like there isn't a large, thriving, private, non-government sector in the U.S. that they could be employing their skills at.

> all things being equal it's better to have some conservative/libertarian people working there to keep things from getting out of control

What would concern me is people who fundamentally don't believe their job should exist because it's a waste of resources, simply not doing a good job.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#309

Post by Houshalter » Thu, Mar 06, 2014, 4:15 PM UTC

Jtsummers wrote: post #287

MadManE wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking advantage of the existing situation for maximum personal gain doesn't indicate doublethink. It only indicates that they care more about themselves than they care about "the greater good" - which, in my opinion is how it should be. Somebody's going to be getting paid for doing nothing - it might as well be me.

It's doublethink or hypocrisy to complain about people getting fat off the government dole while getting fat off the government dole.

If someone is going to get paid it might as well be me. People that support positions only because they personally benefit or who can't change their minds because it would cost them, are far more worrying. As another comment pointed out, those people have a personal stake in the issue. Accepting they are wrong has an actual cost to them.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#310

Post by bachback » Thu, Mar 06, 2014, 4:16 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #63

confluence wrote: post #46

There's one thing that doesn't add up: why would such a privacy conscious man use his real name on a project he thought might be illegal? If he was so serious about his privacy, he would not have used his real name in public.

Usually the simplest explanations are the right ones. Who expects to create a new form of exchange, that goes on to become a $10 billion network (and maybe one day far larger)? It's entirely plausible that Satoshi thought using that name, on his little project, would be enough. There is sometimes a lab mentality among people whose work has mostly been hidden away, they would never expect it to touch every corner of t…

no, not at all. read the very first posts he made, where he predicted world wide use. he was absolutely aware of the possibility.