The Face Behind Bitcoin? • Hacker News Board

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#491

Post by saraid216 » Thu, Mar 06, 2014, 7:08 PM UTC

arrrg wrote: post #143

sounds wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're so comfortable with journalism, I'd like to interview you. But first please provide: • Full names and home towns of your children and your wife • Picture of your house – include a clear photo of your car's license plate • Your home town, so anyone can locate you on Google Maps • Your work history • Your net worth • Your health history • Any notable personality traits you have, so the whole world can comment…

Did I do anything of note that would make any of this information interesting to the public? I think I did not. If you want to put the work in and find all that out you are free to. I never once said that everyone should actually provide journalists with that information just like that. They still have to put the work in. Do that if you want to, but I don’t think you will find anything interesting.

> I think I did not.

Neither did Nakamoto, if you read the article.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#492

Post by nickff » Thu, Mar 06, 2014, 7:09 PM UTC

bradleyjg wrote: post #280

spindritf wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Nationalist and libertarian are not orthogonal in practice. Try talking to any self professed libertarian about free movement of labor. On the theoretical side it goes back to the whole Trotskyism/Stalinism debate.

>"Try talking to any self professed libertarian about free movement of labor."

Are you trying to imply that libertarians are inconsistent? There are plenty of libertarians who believe in open borders, Bryan Caplan being one prime example.[1][2] On the other hand, it is also perfectly self-consistent to believe that citizens of a country are entitled to liberties which are not guaranteed to foreigners.

[1] http://openborders.info/bryan-caplan/

[2] http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2010/10/caplan_on_immig.htm...

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#493

Post by smsm42 » Thu, Mar 06, 2014, 7:11 PM UTC

cairnsh wrote: post #314

johngalt wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A libertarian government worker would be more like a nuclear engineer who thinks nuclear energy plants are intrinsically dangerous. So dangerous that they should be avoided if at all possible.

You are confusing libertarians and anarchists. Libertarian would be a nuclear engineer that thinks nuclear energy plants are dangerous, so they should be strictly controlled and confined within the strictest safety procedures, and while the usability of their nuclear reaction can be harnessed to perform some functions that are hard to achieve otherwise, the said nuclear reaction should be strictly confined to these functions and not to be allowed to be spread outside of them. Would you really want a nuclear engineer that thinks otherwise to be in charge of a nuclear plant near you? Maybe some type that his first solution to any problem is sprinkling some uranium on it and seeing if the radiation solves it? And when it doesn't work saying maybe it's because it's not radioactive enough, so we need more uranium there?

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#494

Post by anigbrowl » Thu, Mar 06, 2014, 7:12 PM UTC

leigh_t wrote: post #196

revdinosaur wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has a tinge of pettiness to it, don't you think?

> This has a tinge of pettiness to it I don't think it's petty at all to link to publicly available information, when others have requested that information. Google-fu differs between individuals. I do find it particularly petty that someone would go to great lengths to expose the private details of the life of a man who just wants to be left in peace.

So it's OK for you to use your Google-fu, but not for her to do the same thing?

I, for one, am quite interested to know more about Satoshi Nakamoto and this article is responsive to my curiosity about him. As someone else has pointed out, a great deal of information is public anyway in the form of property tax records and what not. If this were not the case I would get much less direct mail.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#495

Post by etherael » Thu, Mar 06, 2014, 7:13 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #472

judk wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bill Gates spends millions of dollars per year on personal security.

So? Nakamoto can spend money on security too if he feels like it. As a cryptographer he's surely familiar with the adage that 'tehre's no security in obscurity,' and I'm only surprised it's taken this long to ID him.

It's probably not actually him.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#496

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Mar 06, 2014, 7:14 PM UTC

cgore wrote: post #302

spindritf wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 F…

> 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.")

NASA for most of its existence was pretty much was a platform for military research and demonstration of military capacity with a civilian/exploration PR veneer.

If the public was more less interested in non-military functions of government, we'd still probably have had something doing most of what NASA did, it just would have been more overtly military.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#497

Post by ropman76 » Thu, Mar 06, 2014, 7:15 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 tend to lean libertarian and did some GIS and tax programming for some county governments. I never saw issues with it. There are some government functions that really only government can do. In this case figuring out exactly who owns what piece of property where. 90% of the people I worked with in government were stand up people and fairly good at their jobs. It was the remaining 10% that is why government accountability becomes extremely important. One government IT director went to jail for fraud. Another IT director cost his city thousands of dollars because he refused to upgrade an old AS400 platform and the county had to employ us to wrangle the data so they could read it.

The more I work with government and see more examples of waste and out right fraud the more I think it should only have limited powers (and the whole issue with the NSA seems to support that point). Just because I want a very limited government doesn't mean I can't support the government in things it should be doing well.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#498

Post by baddox » Thu, Mar 06, 2014, 7:15 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've even pointed out point-blank that their salaries are paid for by the same taxes they rail against incessantly

In fact, this very idea is a matter of intense discussion about libertarian types. What exactly can/should you do that makes you benefit from the government? It may seem obvious that working for the NSA would be a no-no, but where do we draw the line? What about working as a public school teacher? What about using public roads?

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#499

Post by rsanders » Thu, Mar 06, 2014, 7:15 PM UTC

rosser wrote: post #479

rsanders wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You never get your money back out of a bank; you get somebody else's money, if there ever even was physical money involved. And you never step in the same river twice. I think that's all splitting metaphysical hairs.

In this case, it's actually not hair-splitting; see my reply to your comment's sibling. You both demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of how Social Security works.

I may well misunderstand how Social Security works. However, the point of my comment is that it's hardly the only system to which one might contribute funds, incurring some future obligation of (re)payment on the part of that system, which is later discharged using funds that were most recently in "someone else's pocket".

Either it's a trivial point that applies pretty broadly outside of SS, or you meant something more significant and I'm interested in knowing what that is.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#500

Post by argumentum » Thu, Mar 06, 2014, 7:16 PM UTC

georgemcbay wrote: post #473

masmullin wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or false confirmation. He might not have invented bitcoin but know all about it (because of his name). He would know that acting all shadowy and evasive would make him seem more like the real Satoshi. tl;dr - Give me proof, not vague "seems like he confirmed it."

What about good old Occam's Razor? Seems pretty obvious to me that if the details in this article are true (and they likely are) this is indeed "the" Satoshi.

What are the "details"?