The Face Behind Bitcoin? • Hacker News Board

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#671

Post by leigh_t » Fri, Mar 07, 2014, 9:55 AM UTC

revdinosaur wrote: post #412

leigh_t wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Well that line of reasoning is exactly what I was referring to. The reporter doing due diligence and fact gathering is in ill taste, but responding in kind and releasing personal information about her is justified? That doesn't hold water, logically. I don't think anyone is that naive. It's alright if you're upset about divulging Nakamoto's personal details, it's the tit-for-tat mentality that comes across as childis…

Well there seems to be some misunderstanding about who released what. I have not released anything because I didn't have to.

All I have done is link to some items that she released into the public domain on a previous occasion.

Sharing the stupidity of others is a long-lived internet tradition. It's almost adage status; be careful what you post, it may come back to haunt you later. The same is true of this, I suppose.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#672

Post by Tyrannosaurs » Fri, Mar 07, 2014, 12:26 PM UTC

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #70

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you, but would temper it very slightly by saying that a man with a $400m fortune has some options here. That doesn't make it right and his wealth doesn't make him free game but it does mean that he's not completely been hung out to dry.

They haven't presented any evidence. The Satoshi they found sounds like a plausible Satoshi but is it really him? If he is the real Satoshi he may have lost or discarded his private keys. Some snarky comment about how this is why bloggers aren't journalists because a "real" news organization has ethics or something.

Newsweek was sold recently and it's not the publication it used to be.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#673

Post by junto » Fri, Mar 07, 2014, 12:31 PM UTC

cyanbane wrote: post #23

I am not a big fan of the way the article was written, but I can definitely see how some may decry it as being news worthy. I think the author should be ashamed for posting a picture of this man's house. No need for that and it doesn't add to the story after the description.

I think I can see the thieves lining up to break in to his house to steal his bitcoins already.

Whether he is the Nakamoto behind Bitcoin or not, I think Newsweek have basically made him a target.

Let's put this another way. I see him as a potential target worth $400 million, and I'm not even inclined to partake in breaking and entering. So, what about the uncrupulous people who don't know much about bitcoin. Oh yeah, let's steal the guys computer. It is worth $400 million dollars.

Newsweek just lined this poor guy up as a target for every crook in LA.

I feel really sorry for the guy.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#674

Post by zecho » Fri, Mar 07, 2014, 1:06 PM UTC

gnarbarian wrote: post #657

zecho wrote: post #650

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as a government employee, not a contractor, we are actually more efficient than my previous private sector jobs. But then again, we have a "build it don't buy it" culture here with a lot of love for open source throughout our services and really only use consultants on ultra specific jobs, due to head count caps from our legislature. Sure there's some union cruft here and there but I've seen similar dead wei…

your department sounds pretty awesome. I've never seen anything like that. Unfortunately I don't have the option of choosing our clients. I am but a humble developer for an 8a contractor. If you don't mind me asking. What state/department do you work for?

Minnesota education. There is obviously years of cruft to deal with, but there is a desire here to constantly do things better. Honestly, the tech attracted me to the job. They're using some cool stuff. I was pretty surprised when I interviewed. Went from seeing the interview as practice to really wanting the job.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#675

Post by Jtsummers » Fri, Mar 07, 2014, 1:12 PM UTC

baddox wrote: post #669

Jtsummers wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So am I a bad person for advocating exercise and a healthy diet despite generally failing to observe my own recommendation?

Not at all, that's only loosely comparable. To really make it a fair comparison: You'd be a bad person if you thought that obesity was a sign of moral failings, and looked down on those people. All while stuffing your face with your third cake of the day, washing it down with your second liter of coke. If, in that situation, you couldn't recognize yourself as obese and consequently suffering from the same "moral failings" as those you denounce, then you'd be a hypocrite or engaged in doublethink.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#676

Post by jmpe » Fri, Mar 07, 2014, 1:58 PM UTC

masmullin wrote: post #545

npizzolato wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you say that? It seems wildly speculative (at least, far more than the opposite opinion of believing he likely still has the coins he's believed to own).

Yup, it is wildly speculative. Seems just as likely a speculation as any other towards why he hasn't sold/spent the coins yet though.

Wildly?

When you develop software based on your own novel framework, wouldn't you need to do several test-runs, performance runs, sanity runs in the process? Do you keep all the intermediate debug data? I know I don't. In this case bitcoins would be part of the intermediate data.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#677

Post by weavejester » Fri, Mar 07, 2014, 2:31 PM UTC

mpyne wrote: post #665

weavejester wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since we're talking ethics, rather than legality, do you believe it's ethically sound to post someone's personal details, and then make (possibly false) claims about them that may compromise their safety?

> Since we're talking ethics, rather than legality, do you believe it's ethically sound to post someone's personal details, and then make (possibly false) claims about them that may compromise their safety? I don't think it's ethically sound to post his address, license plate information, city, etc. Especially since it leads to crazy media car chases and other sorts of paparazzi-style insanity that I wouldn't wish on…

Thanks for your honest answer. I'm of the opinion that it's legal (first amendment, etc), but rather unethical, especially since the evidence isn't conclusive.

Regarding safety, currency stored in banks tends to be less susceptible to theft via coercion. If someone breaks into a house, holds a person at gunpoint, and demands their bank details, they probably won't be able to successfully transfer a few million dollars out without triggering some internal check. On the other hand, you could easily do that with bitcoins, assuming that the private key hasn't been locked up in a vault, or the transaction secured with multiple keys.

I still feel it's an unlikely scenario, but it seems that claiming someone has $400 million in untraceable digital currency is going to impact their safety more than claiming they have $400 million in a bank, or in shares.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#678

Post by bane » Fri, Mar 07, 2014, 3:16 PM UTC

crazy1van wrote: post #666

bane wrote: post #634

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Working for the government does not grow the government. Working productively for the government, specifically when non-government alternatives exist, does. Let's say you work in transportation, should you work for the DoT or the company that owns all the toll roads in the region? Let's say you do a damn good job for the DoT and because of your work you drive the the cost per traveled mile per person (or whatever t…

Interesting point. I see how that applies in your DoT / toll road example but that works because they are in a sense two competing entities. That's not the case with a big chunk of the government. For example, a highly productive patent office employee really doesn't do anything to justify the office's existence unlike your DoT worker example. In some ways, issuing a lot of patents might actually prove the patent off…

Well, to specifically look at your patent example. Patents are one of the few things most types of Constitutionally focused Libertarian movements explicitly allow (U.S.C. Article 1, Sec 8, Clause 8).

But more generally, there are lots of things that only governments can do, that no free-market alternative can provide comparably, or can provide structure to where the non-government solution provides inefficient chaos.

People often use government mandated standards as the example. "Drinking water must have no more than x parts per million of y" and then provides testing and enforcement of those standards to ensure some minimal level of safety. And if some act of God means local drinking water becomes undrinkable regardless of efforts to clean, the government also carries out public awareness and warning campaigns and offers remediation guidelines.

Nothing stops private industry from providing better than those standards of water, but private industry generally doesn't. Given a set of minimal standards, private industry almost always targets those standards (but not better and of course there are exceptions). Now imagine what gets targeted when there are no standards and no enforcement of the standards? Is the water safe? or does it just not taste bad? I've been in countries where there was effectively no government oversight and the water tasted fine, but would land you in a hospital.

And there are many cases where private industry gets caught not providing that minimal standard and enforcement actions occur. Or industry that has nothing to do with water provisioning ends up contaminating water so badly that people's tap water lights on fire or whatever.

Industry self-regulation sometimes works, but just as often has been shown to not work well at all.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#679

Post by masmullin » Fri, Mar 07, 2014, 4:30 PM UTC

mpyne wrote: post #602

masmullin wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Occam's Razor tells us to go to the simplest of arguments. Given that the details of the article are circumstantial, it's pretty simple that the journalist is wrong and this Satoshi is acting vague for personal gain. However, I give you Hanlon's Razor on this. It's more likely that this Satoshi flubbed his words when speaking about bitcoin rather than intentionally mislead the journalist.

Satoshi's response wasn't vague though. It was detailed. * I'm not working on this * Anymore (i.e., I was before) * It's been turned over to other people (i.e. there were other parties involved in this work) * They are in charge of it now (i.e. there was a project to be in charge of, and Satoshi had been the one in charge) * I no longer have any connection (i.e. he did used to have a connection). That's not a vague s…

* I'm not working on this Anymore (i.e., I used to run a small mining rig, but it doesn't payoff anymore).

* It's been turned over to other people(i.e., I sold my graphics cards)

* They are in charge of it now (i.e., The people that own the graphics cards may still be mining. I dont know)

* I no longer have any connection (i.e., It was some guys from Craigslist. I dont remember their number).

See how detailed that is?

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#680

Post by 3pt14159 » Fri, Mar 07, 2014, 4:36 PM UTC

bane wrote: post #655

3pt14159 wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't hypocritical because I find myself in a system that accepts coercion. If I disagree with communism should I refuse work and perish from starvation? No! I'm already within the system that make unethical demands. It isn't a choice between living free and working within an unethical system, it is a choice between working within an unethical system or working within an unethical system in a different manner. Wit…

> It isn't hypocritical Wrong, full stop. It's actually the literal dictionary definition of hypocrisy. The problem I have is not being a hypocrite, it's not being cognitively able to acknowledge it. > If I disagree with communism should I refuse work and perish from starvation? No, of course not. But you can recognize that you are helping perpetuate the system you disagree with. You may be empowered to resolve that…

No, the definition of hypocrisy (from Wikipdeia) is:

> Hypocrisy is the state of falsely claiming to possess virtuous characteristics that one lacks. Hypocrisy involves the deception of others and is thus a kind of lie.

I'm claiming a set of beliefs, you may judge those beliefs to be inconsistent, but you don't define what those beliefs are, by definition I do. It is not hypocritical because I argue that despite the fact that society should be in a libertarian state a realistic assessment of the situation shows that my impact in supporting the governmental apparatus is inconsequential to its continued existence. The difference I make changing people's opinion on HN during the day is what will lead to the reduction of the state, not the acceptance of grants or employment.