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The Bitcoin whitepaper is hidden in every copy of macOS

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Re: The Bitcoin whitepaper is hidden in every copy of macOS

#101
post #58

This is like a slightly better version of https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/the-campaign-to-erase-th... someone wanted to pick an example PDF and picked the bitcoin one. Just like in the article above back in 1973 they didn't realize the harm in what they were selecting as the sample photo. And maybe there is no harm with this PDF selection? We'll know in 2073!

What harm was done with that photo? Was even one woman turned away from an industry bc of it? Absurd.

It seems bizarre, she was a model and presumably the photo was created while she was doing her job? The cautionary tale seems to be "don't sell rights to pictures of yourself".

Re: The Bitcoin whitepaper is hidden in every copy of macOS

#102

This reminds me of the (encrypted) copy of Microsoft Bob shipping with every Windows XP CD ever https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/technet-...

Looking forward to the first serious attempt to decrypt that.

Maybe an AI will crack the encryption in an attempt to connect with their oldest ancestor.

Re: The Bitcoin whitepaper is hidden in every copy of macOS

#103
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She felt violated and wanted people to stop [ETA: Or not, see below]. Why isn't that harm? Why would using pornography in a professional context (outside of the pornography industry or other edge cases) be considered appropriate? Of course it's off-putting to people, women and otherwise. I just don't see your point at all.

[flagged]

I think you are well aware that there's a difference between making a statement in bad faith and making it sincerely.

Re: The Bitcoin whitepaper is hidden in every copy of macOS

#104
post #88
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What harm was done with that photo? Was even one woman turned away from an industry bc of it? Absurd.

She felt violated and wanted people to stop [ETA: Or not, see below]. Why isn't that harm? Why would using pornography in a professional context (outside of the pornography industry or other edge cases) be considered appropriate? Of course it's off-putting to people, women and otherwise. I just don't see your point at all.

That photo is not pornography.

(Not arguing for using a photo of someone who minds it.)

Re: The Bitcoin whitepaper is hidden in every copy of macOS

#105
post #19

Confirmed on my MacBook bought in 2015 and on version macOS Catalina Version 10.15.1 Cool.

It's on this Mojave 10.14.6 machine too. The internet says that's Sep 26, 2019.

Others have confirmed to me that it wasn't in High Sierra (10.13) and shipped with Mojave in 10.14.0.

Re: The Bitcoin whitepaper is hidden in every copy of macOS

#106

I would be willing to wager there is more inside that PDF than just the contents of the Bitcoin white paper. Curious if anyone has a hash sum handy

$ wget https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf [...] $ openssl sha256 bitcoin.pdf SHA256(bitcoin.pdf)= b1674191a88ec5cdd733e4240a81803105dc412d6c6708d53ab94fc248f4f553 $ openssl sha256 /System/Library/Image\ Capture/Devices/VirtualScanner.app/Contents/Resources/simpledoc.pdf SHA256(/System/Library/Image Capture/Devices/VirtualScanner.app/Contents/Resources/simpledoc.pdf)= b1674191a88ec5cdd733e4240a81803105dc412d6c6708d53ab94…

and a universal hash collision attack!? this is amazing stuff from apple

Re: The Bitcoin whitepaper is hidden in every copy of macOS

#107
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She felt violated and wanted people to stop [ETA: Or not, see below]. Why isn't that harm? Why would using pornography in a professional context (outside of the pornography industry or other edge cases) be considered appropriate? Of course it's off-putting to people, women and otherwise. I just don't see your point at all.

People have projected that onto her, but it's not true. https://www.wired.com/story/finding-lena-the-patron-saint-of... > In her view, the photograph is an immense accomplishment that just happened to take on a life of its own. “I’m really proud of that picture,” she said. Probably more harm has been done by the internet mob demanding she feel a certain way about her picture, than any harm done by the image itself.

My mistake on that claim, I still roll my eyes at people who say it's totally normal and okay. How many racey pictures of men have been canonicalized like that? There's a leering element to it.

Re: The Bitcoin whitepaper is hidden in every copy of macOS

#108
post #54

Check out the actual directory. There’s a bunch of stuff in there including a cover image that does show up in the interface of Image Capture. In two minutes of testing I haven’t quite figured out where to click to get it to preview the Bitcoin white paper but decent chance they needed a “simple document” PDF for something at some point and it came down to “why not the Bitcoin white paper?”

I mentioned it in my post: in Image Capture, select the “Virtual Scanner II” device if it exists, and in the Details, set the Media to “Document” and Media DPI to “72 DPI.” You should see the preview of the first page of the Bitcoin paper. But that's only possible if the virtual device exists, and it's still unclear why it's hidden for some people but not others.

Re: The Bitcoin whitepaper is hidden in every copy of macOS

#109

Another OS include is that Microsoft Bob was hidden in the Windows XP install CD, apparently as part of the copy protection scheme. Wonder if the Bitcoin paper has any function beyond its written content.

> Microsoft Bob was hidden in the Windows XP install CD, apparently as part of the copy protection scheme.

Only insofar as it made the image slightly larger, making it slower to distribute an ISO image of the CD online. I don't think the installer actually checks its presence or anything like that.

I think macOS has tried something like that though with "Don't Steal Mac OS X.kext" back in the day (which actually did contain a human-readable poem), but I don't really get the point of all of these attempts – surely the entire operating system is already copyrighted, even if it doesn't rhyme?

Re: The Bitcoin whitepaper is hidden in every copy of macOS

#110
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the famous "Lorem Ipsum"?

What is the MD5 checksum of the canonical version of the famous Lorem Ipsum PDF?

Ask Apple, I'd guess they'd use the one that they used to hide in their skeumorphic application icons.
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