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Alleged Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto Denies Bitcoin Involvement

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Re: Alleged Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto Denies Bitcoin Involvement

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can I take you up on that bet? This is the first time I've seen reddit (since it's become a mainstream phenomenon) be more reasonable than hacker news. http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1zpuer/the_newsweek... > The pieces laid out fit pretty well. What pieces? That he's kind of odd, according to his family ? (if you were to take my family, which is fairly normal, 1/2 of us think the other 1/2 are odd). Who…

> How can I take you up on that bet? Creating the bet with Counterpartyǂ. Step 1. Establishing 'Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto' trustless P2P betting feed counterpartyd broadcast --help counterpartyd broadcast --source='SOURCE_ADDRESS' \ --text='[BINARY] Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto is Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, by his own admission or indisputable evidence on or before June 21, 2014' \ --value='…

Unfortunately it may be very hard, or take a very long time, to either confirm or deny this claim. What is the standard of evidence for the bet to be won or lost?

For the record I strongly believe Newsweek got it wrong, and that he's the wrong guy.

Re: Alleged Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto Denies Bitcoin Involvement

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can I take you up on that bet? This is the first time I've seen reddit (since it's become a mainstream phenomenon) be more reasonable than hacker news. http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1zpuer/the_newsweek... > The pieces laid out fit pretty well. What pieces? That he's kind of odd, according to his family ? (if you were to take my family, which is fairly normal, 1/2 of us think the other 1/2 are odd). Who…

The linguistic analysis actually holds up pretty well (both his writing style and his coding style), and the totality of the circumstances wherein Satoshi matches Bitcoin Satoshi makes it very unlikely that this is a "shoddy piece of journalism." Also, you must not have read the part of the article where the journalist runs through and describes why the other Satoshis are not the Bitcoin Satoshi.

What "linguistic analysis"? What "coding style"? Was any actual code written by "Dorian S. Nakamoto" presented?

Where is some evidence he even knows how to program?

From the links on Reddit, which are the only pieces of writing that can be confirmed for "Dorian", I see absolutely no similarity with the style of the bitcoin paper. None, at all.

> describes why the other Satoshis are not the Bitcoin Satoshi

Where is this? She says "Dorian" was the only plausible Satoshi, and proceeds to use interviews and the absence of any hard evidence as evidence. It's like a creationist saying "how come there are no fossils of the missing link"?

Here's why it's shoddy journalism:

The process also requires a good amount of math, something at which Nakamoto - and his entire family - excels. The eldest of three brothers who all work in engineering and technical fields,

The only "evidence" that the family "excels" in math is that they work in engineering or technical fields. No papers published, nothing except that a couple of them worked at Hughes aircraft (including Dorian S.).

My mom is actually an engineer at Raytheon and before that Hughes. She had to get national security clearance and her work there can be described similarly. I'm sure many HN users have had to get security clearance. It's not that big a deal. Though my whole family consists of engineers, and even some professors, I would not particularly describe us as "excelling" in math. That is probably true for a lot of HN users as well.

And even if you were to make such a claim, it is in and of itself no evidence that this Satoshi is the Satoshi. On the other hand, if he had been publishing cryptography papers or game theory papers or even CS papers for a while, or even demonstrated any interest at all in cryptography similar to his interest in model trains ..

Re: Alleged Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto Denies Bitcoin Involvement

#103
post #35
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a particular reason why he'd be at risk for this versus any other well known wealthy person? Are lottery winners worried about this?

Lottery winners should be but they aren't, here's a pretty good article: http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/03/a-financial-plan-f...

I dislike people who conflate the median with the average ("It’s just not possible for 60 percent of the men in a room to be above-average drivers, unless you’re at a Nascar convention." -- it is certainly possible, its not possible for 60% to be better than the median driver, even if you are at a NASCAR convention.)

Re: Alleged Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto Denies Bitcoin Involvement

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the newsweek article also included a back and forth with a police officer that likely never happened, and they also just published an article that "proves" heaven exists because a former scientist went into a coma and saw some pretty things while dreaming. I'm not sure there's a high barrier to meet here, or that we can't assume he was misquoted in the original article.

a back and forth with a police officer that likely never happened I find this complaint ridiculous, like there's no possible way a police officer could know such things because otherwise they'd been a l33t h4x0r. Police officers read newspapers in about the same proportion as everyone else.

It's the nature of the quote that makes it seem like it comes out of a movie or something. It is still plausible he said that verbatim, but unlikely in my opinion.

Re: Alleged Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto Denies Bitcoin Involvement

#105
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The newsweek article itself claims that Satoshi tried to hide his identity. He never posted any personal information and used an anonymous japanese registration service for the bitcoin.org domain, payment in cash. An unlikely effort for somebody who doesn't care about anonymity.

The article quotes Gavin Andresen as saying "He went to great lengths to protect his anonymity.", but other than that doesn't offer anything to show that he actually was actively trying to hide his identity or was ever using a pseudonym.

In that case, why is there no track record of a programmer named Satoshi Nakamoto on the internet?

All we have is a track record of a model train hobbyist Dorian Nakamoto.

Re: Alleged Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto Denies Bitcoin Involvement

#106
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes, of course it causes cognitive dissonance. It is 2014 year now and buzz around his personality is going for a pretty long time already. Both virtual and that one Satoshi-s are said to be worried about anonimity, using VPN to send emails, etc. And yet it is said he used his real name all this time. And being discovered only now by some journalist. Seriously, it is weird just by itself, not mentioning all the…

I think it is only being discovered now because nobody really looked before, at least not in the sense of actual research and journalism as opposed to googling some shit and doing a blog post. I wouldn't be surprised if there are other programmers named Satoshi Nakamoto. McBay is a fairly uncommon name and I'm not even the only programmer named George McBay and the other one (who as far as I know isn't directly relat…

Nobody looked before, really? Speculation about "who is Satoshi Nakamoto" has been around for years now, except previous Satoshi-s weren't called that and were suspected based on their deeds in field of cryptography. Wikipedia [1] mentions 6 of them and I've heard of more.

And "journalism" (professional one) usually makes me suspect making up random stuff much more than anything else. They are paid to make scandalous articles, you know.

To be fair, I don't personally claim it is fake. I say it is weird and makes me easily accept someone claiming it is fake.

[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto

Re: Alleged Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto Denies Bitcoin Involvement

#107
post #38

Why do the press feel entitled to show up on someone's doorstep in mass? That is quite literally trespassing. They just feel like they can get away with it. Leave him alone, if he wanted to be found he would have shared it awhile ago.

to literally show up on someone's doorstep in mass? Hate to be that guy, but... it's "en masse" :) http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/en%20masse

Is "in mass" completely incorrect? I know "en masse" is the French version and what is usually said (and what I typically say/write, too), but "in mass" sounds syntactically and semantically correct to me.

Re: Alleged Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto Denies Bitcoin Involvement

#108
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes, of course it causes cognitive dissonance. It is 2014 year now and buzz around his personality is going for a pretty long time already. Both virtual and that one Satoshi-s are said to be worried about anonimity, using VPN to send emails, etc. And yet it is said he used his real name all this time. And being discovered only now by some journalist. Seriously, it is weird just by itself, not mentioning all the…

I think it is only being discovered now because nobody really looked before, at least not in the sense of actual research and journalism as opposed to googling some shit and doing a blog post. I wouldn't be surprised if there are other programmers named Satoshi Nakamoto. McBay is a fairly uncommon name and I'm not even the only programmer named George McBay and the other one (who as far as I know isn't directly relat…

I don't really have an opinion on Satoshi, but I don't think it's all that hard to cherrypick details from someone's life to give whatever overall impression you want.

Re: Alleged Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto Denies Bitcoin Involvement

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

to literally show up on someone's doorstep in mass? Hate to be that guy, but... it's "en masse" :) http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/en%20masse

Is "in mass" completely incorrect? I know "en masse" is the French version and what is usually said (and what I typically say/write, too), but "in mass" sounds syntactically and semantically correct to me.

[deleted]

Re: Alleged Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto Denies Bitcoin Involvement

#110
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IT's not trespassing to go up to someone's front door, otherwise the mail wouldn't get delivered. You can step on to the curtilage of someone's property, but you must leave if you are asked to do so - although nothing prevents you hanging around on the street in front of the property in hopes of getting an interview. If this becomes onerous, one can get a restraining order, but courts are cautious about handing them…

So, serious argument: What if you purposely did not have a mailbox on your home but at the edge of your property (like much of rural America vs suburban) and you had no obvious front-door. Would a person then be entitled to wander around your property looking for you? I would hope not. So by having a front-door you are suggesting people are allowed to just walk onto your property, up to the door, anytime they feel li…

You're conflating two different things - walking onto your property, and harassment. In general trespass to land - meaning to enter onto someone's property without a valid excuse, although the range of acceptable excuses can be very broad - is a tort, although it can also be a criminal offense in most US states. If someone refuses to leave or keeps coming back, then are of course within your rights to eject them,sue them, get a restraining order against them and so on.

But in general, if you don't want people to knock on your front door then put up a sign, or a fence, or some other indication that you want to be left alone. you'd better, because if you allow people to trespass on your land without doing anything about it - say they cross your land to go fish in a river that lies just beyond it - then they may develop a right from your failure to challenge them, sometimes known as adverse possession or an easement by prescription. And no matter how vigorously you defend your borders, you can't stop planes flying over unless they're going so low as to be hazardous to you.

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