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Man Denies He's Bitcoin Founder

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Re: Man Denies He's Bitcoin Founder

#111

Post by ktsmith »

Aqueous wrote: post #50

Ok, I'm sorry but there are some serious inconsistencies here. Leah McGrath Goodman said that after she asked him about BitCoin he promptly stopped emailing her. The timeline is unclear, but it seems like this was before Goodman contacted his family members. Why would she contact his family members if she was directly talking to him and they could blow her pretext of wanting to talk about model trains? This strongly…

Let's not forget that Newsweek has changed hands recently and has published at least one provably false story since then. They are relaunching their print version tomorrow, and even if they are wrong everyone is talking about them. There isn't any compelling evidence provided in the article just circumstantial.

Re: Man Denies He's Bitcoin Founder

#112

Post by declan »

Steko wrote: post #109
declan wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except there's no evidence he said X in the first place. See the AP's writethru.

Gonna file your comment under "Bitcoin enthusiasts declare total victory for not X" On what planet is this not evidence: "Newsweek writer Leah McGrath Goodman, who spent two months researching the story, told the AP: "I stand completely by my exchange with Mr. Nakamoto. There was no confusion whatsoever about the context of our conversation -- and his acknowledgment of his involvement in Bitcoin."

An audio recording is evidence. What you quoted back to me is the possibly flawed recollection of a reporter who's in the unenviable position of defending a very high-profile cover story used to relaunch a national magazine. That reporter is no longer a disinterested observer. The AP, to a first approximation, is.

Re: Man Denies He's Bitcoin Founder

#113

Post by Steko »

declan wrote: post #112
Steko wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gonna file your comment under "Bitcoin enthusiasts declare total victory for not X" On what planet is this not evidence: "Newsweek writer Leah McGrath Goodman, who spent two months researching the story, told the AP: "I stand completely by my exchange with Mr. Nakamoto. There was no confusion whatsoever about the context of our conversation -- and his acknowledgment of his involvement in Bitcoin."

An audio recording is evidence. What you quoted back to me is the possibly flawed recollection of a reporter who's in the unenviable position of defending a very high-profile cover story used to relaunch a national magazine. That reporter is no longer a disinterested observer. The AP, to a first approximation, is.

Discount it however you want, her testimony is a form of evidence [1]. To say there is "no evidence" is simply and flatly false.

[1] That's a quote from here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testimony

Re: Man Denies He's Bitcoin Founder

#114

Post by declan »

Steko wrote: post #113
declan wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An audio recording is evidence. What you quoted back to me is the possibly flawed recollection of a reporter who's in the unenviable position of defending a very high-profile cover story used to relaunch a national magazine. That reporter is no longer a disinterested observer. The AP, to a first approximation, is.

Discount it however you want, her testimony is a form of evidence [1]. To say there is "no evidence" is simply and flatly false. [1] That's a quote from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testimony

First, we're not in a courtroom with the witness under oath. Second, because we're not, we can't cross-examine the witness. Third, even if we could and her recollection is as you say, the balance of evidence would remain heavily tilted against Dorian == Satoshi. Sorry. :)

Re: Man Denies He's Bitcoin Founder

#115

Post by DigitalSea »

nhaehnle wrote: post #90
DigitalSea wrote: post #54

Based on other investigative efforts people have undertaken, the kind of level of complexity Bitcoin has in its underlying code-base shows that there might have been more than one person responsible for Bitcoin. It's unfortunate this has happened to a guy who is not related to Bitcoin at all. Pictures of his house, location, his full name and even going as far as documenting that he's between in and out of jobs over…

The new Satoshi Nakamoto communication is really interesting. There have been quite a lot of stories over time supposedly identifying the real Nakamoto, and there was complete silence over this. So... did Newsweek get the real Nakamoto who is panicking now? Or did they get the wrong guy, and the real guy feels like this time (rather than those previous times) he has to step in to protect the innocent? It's not really…

It is a rather interesting situation. Especially when you take into consideration how quickly the real Satoshi Nakamoto issued the statement saying he wasn't Dorian Nakamoto when this isn't exactly the first story to come out supposedly identifying the man behind the mask of Bitcoin. The statement was also issued rather quickly, but I can see why though in a non-conspiracy kind of way.

The man being targeted by NewsWeek is old and just because he says he's not the real Satoshi won't stop conspiracy nut jobs from stalking him and trying to find out the truth. Pictures of his home and location, children's photos and names have been plastered all over the Internet, I really feel for the guy even if he is the real Satoshi.

This whole situation highlights while the real Satoshi will probably never come out of secrecy if this situation is anything to go by. Not only that, but given NSA's extensive surveillance program, he would no doubt be subjected to more focused observation than others.

Re: Man Denies He's Bitcoin Founder

#116

Post by csense »

danielweber wrote: post #76
declan wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AP is likely to do a writethru. That's their style. Patience.

For those of us that aren't journalists, what's a writethru?

When writing to a cache simultaneously writes to the backing store [1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cache_(computing)#Writing_polic...

Re: Man Denies He's Bitcoin Founder

#117

Post by csense »

Readers who believe Dorian != Satoshi: What would you have to see to convince you that Dorian == Satoshi?

Readers who believe Dorian == Satoshi: What would you have to see to convince you that Dorian != Satoshi?

The hallmark of a good belief system is that your beliefs are falsifiable -- there exists some hypothetical set of experiments which could return unexpected results that would make you change your beliefs.

Re: Man Denies He's Bitcoin Founder

#118

Post by infodroid »

Aqueous wrote: post #50

Ok, I'm sorry but there are some serious inconsistencies here. Leah McGrath Goodman said that after she asked him about BitCoin he promptly stopped emailing her. The timeline is unclear, but it seems like this was before Goodman contacted his family members. Why would she contact his family members if she was directly talking to him and they could blow her pretext of wanting to talk about model trains? This strongly…

If you are skeptical of Dorian's denial then you have to wonder why would he first suggest to Newsweek that he was involved with it and then later clarify to AP that it was a misunderstanding.

But there isn't any good explanation of why he would later deny it unless it really was a misunderstanding in the first place.

> This strongly suggests that he knew enough about BitCoin to be chased away by the question.

No it does not. Not understanding why a reporter out of nowhere would contact him, he thought that "Bitcom" was one of the confidential engineering projects that he was previously involved in. Which he could not discuss under NDA.

Add to that the ambitions of a reporter looking to score a cover story for her magazine's "relaunch of its print edition after 15 months and reorganization under new ownership".

Re: Man Denies He's Bitcoin Founder

#119

Post by bpicolo »

declan wrote: post #87
selmnoo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My theory: Dorian thought the reporter was asking him about his past at the defense contractor. Doing work for a defense contractor sometimes gets you crap, so maybe he was trying to distance himself from that , like, "No, I used to work for a company that did potentially evil for the government, I'm no longer involved with it". I know some people who did work for defense, and they're not very open about it. The reas…

Take a look at the writethru. That's it. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-exclusive-man-denies-hes-b...

That or he's trying to remain "anonymous" after being outed. Which is totally reasonable.

Re: Man Denies He's Bitcoin Founder

#120

Post by gamblor956 »

declan wrote: post #62
gamblor956 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has a colorable claim but no chance of winning. The founder of a cryptocurrency which now boasts of a >$1 billion market is legitimately a matter of the public interest, even if it's not the right guy. This principle has been established many times by people who were mistaken for criminal defendants (not always defendants with the same name), including the Boston U student who killed himself shortly before the Bos…

Ah, but how many cases involved that particular California law being invoked by the plaintiff?

"Legitimate public interest" is a defense to a tort. It is used by the publication to defend itself from an invasion of privacy claim. It can't be used by a plaintiff (except as a defense to a counterclaim by the defendant).
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