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Satoshi Nakamoto Is Probably This Unknown Australian Genius?

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Re: Satoshi Nakamoto Is Probably This Unknown Australian Genius?

#131

Post by astronautjones »

kijin wrote: post #112
maaarghk wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's plausible particularly because he emailed someone asking them to leak his message about not being Dorian, and that person heavily edited / redacted it; it's quite possible that is a recurring theme. Also in the Gawker article we are told Wright emailed Kleiman asking for "help editing a paper", "I need your help and I need a version of me to make this work that is better than me."

Notice that most of Wright's retroactive editing to make himself look like Satoshi took place in 2013-2014, shortly after Kleiman died. Perhaps Kleiman was the one who really wanted to keep Satoshi's identity a secret, but Wright had different ambitions and now he doesn't have his friend to rein him in anymore.

I think this is the most likely case.

Re: Satoshi Nakamoto Is Probably This Unknown Australian Genius?

#132

Post by toufka »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #82
stephaneh wrote: post #73

Satoshi is very probably Nick Szabo...

Does anyone have source code of Nick's from around the time period of what Satoshi submitted? Satoshi's style is so weird that Nick's should be the same unless the style was itself an obfuscation.

Got any examples of the weirdness in the original code?

Re: Satoshi Nakamoto Is Probably This Unknown Australian Genius?

#133

Post by kybernetikos »

kiba wrote: post #51
kybernetikos wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just that - outing satoshi could cause him and any close family significant danger, given that there is a strong chance he is in possession of the secret keys of addresses containing 1M bitcoins. https://bitslog.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/the-well-deserved-f...

What makes him different from say, Bill Gate?

Bill Gates lives in a custom built house filled with sensors and has security staff. Satoshi may well live a relatively normal life.

Re: Satoshi Nakamoto Is Probably This Unknown Australian Genius?

#135

Post by re_todd »

emgoldstein wrote: post #39
Analemma_ wrote: post #6

So far there have been multiple Satoshi Nakamoto reveals which, of course, never panned out. To their credit Wired is hedging their bets, saying Wright could be a determined hoaxer and even providing some countervailing evidence to their own theory. Good journalism, that. Having said that, I looked over the article and this seems to be the most convincing Satoshi Nakamoto theory thus far. There's no need to jump to a…

I think a very small amount of stylometric analysis would cast a lot of doubt on this theory. Satoshi's grammar is always perfect. His sentences are tight. He's clear and to the point. Wright rambles; his grammar is terrible; he seems to have no idea what a comma is for. Scanning his blog for a minute, he comes across as the kind of slightly dotty kook who would try to convince people he's Satoshi with this kind of "…

> Satoshi's grammar is always perfect. His sentences are tight.

That makes me think it's more than one person, e.g. Wright, Kleiman, Szabo and possibly more. The more people that edit a work, the less errors there will be.

Re: Satoshi Nakamoto Is Probably This Unknown Australian Genius?

#136

Post by declan »

alfiedotwtf wrote: post #86
nickpsecurity wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's mostly evidence for my theory: he's an egomaniac trying to sell a story. Almost all of this goes back to him or the leaker as a matter of faith. It all appears way after Bitcoin appears. Everything about how he presents himself comes off as playing to a mystique to draw people in. I'd buy the leaks if the hacker posted a message as Satoshi using stolen credential and linked to this article. Meanwhile, the "hac…

> he's an egomaniac trying to sell a story Awesome guerrilla marketing. Journalists want the scoop of the century - outing the real Satoshi. By back filling history, they gave exactly what they wanted, and they took it hook, line and sinker.

> By back filling history...

Yep. That seems plausible. Given means, motive, and opportunity (including a few months of time), could some of the folks here on HN have backfilled history this way? Register an email address one character off of Satoshi's? Edit some old blog posts to insert Bitcoin references? Generate backdated GPG keys? Perhaps enough to satisfy not-very-technical journalists who won't think to compare coding styles and are too worried about losing a scoop to ask folks for second and third opinions?

I'd expect the real Satoshi to have more of a math background, not "ecommerce law" and "digital forensics." I'd also expect him to be more similar in writing style and be more ideologically in sync with Bitcoin in his public actions. Plus I'm not a C# coder but this looks pretty basic: https://digital-forensics.sans.org/blog/2009/04/24/code-skil...

The evidence the journalists published is more convincing if you want it to be convincing. My guess is that they did.

Re: Satoshi Nakamoto Is Probably This Unknown Australian Genius?

#137

Post by AlyssaRowan »

Perhaps it's just me, but I find the - repeated - attempted unmasking of a cypherpunk nym adopted with good cause and reason for the creation of a very disruptive technology terribly disrespectful, although perhaps inevitable.

"Who is but the form following the function of what, and what I am is a man in a mask." (Well I can see that.) "Of course you can. I'm not questioning your powers of observation; I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is." [-V, 2005]

Re: Satoshi Nakamoto Is Probably This Unknown Australian Genius?

#138

Post by [deleted] »

nikcub wrote: post #84
emgoldstein wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a very small amount of stylometric analysis would cast a lot of doubt on this theory. Satoshi's grammar is always perfect. His sentences are tight. He's clear and to the point. Wright rambles; his grammar is terrible; he seems to have no idea what a comma is for. Scanning his blog for a minute, he comes across as the kind of slightly dotty kook who would try to convince people he's Satoshi with this kind of "…

Satoshi is two people - Wright and Kleiman. Kleiman was responsible for the public Satoshi writing, and he doesn't have any of his own writing samples online that aren't co-authored to make a stylometric comparison against.

[deleted]

Re: Satoshi Nakamoto Is Probably This Unknown Australian Genius?

#139

Post by bquinn »

re_todd wrote: post #135
emgoldstein wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a very small amount of stylometric analysis would cast a lot of doubt on this theory. Satoshi's grammar is always perfect. His sentences are tight. He's clear and to the point. Wright rambles; his grammar is terrible; he seems to have no idea what a comma is for. Scanning his blog for a minute, he comes across as the kind of slightly dotty kook who would try to convince people he's Satoshi with this kind of "…

> Satoshi's grammar is always perfect. His sentences are tight. That makes me think it's more than one person, e.g. Wright, Kleiman, Szabo and possibly more. The more people that edit a work, the less errors there will be.

fewer errors ;-)

Proving your point!

Re: Satoshi Nakamoto Is Probably This Unknown Australian Genius?

#140

Post by bquinn »

sosuke wrote: post #127
dvydra wrote: post #122

Aaaaand the Australian police just raided his house: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/dec/09/bitcoin-fo...

Raided his out just a little while after these were sharing a theory he was the bitcoin founder. And in the name of the Tax Office? I'm in shock at the speed they moved in to try and catch him for ... tax evasion?

As the articles say, he has been under investigation for a while for his bitcoin mining work (which as far as I can tell is not under dispute). The Australian government has decreed that all bitcoin "investments" should be taxed for capital gains [1] so he could be up for a huge tax bill on his paper "profits" even if he was just mining back in the early days.

[1] https://www.ato.gov.au/General/Gen/Tax-treatment-of-crypto-c...

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