671–680 of 905 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well given they have hunreds of millions of dollars to protect themselves with, it seems like it would be a good time to start using it.
Satoshi cannot spend his fortune. If he did, it would be visible on the blockchain and bitcoin's price would collapse.
* I'm extrapolating this timeframe from the quotations compared in the article.
Simple question for anyone who’s familiar with this world of journalism: how does the author and the NYTimes cope with the fact that making such claims paint a huge target on the person they claim to have “unmasked”? Satoshi’s wallets are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and there have been kidnappings/torture/murders for much less than that. Do they just not care about the ethical implications? And really, for…
I think what makes this a little murkier is that this Beck guy appears to be already a well known figure in crypto circles. (I don't really follow the space). It feels more like uncovering the secret director of a film to be an established film producer. For the last point, I agree there's a sort of "who cares" aspect to the piece. There is no artistic intent to interpret. The product speaks for itself making BTC the…
Sure, rationally I agree, but clearly a lot of people do care. It may not matter in any substantive way who Satoshi is but people still care.
> There is no artistic intent to interpret
Is that the case? Obviously there is no artistic intent as bitcoin is not art, but it's not clear to me why the intent of an artist is important but the intent of a technologist is not.
Simple question for anyone who’s familiar with this world of journalism: how does the author and the NYTimes cope with the fact that making such claims paint a huge target on the person they claim to have “unmasked”? Satoshi’s wallets are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and there have been kidnappings/torture/murders for much less than that. Do they just not care about the ethical implications? And really, for…
Sure there is. A whole system of unregulated finance has been setup and it's very useful for criminality. How is not in the public interest to know who set it up and for what purpose? If it turned out Satoshi was actually a nation state and this was done for some nefarious purpose you think that's not in the public interest?
Simple question for anyone who’s familiar with this world of journalism: how does the author and the NYTimes cope with the fact that making such claims paint a huge target on the person they claim to have “unmasked”? Satoshi’s wallets are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and there have been kidnappings/torture/murders for much less than that. Do they just not care about the ethical implications? And really, for…
That said, clearly a lot of people really do seem to care who Satoshi is, so it doesn't seem like its out of the question for a newspaper to print an article claiming to answer that question.
> Do they just not care about the ethical implications?
Did Satoshi not care about the ethical implications of creating bitcoin? Mr Back may not be Satoshi, but he's also made a career driving the adoption of bitcoin and bitcoin itself has enabled many, many terrible crimes. It seems like special pleading to argue that Mr Back is not responsible for any of the consequence of bitcoin in the world, and also that the NY Times is morally responsible if someone harms Mr Back because they think he is Satoshi. Either we have an ethical responsibility to consider the consequences of our actions or we don't.
Simple question for anyone who’s familiar with this world of journalism: how does the author and the NYTimes cope with the fact that making such claims paint a huge target on the person they claim to have “unmasked”? Satoshi’s wallets are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and there have been kidnappings/torture/murders for much less than that. Do they just not care about the ethical implications? And really, for…
> What is gained by “unmasking” Satoshi other than satisfying one’s curiosity? Those sweet, sweet clicks, and the eyeballs they bring along with them, of course
This dude can seem to tell the difference between Newsgroups and Mailing Lists. Also described Newsgroups as being displayed in a particular font. What a weird mistake. It's almost like he doesn't care about the details. The article claims Adam Back "disappeared" on the cryptography mailing lists exactly when Satoshi Nakamoto became active (late 2008) and only "reappeared" around the time Satoshi stopped posting in 2…
It's full of clangers like that, showing that the author is woefully unversed in the subculture he's writing about. Hence why the main focus is on the personality of Satoshi and Back, trying to psychologise them into being the same person, instead of doing a technical analysis.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let's keep in mind that doxxing is not a universal concept nor are its mechanisms universally perceived as negative/frowned upon outside of specific online areas. I don't know of any law against it except for specific populations like law enforcement and even those usually have exceptions for journalism.
Australia has a law against "menacing or harassing" doxxing. https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.... (nice permalink URL guys.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why should journalism engage in the implied pro-active censorship here? With that reasoning you could censor everything, including the Epstein files. You only need to find some "critical reason", usually being safety concern or "but but but the children". So I disagree with that rationale. How far would you want censorship to go? Having said that, I am not particularly interested in the "who is mystery man" debate si…
> Why should journalism engage in the implied pro-active censorship here? Because in this particular case it endangers subject's life.
This seems like a stretch. Mr Back is already a well-known wealthy person who (presumably) owns lots of crypto. I think it's a stretch to think this article significantly increase the danger to his life.