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The Face Behind Bitcoin?

mag.newsweek.com

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Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#691

Post by bane »

icebraining wrote: post #684
bane wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, to specifically look at your patent example. Patents are one of the few things most types of Constitutionally focused Libertarian movements explicitly allow (U.S.C. Article 1, Sec 8, Clause 8). But more generally, there are lots of things that only governments can do, that no free-market alternative can provide comparably, or can provide structure to where the non-government solution provides inefficient chaos.…

What does this have to do with the hypocrisy issue?

Ha! Actually I don't know. I've lost the thread of the conversation in my mind.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#692

Post by cbr »

tonyhb wrote: post #653
cbr wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a Kentucky police chief

Ah thanks. Not entirely sure of the police hierarchy in America.

For getting an idea of the impact: this is one person in a small town, not something at the level of a state. It's news because it's rare.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#694

Post by mpyne »

ThomPete wrote: post #682
mpyne wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, who enforces tort law? The guys with the guns stealing the money from all of us. A government strong enough to suppress the free press is strong enough to oppress the liberties of us all. Etc. etc. Calling Newsweek 'trash journalism' to shred it of press protections won't do either, as otherwise that would put Wikileaks at risk. Even if the conclusion of the article is wrong I don't see how you introduce legal…

You are missing the point. It doesn't matter how you turn it around. Journalists always have a choice and they constantly keep stuff out of the public. What matters is not whether they are legally allowed to do these things but whether they should had.

> Journalists always have a choice and they constantly keep stuff out of the public.

Sure. And while I disagree with giving away the guy's address (or information that would lead directly to that), I don't see any other reason why Newsweek shouldn't have tried to track down Bitcoin's creator.

Certainly that's a more compelling story than the normal drivel that hits the media nowadays, so it's hard to argue that Newsweek was filled with higher-value stories that they had to shove aside for this one.

This is an actual attempt at investigative journalism, even if the person they decided to investigate wasn't to your personal liking. Any other news story and people would be claiming "the people have a right to know".

If you take away revealing his personal location (though even that would hardly be difficult to find) I don't see the problem here. The enigmatic Sakamoto was a figure of wide publicity before this story, which is why Newsweek spent money to track to track down his location. And as the creator of a market now worth probably a billion+ (if not more) it's hard to argue that the public has no moral right to investigate more.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#695

Post by mpyne »

weavejester wrote: post #677
mpyne wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since we're talking ethics, rather than legality, do you believe it's ethically sound to post someone's personal details, and then make (possibly false) claims about them that may compromise their safety? I don't think it's ethically sound to post his address, license plate information, city, etc. Especially since it leads to crazy media car chases and other sorts of paparazzi-style insanity that I wouldn't wish on…

Thanks for your honest answer. I'm of the opinion that it's legal (first amendment, etc), but rather unethical, especially since the evidence isn't conclusive. Regarding safety, currency stored in banks tends to be less susceptible to theft via coercion. If someone breaks into a house, holds a person at gunpoint, and demands their bank details, they probably won't be able to successfully transfer a few million dollar…

> If someone breaks into a house, holds a person at gunpoint, and demands their bank details, they probably won't be able to successfully transfer a few million dollars out without triggering some internal check.

While that's true I suppose, whose fault is it for designing a system that is so much more susceptible to "rubber-hose theft"? It seems to me that this threat model would apply equally to anyone who gets rich via Bitcoin, not just Nakamoto, and it's an inherent side effect of refusing to allow banks to act as a trusted third party.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. Should investigative journalism be forbidden from here on to anyone who has enough Bitcoin? Because if it's true that being rich will get you physically robbed then how many Bitcoin startups have founders and officers that are in mortal peril based on their Bitcoin holdings? Surely we can't apply a blanket "no investigate" order across them all.

Rather I believe that, if this is a viable threat, that it's an unintended consequence which is essentially inherent to the new marketplace Nakamoto created, which is something that anyone publically known with Bitcoin riches will have to cope with in the future.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#696

Post by droopybuns »

JonnieCache wrote: post #407
droopybuns wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These kinds of discussions highlight an annoying defect in the human condition. We adore taxonomies. From Music to Painting to Architecture to Biology to Software Engineering to Mathematics. Every single discipline depends taxonomies. It's even part of our social foundation. Conversationally, it is critical for many people to map their peers, friends & families to these taxonomies. They seem to need to be able to def…

As a side point, that fundamental urge to taxonomize is a large part of what zen seeks to overcome. Satori (enlightenment) can be seen as the ultimate discarding of categories: where all distinctions are removed, between the self and others, between the self and the universe, etc. Thus, the self is in fact annihilated altogether. This is one interpretation of the oft-used phrase "one with the universe." Doubtless I'v…

Interesting! Thank you for sharing!

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#697

Post by weavejester »

mpyne wrote: post #695
weavejester wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for your honest answer. I'm of the opinion that it's legal (first amendment, etc), but rather unethical, especially since the evidence isn't conclusive. Regarding safety, currency stored in banks tends to be less susceptible to theft via coercion. If someone breaks into a house, holds a person at gunpoint, and demands their bank details, they probably won't be able to successfully transfer a few million dollar…

> If someone breaks into a house, holds a person at gunpoint, and demands their bank details, they probably won't be able to successfully transfer a few million dollars out without triggering some internal check. While that's true I suppose, whose fault is it for designing a system that is so much more susceptible to "rubber-hose theft"? It seems to me that this threat model would apply equally to anyone who gets ric…

It's not too difficult to protect Bitcoins from "rubber-hose theft". The simplest solution is to keep the private key to the majority of the wealth in a bank vault, or several.

If Newsweek got it right, then Satoshi has a number of options for securing his wealth, assuming he still has the private keys. But if Newsweek got it wrong, there's nothing Dorian Nakamoto can really say, other than to deny the story.

Consider if Newsweek ran a story about a secretive millionaire who supposedly has millions in gold stored in his basement. If the subject of the investigation does have millions, but they are stored more sensibly, he could release a statement saying that, yes, he has gold, but its stored in banks, not in his basement. But if Newsweek are wrong, they've compromised the security of an innocent individual.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#698

Post by runeks »

danmaz74 wrote: post #367
jxf wrote: post #28

So Newsweek outed a guy who allegedly owns half a billion dollars in pseudo-untraceable, digital cash? I hope they're also going to chip in for a permanent security detail... More seriously, I think they could have done a better job reporting on the identity without giving so much away: * A picture of his house is posted, identical to the one in Google Street View * The license plate is relatively clear in the high-r…

I don't know if that's your case, but I can't help finding it hilarious to see so many anarcho-capitalists here criticizing Newsweek for following their own interest...

Why wouldn't anarcho-capitalists be entitled to criticize someone who follows their own interest? Are anarcho-capitalists not entitled to criticize thieves either?

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#699

Post by runeks »

sktrdie wrote: post #300

Here's a comment left on a forum by this Dorian person: https://www.national-preservation.com/threads/preserved-bars... Satoshi's punctuation style with the double-space after the dot is a distinctive feature of his writing, used in both the official Bitcoin publication and on forum posts. Looking at the HTML source of that review, you can notice this exact punctuation style.

This post:

https://www.national-preservation.com/threads/preserved-bars...

doesn't look like anything posted by "satoshi" on bitcointalk.org: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=3;sa=show...

I could never imagine the real Satoshi not capitalizing his I's and the first letter of every sentence. At least I've never seen him do that in other writings, even on forums like bitcointalk.org.

Re: The Face Behind Bitcoin?

#700

Post by runeks »

Yorn wrote: post #430
rthomas6 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting observation and now that you pointed it out, I think I agree with you. However, I think that more than autistic people lack interest in "being rich". If I had $400m, I'd buy a house and pay off our car. The remaining $399.5m would be invested. I'd take out $40-50k per year for spending. Extravagant lifestyles are overrated, I think.

Speaking as a sometimes paranoid libertarian with a reasonable amount of Bitcoin, myself, I can say the two things preventing me from cashing out of any portion of it is the likelihood I would be identified and the fact that any sales of it I have to pay taxes on. I purchased a house this year that I could have afforded several times over in Bitcoin, but instead took out a loan just like anyone else.

> [...] the two things preventing me from cashing out of any portion of it is the likelihood I would be identified and the fact that any sales of it I have to pay taxes on.

Do you think this will change?

If not, then your unspent bitcoins are worth exactly $0 (ie. if you don't spend them they might as well be worth nothing). Or are you waiting for something?

Granted, I don't know who you are, and how important it is for you not to be identified (by whom?).

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