Satoshi Nakamoto Found? Not So Fast 182
Yesterday, Newsweek outed the creator of Bitcoin. Or did they? An anonymous reader tipped us to news that the account on p2pfoundation that posted the original Bitcoin paper, posted for the first time in five years simply noting "I am not Dorian Nakamoto." And the Satoshi Nakamto Newsweek claims was the creator? In an interview with the AP, he claims to have only learned of Bitcoin recently, and that his comments were taken far out of context. From the article: "He also said a key portion of the piece — where he is quoted telling the reporter on his doorstep before two police officers, 'I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it' — was misunderstood. Nakamoto said he is a native of Beppu, Japan who came to the U.S. as a child in 1959. He speaks both English and Japanese, but his English isn't flawless. ... 'I'm saying I'm no longer in engineering. That's it,' he said of the exchange. 'And even if I was, when we get hired, you have to sign this document, contract saying you will not reveal anything we divulge during and after employment. So that's what I implied. ... It sounded like I was involved before with bitcoin and looked like I'm not involved now. That's not what I meant. I want to clarify that,' he said.
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.'"
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.'"
Bitcoin: I am not money (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't matter what is true, its what people believe.
Re:Bitcoin: I am not money (Score:4, Insightful)
It's all about truthiness.
Re:Bitcoin: I am not money (Score:5, Funny)
Dorian Nakamoto?
I suppose he has a picture of a dollar in his attic, and every time a Bitcoin is mined, it fades a little...
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That is possibly the funniest thing that I've heard about Bitcoin since ... well, since I heard about Bitcoin.
It was always obvious that if it were able to do the things that it said it could, then "the man" would shut it down, hard. And it looks like they did. Not a surprise.
Here is part of a Bitcoin (Score:5, Funny)
CJZMlW8T4VdyDRTaX21dxQM4LgzD cswi7BCjxvRA0aJXqJloleQkm569Kih76etLWtGROna/fOzuBoS Po1W9aEvExga TQxWpayFSmbdrjDN+l4pMGVicmet9dSbW65Hy6zlOvv51Ws WMVwyD+11/VNW/SAivUM8PJ8jNLLC4qF1AIr n7yGrMp6KizqnbK3eiOJC91Qwy6O7k1Rta2vcxPpXXKx bxy67X5POhF6V1wOLWX/Akq2huto/WgZMx5W8c6VhDXNOgmiGknghKccHPtGHzEVyuc oscXRLPVePkq LaQQmlVRe JF42SluJrUaFH1CdAHNxiIzW2wC7bJLTP0165C WjIy/j2e8NEYbFlMjw8FWJYRXOL8KmBUukIl0Ng2M69hh X5dFvWqM5R1oOfiYtT7hIrp8 hZvdPRbnmG3U6 nW24B/5hyejm8as8WMfoICfX+k72tBfECBD 6mZ7rfk1xR99E6Eh3KM xolAo0EDcegNnrDR5K72JMQIEzvmkY
Re:Here is part of a Bitcoin (Score:4, Funny)
Hey, that's my online banking password!
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Doesn't matter what is true...
No more needs be said...
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I am not the Satoshi Nakamoto. I deny this. I am the Batman.
Re:Bitcoin: I am not money (Score:5, Insightful)
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Oligonicella is hardly a genus.
It barely broke 1500 on the SAT.
Really? (Score:5, Funny)
Let's have a third discussion on the same thing, and re-hash the same arguments! Excellent.
Also, editors, "This Day on Slashdot" has been broken for like a week.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
So has the HardOCP window, for months.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Funny)
(Credit: Patent Lover [slashdot.org])
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"The real inventor was Keyser Soze!!!"
That's the name I use on one of my e-mail accounts, and I can assure you it's not me!
But who is... (Score:3)
John Galt?
OK this late on Friday I am really not even trying anymore...
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Who is John Galt?
Some fucking sad-sack libertarian survivalist hanging out in the woods with his guns.
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This just in: Satoshi Nakamoto, the famous Japanese man, was recently discovered to have changed his name from Momomoto, and can thus swallow his own nose.
In other news, Leah McGrath Goodman is actually a cabbage.
Hail Eris! :)
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This just in: Satoshi Nakamoto, the famous Japanese man, was recently discovered to have changed his name from Momomoto, and can thus swallow his own nose.
Ridiculous, incredible, too far gone to ever be believed.
In other news, Leah McGrath Goodman is actually a cabbage.
OK, this I could believe.
Lack of privacy knowledge (Score:5, Interesting)
If it is the Satoshi Nakamoto, there is a pattern: a complete lack of the understanding of how personal privacy works on the internet.
The fact that he's fairly old adds to the evidence. If he were in his mid 20s he'd never have used his real name or outted himself because he'd understand how privacy works (or rather, doesn't work) with respect to the internet.
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So you are saying that it makes sense that he is the guy who created bitcoin because he A) doesn't understand how the internet works and B) doesn't understand privacy...
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You don't quite understand what "anonymous" means, do you? Every transaction is logged, but what gets logged is only a record of which wallet transferred funds to another wallet. At no point in that chain does it say "squiggleslash gave a bitcoin to Darlene the Hooker for services rendered."
That is anonymous.
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No, that's pseudonymous.
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Understanding of basic vocabulary seems to have gone out the window today.
anonymous: without a name attached to the work/deed/etc. cf. greek/latin "an-" (without) prefix and "onym" (name)
pseudonymous: with a false name attached. cf. greek/latin "pseudo-" (false)
What's being described here is not pseudonymous, unless a note is being attached to each transaction saying "This transaction was made by Mark Twain" (assuming the actual person conducting the transaction isn't actually named Mark Twain).
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Right - the protocol only fails for anonymity when someone can log the IP addresses associated with every bitcoin transaction ever, and get the physical address associated with every IP address. So, yeah, here on Earth it's not anonymous, but it looks great on a whiteboard.
If you keep logs, you out your users when the government gets the logs - that's hardly news. And bitcoin "keeping logs" is fundamental to the protocol. It's still a neat protocol, and it's probably easier to anonymize (or steal) an IP
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It's pseudonymous, it's up to you to decide if you want to use that feature or not. So the answer is both, it's anonymous if you take the effort and not anonymous if you don't. That's what "Participants can be anonymous" means.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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That is absurd. Just because everything is logged does not in any way make it less anonymous.
Posting as an AC. Now that we've got that behind us, prove to me you know who I am and what my actual Slashdot account is. DICE probably can if they look at the IP logs but can you?
The only way I would have a lack of understanding is if I signed this post with my name.
-thegarbz
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No I'm aware of how it works, you just don't seem to understand what the word anonymous actually means. Here's a hint: stop using the word privacy when talking about anonymity, they are NOT related.
Please do tell me how posting under a pseudonym with a traceable record on slashdot makes you more anonymous that an entry in a ledger saying *indescipherable text* transfered* 0.05BTC to *indescipherable text*
The fact that you can track and follow anonymous transactions does not make them any less anonymous. It
Re:Lack of privacy knowledge (Score:5, Funny)
"If he were in his mid 20s he'd never have used his real name or outted himself because he'd understand how privacy works (or rather, doesn't work) with respect to the internet."
Says the dumbshit who has an email address publicly displayed right next to his username
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Ah well, at least beta solves that problem!
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If he were in his mid 20s he would have posted the whitepaper on his facebook next to photos of him vomiting copiously, and other such treasures.
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If he were in his mid 20s he'd never have used his real name or outted himself because he'd understand how privacy works (or rather, doesn't work) with respect to the internet.
In my mid-40s, and having been active online since my teens, I understand that using a pseudonym is no guarantee of privacy.
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Re:Lack of privacy knowledge (Score:4, Insightful)
If he were in his mid 20s he'd never have used his real name or outted himself because he'd understand how privacy works
That's the part of this Newsweek story that makes no sense. The Bitcoin Satoshi took his privacy pretty seriously. People have been over and over his public and private communications over a couple years- and gleaned virtually no private information. Nobody could even agree on what country he lived in. And it's not a case where he created the account/identity when he didn't care about privacy and then did the bitcoin thing. That identity shows up on the internet specifically to reveal the bitcoin protocol. It doesn't fit at all that he would use his full first and last birth name as his username. People do weird stuff, and this Dorian guy seems like a fairly odd bird (but aren't all engineers?). It's not impossible, but it just doesn't fit the rest of the story.
Sue? (Score:5, Insightful)
I feel bad for the guy. Even though I'm Canadian, this seems like the kind of thing you should sue over (publishing all your private info on the cover story of newsweek when the entire premise of the article is false). Does he have any grounds to sue Newsweek or the reporter who stalked and exposed him?
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you probably would have a case if something was intentionally misrepresented by the author(Tailhook), or the fact checking failed upon review due to negligence(stephen glass)...if you truly believe something is true and you can present the case to a judge that the material you gathered pointed to this person being who the evidence says he is. You'd have a difficult position to sue for any damages as a result...a retraction is about all you'd be entitled to.
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An eye for an eye. Publicly post Leah McGrath Goodman's home address, phone number, names of her family and their address, license plate number, etc.
Re:Sue? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think basically Newsweek would claim "we did all this research and a lot of points to this guy as being the guy. Our news story doesn't say "this guy is the guy, our news story lays out the evidence and says we think this is the guy based on this evidence."
Fair? Maybe not, but I'm guessing the newspaper's free speech rights cover their ability to investigate and speculate as long as they are clear about the fact that they are indeed speculating. It's a question of ethics and credibility as to whether the evidence is of enough quantity and quality that they should publish a news story speculating.
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It's easier to understand why people do things when you stand back and look at people's motives and the motives 90%+ of the times are who stands to gain what.
Newsweek wanted a huge story for their brand new print edition, the journalist was investigating alleged Satoshi for months, bitcoin was the flavour of the week. Of course they were going to run with the story true or false. This story is on the front cover of the print edition. The alleged Satoshi just got used to make Newsweek big, that's what journa
Doesn't Ring A Bell (Score:2)
"Them I'm still looking for." -- Leah McGrath Goodman
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Which brings up the question is it slander/libel when the things told about you are not specifically reputation ruining, just generally wrong.
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Not without malicious intent.
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Which brings up the question is it slander/libel when the things told about you are not specifically reputation ruining, just generally wrong.
If it were, most journalists would be in a world of hurt. If the subject is not harmed and the things told about them are based on good faith and some research, and you are a journalist or person in position of power, any such suit would be rejected.
This is due to the fact that pretty much all news reporting that goes beyond reporting the bare facts (and even some of that) is generally wrong. News reporting is about telling an interesting story, so the narrative is often "embellished" to make it more int
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Which brings up the question is it slander/libel when the things told about you are not specifically reputation ruining, just generally wrong.
In the US, at least, there are different rules for people based on whether they are "public figures" or not. Libel (for the record, slander applies to something you say; libel applies to something you print) laws generally say that if you are Joe/Jane Average, you can successfully sue someone for saying something wrong about you. If that wrong thing caused you harm, you can win monetary or other damages. If you are someone who is already "in the public eye" then in order to successfully sue for libel you mu
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What private info? Outside of info from his family the rest of the info is in the public record.
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It has to be false to sue, and even if it was false, the falsehoods have to be presented as a fact (not a supposition) in order to be a successful law suit. All of which would likely cause more headlines before being resolved. Plus, if it was the real whomever/whatever, it is of complete non-starter unless there was actual continual harassment, which doesn't seem to be the case.
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No, because the Newsweek error is accident/incompetence. Faux News, on the other hand, is purely intentional propaganda.
Who cares... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Who cares... (Score:5, Funny)
Nope, their front page also has an article about an app for your phone that provides cookie recipes. Is there no depth their reporters won't provide on an important story?
Re:Who cares... (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering the news stories lately of MtGox and other exchanges failing or reporting thefts, it's newsworthy. More newsworthy than any Kardashi-West BS that graces the headlines constantly.
Given that peoples' attention spans are so short, this will blow over for the guy in a couple of weeks and everybody will focus on more important things like the new Cold War and for the EU and Ukraine the Russians will literally make it cold for them.
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It matters as much as finding out that the person behind Groklaw was Pam Jones. As much as finding out about the life of Howard Hughes when he went into hiding. And as much as finding out who Banksy is.
It's not at all important, but it is interesting. But unfortunately people's interest is satisfied only at the cost of the privacy of the person who wants to remain hidden.
Newsweek is the new National Enquirer (Score:5, Insightful)
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It makes me think. Are media outlets that are doing stories about bitcoin also trading in them with hopes of inflating the value?
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It makes me think. Are media outlets that are doing stories about bitcoin also trading in them with hopes of inflating the value?
Of course they are. Don't you know everyone is in some sort of scheme or another. Trust no one.
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Bloomberg LLC is. They invested in venture company Andreessen-Horowitz, who in turn put $25 million into Coinbase, a company that processes merchant payments in bitcoin and deposits local currency to their bank account. They also have 1 million online wallets and sell bitcoins to individuals. Bloomberg TV does a lot of stories about bitcoin these days.
Police interview (Score:5, Interesting)
He also said a key portion of the piece - where he is quoted telling the reporter on his doorstep before two police officers
I know one should not mention the pink elephant in the room, but why did the newsweek reported do the interview with the police present?
Re:Police interview (Score:5, Informative)
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There's no pink elephant in the room. Nakamoto called the police, police showed up, Nakamoto then granted a brief interview in the presence of the Police.
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The guy called the police because she was harassing him.
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Because Nakamoto is the one who called the police and asked for them to be present?
Two Months? (Score:5, Insightful)
Two months is not a huge amount of time to do research for a story that no one else has come close to cracking. Just because the guy's bio sounds plausible doesn't make it so. Heck a few years ago a lawyer in the US was a partial thumbprint match on a bomb that exploded in Madrid. In the end his fingerprint matched the bomb maker's partial print and the FBI had to apologize but not before they put him through the ringer. Everyone was convinced he was the guy. They just couldn't see past the finger print match.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/5053... [nbcnews.com]
Another example is Dan Rather's early career retirement due to back research on then president Bush military service. Dan just couldn't let it go and it ended his career.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush_military_service_controversy
Another FBI example was the Atlanta Olympic bomber suspect Ricard Jewel. FBI got that one wrong as well but plowed ahead anyway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Jewell
There are many more of these example.
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Newsweek's motives (Score:3)
Newsweek is going print, they need a front page story, Mt Gox went bust, another bitcoin exchange boss was found dead, bitcoin was already the flavour of the week. Combine these events, Newsweek going print, lots to write about bitcoin. Now, a journalist along with two forensic analysts were researching the alleged Satoshi for 3+ months, at some point they have to deliver the goods.
The perfect storm run with the bitcoin story no matter if true or false. Newseek's front page is the bitcoin story.
Journalistically the story was a success. On moral, humanitarian, investigative, common sense, ethical grounds the story is a massive fail.
What will be the repercussions? Poor guy was chased and hounded by journalists for having the same name, journalist making appearances like a hero on some shows. Forbes was calling it journalistic brilliance.
At least retard achieved one thing, the real Satoshi stood up and said it's not me.
perhaps he posted to get the press off his back? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't understand the logic behind this (Score:5, Insightful)
First off, let me say I don't care who Satoshi is and I think everyone should leave this Dorian guy alone, but I don't understand how a denial coming from that account proves anything. If in fact Dorian was BitCoin's creator, wouldn't he try to draw attention away from himself by posting from the original account saying that he wasn't who in fact he is?
-- Marcio
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Maybe he felt sorry for the guy after all the real Satoshi isn't a serial killer.
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Yes, the only thing that post really proves is that Satoshi is alive and paying attention to the news. The only way that account could prove it wasn't Dorian is if someone put Dorian in jail or something (without giving him any advance warning so he can't set up a delayed script) and THEN this post was made.
Well.. that or the real Satoshi could come forward (assuming it isn't this guy).
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If in fact Dorian were Bitcoin's created, he wouldn't have agreed to talk with a reporter from Newsweek.
Some background on Newsweek. This article is the first for Newsweek's newly relaunched print edition, and the first under it's entirely new owners after bankruptcy.
a) Motivation for Dorian to out himself, immediately following a high-profile bankruptcy/crash/fraud at an exchange? None whatsoever.
a) Motivation for newsweek or reporter (reporter jobs are very scarce now) to somehow stretch the truth Putin
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#iamsatoshi
If I were him (Score:5, Funny)
I'd say "Yeah I'm him, give me my $600 million for the Bitcoins I own and I'll tell you my story."
Which would begin...
"I was born a poor black child."
He should play it for all its worth.
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In that case, I'd say it's clear that he found his 'special purpose!'
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Oh, this is the best pizza in a cup ever
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Actually, I was thinking the opposite:
If I were NOT him, how could I parlay this into something worth my while? Grant an exclusive interview for $100k stating beforehand that I am NOT him so there are no misconceptions? Pose in Playgirl? What? He might as well try to turn lemons into lemonade...
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I overcame cancer by keeping the dream alive that one day I would win an olympic gold medal in a sport you've never heard of, in a city I've never heard of. When that dream failed to come true (apparently you need athletic talent) I invented bitcoin instead and used my dentist's name on the paper.
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I'm hoping you're just a troll (and that I'm falling for you), because it would be really sad that you totally missed what the parent (and many repliers) were actually quoting from:
The Jerk [imdb.com]
So (Score:2)
How does that prove anything?
Jimmy Fallon prank (Score:2)
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Jimmy Fallon is the Late Night Beta.
No surprise (Score:2)
Journalism in the US, especially journalism about anything even slightly "technical," is total shit.
Newsweek report is naive (Score:2)
The Long Con (Score:2)
If I were organized crime, I would either create exchanges to ponzy people's coins, or else take over the exchanges at gunpoint. I'd also track down the creators and experts, and threaten/browbeat information out of them to break the system. Bit coin is like the keys to Fort Knox given to a couple dozen random people around the world. Hey, just saying.
Of course after you take your initial cut, you'll find that taking the scheme legit (semi-legit really) is the way to cash in big. In that regard, bitcoin
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Instead of using the exchange to steal the coins of others, I would use it to launder money. Aren't casinos used the same way?
clarification (Score:2)
'It sounded like I was involved before with bitcoin and looked like I'm not involved now. That's not what I meant. I want to clarify that,' he said.
So ... you meant that you are still involved now? I think I see what you're saying, Satoshi/Dorian ...
Reverse tactics on Newsweek (Score:2)
It would be hilarious if Dorian were to be reversing Newsweek's tactics on them. Newsweek - "We have evidence - here, and that's good enough to thrown open the curtain on this guy." Dorian (via credible source of Bitcoin news, which he has control over) - You want evidence? We're the biggest authority on Bitcoin - we know this dude is not the inventor - in fact he was probably using loose language - go ask him again. Dorian to reporters "I was just using loose language, nope, I was talking about general com
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They needed a big story for the print edition, bitcoin was the flavour of the week after Mt Gox. This journalist was researching alleged Satoshi for months. Combine all the events together they were going to run with this story regardless. That's why it's such a retarded story when you read it, it's half-baked thrown together. They're saying it's him based on a big hunch - but they couldn't care less they got their 15 mins of fame (or infame). Posting his picture and house maybe that had something to do wit
Re:But it's so simple. (Score:4, Insightful)
So, rather than put someone in danger who has nothing to do with this situation, the creator makes this post. I think it seems logical, but that's just a theory.
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Haha yeah right, this story brought them lots of page views and reminded people that Newsweek is still in business, she'll likely get a bonus! Journalism is a thing for the history books at this point. Capitalism killed it. It wasn't as profitable as running what used to be called a "gossip rag."
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Presumably whoever designed and wrote BitCoin must be really good at programming and distributed cryptography design -- otherwise BitCoin would have been exploited into uselessness a long time ago.
So, do we have any evidence that Dorian has the necessary skills to design/write/debug the original BitCoin codebase? I would expect that someone with that level of specialized talent would not go unnoticed/undocumented for 40+ years.
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Analysis of the text of the original bitcoin paper (word choice, spelling, punctuation) points to Nick Szabo as the likely main creator of Bitcoin. Szabo had been working for several years before that on an idea called "bit gold", a direct technical predecessor of bitcoin. His website ( http://szabo.best.vwh.net/ [vwh.net] ) has papers on many of the same topics that bitcoin is involved with. Japanese names are written last name first, so "Satoshi Nakamoto" and Nick Szabo both share the initials "NS". That's not
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Perhaps he read the Internets Thursday morning like I did and saw people talking about how Dorian Nakamoto was going to become a target for extortion and possibly vigilante "j
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So far there is insufficient proof that Dorian is Satoshi. A few random correlations across huge populations does not evidence make.
Perhaps the real Satoshi has a 5 year old kid and doesn't waste too much time on his pseudonymous accounts anymore. But, he still reads the news, saw this crap turn up and figured he couldn't just let it slide. I know I would have done the same if I was Satoshi and some poor bastard was baselessly getting hounded like that.
Regarding your comment on people who work for the DOD:
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> Perhaps the real Satoshi has a 5 year old kid and doesn't waste too much time on his pseudonymous accounts anymore.
The original Satoshi disappeared when Gavin Andresen, now lead programmer for bitcoin, mentioned he was going to talk to the CIA about the project. Satoshi immediately stopped posting on forums and hadn't been heard from until yesterday on any of those accounts. Either he was spooked by getting three letter agency spooks involved, or he *worked* for a three letter agency and thought his