Bitcoin 'creator' backs out of Satoshi coin move 'proof'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36213580

by blacktulip • 10 years ago

399 279 10 years ago

bbc.co.uk

Grazester• 10 years ago

"But, as the events of this week unfolded and I prepared to publish the proof of access to the earliest keys, I broke. I do not have the courage. I cannot."

This guys is so full of crap its amusing

rory096• 10 years ago

Key phrase: "I cannot."

toyg• 10 years ago

Lol, he doesn't have the courage to do the one thing that will remove any doubt about him, but has enough courage to announce to the public that he's a coward and a broken man and likely a fraud on a planetary scale...

At this point his mental health is clearly not good. If he really believes what he writes, he has delusions on a clinical scale which should be addressed before he does something he might regret. If he doesn't believe it, he is a consummate fraudster, a danger to the community, and should probably go to jail.

CIPHERSTONE2• 10 years ago

He doesn't have the courage to make use of basic bitcoin functionality... oh the humanity!

macspoofing• 10 years ago

No kidding. Unlike the Newsweek fiasco, this person publicly identified himself as Satoshi, so expectations of proof are reasonable. What courage is he talking about? He already announced.

rdtsc4• 10 years ago

What courage is he talking about?

Courage of admitting he lost control of his con game. The only way is to keep plowing forward with more lies and more diversion, no matter how childish and stupid.

At the end of the day every con artist is also a desperate, lonely and broken on some level. There is probably a tiny dose of truth in what he said at that level. In other words he is not sorry and broken for lying, he is sorry and broken for being caught red handed at his own game.

lovemenot• 10 years ago

Suppose Craig just took a rational bet that did not pay off.

Craig, hoping Satoshi to be alive, provided an opportunity for Satoshi to move some of his own Bitcoin and have Craig become Satoshi in the public mind. But Satoshi, did not bite.

jgrahamc• 10 years ago

The note is terribly sad. I hope he has people around him to support him.

StavrosK• 10 years ago

He does, he showed me a photo of himself with some stick figures drawn in, which proves it.

hugozap• 10 years ago

It's weird that he's afraid of proving it but not of being labeled as a con artist. It makes no sense.

arxpoetica• 10 years ago

Human nature, often, does not add up.

regnet• 10 years ago

He's clearly used to being labeled a con-artist for many years.

6nf2• 10 years ago

He defrauded the Australian government by claiming R&D grants and then pocketing the money. Millions of dollars.

He's a criminal.

mabbo• 10 years ago

I hope the actual Satoshi is alive somewhere, and just for fun moves a different original coin, as if to say "I am alive, and Wright is not me".

CydeWeys7• 10 years ago

Even better if the coin is moved to a burn address that looks something like 1IWouldAnnounceMyselfThisWayJaNVN2.

Or just use the privkey from the genesis block to sign a message "In the very unlikely event that I ever decide to reveal myself, it will be through a message similar to this one" -- and then post it anonymously somewhere.

andremendes2• 10 years ago

Source: http://www.drcraigwright.net/

Asides the conversation, the whole source code of this website is: <img src="homepage.jpg">

This man is really not caring.

EDIT: site is updated now, with proper html+css coding.

dTal• 10 years ago

Love it. Unresponsive design :p

spriggan3• 10 years ago

Asides the conversation, the whole source code of this website is: <img src="homepage.jpg">

You're kidding right ?

EDIT : no he isn't .

SyneRyder3• 10 years ago

Some of the website is still in archive.org, but will probably disappear soon. Any snapshots before May have already disappeared. Might help for folks to download the old posts before they disappear from the web entirely.

Frustratingly, it appears the main screenshots from the Sartre post (showing his original 'proof') have already been removed from archive.org.

sah2ed• 10 years ago

I entertained the possibility that he would not be able to weather what would come next from his claim, so I managed to save the 7 screenshots for the Jean-Paul Sartre, Signing and Significance blog post.

You can fetch them from here: http://imgur.com/a/ppGI9

celticninja3• 10 years ago

Dude's a liar. After everything else he has done this is the simplest step which requires no extra burden on him. He has already claimed to be SN, the only reason not to follow through is because he cannot and could never have. Therefore he is just another pretender to the throne.

r3bl• 10 years ago

And let us not forget that the doctorate degree that he's bragging about so much that he put it in his domain is completely made up, as discovered by Forbes when they asked the college about it.

(Warning: Adblock dection) http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2015/12/11/bitcoi...

atomical2• 10 years ago

He played the media like a fiddle. They should follow up with some investigative reporting on him.

Aqueous2• 10 years ago

If "playing the media like a fiddle" means "walking away with your tail between your legs, a sad, broken man..." then sure.

dsfuoi3• 10 years ago

You don't know if he is a sad, broken man.

There is no evidence to believe the post reflects upon his real emotions, and since the man is untrustworthy[0], the post cannot be taken as evidence about his emotional state.

[0]:Whether he is willfully or maliciously deceptive is irrelevant. Even if he has the best of intentions, his behavior is still untrustworthy.

tazjin• 10 years ago

Can we just stop giving this con man more attention?

tangled_zans• 10 years ago

I know right. It was obvious from the start that he's full of shit, how are people still arguing about this?

numair• 10 years ago

It is interesting to note that the only Satoshi-existence scenario whose probability improves with each passing day, is the scenario in which Satoshi / the "Satoshis" is/are dead (unless you think Bitcoin was the first great invention of hyper-advanced AI, of course).

Figuring out whether anyone actually knows who Satoshi is/was becomes more interesting than waiting for the person(s) to show up, because it will never happen in a death scenario. One thing we have gained from this bizarre circus is a sign that neither Gavin nor Jon know who Satoshi might be; who's left? Who might know?

Finnucane3• 10 years ago

If Satoshi is dead or not an individual person, then who owns his bitcoin? If Satoshi is dead, then his property would be subject to the probate laws of his home country. Can the bitcoin of a dead person be recovered if they don't make arrangements for it in their will? Or will blocks of bitcoin become inactive over time as their owners die?

bitJericho• 10 years ago

Bitcoins can only be distributed if you have the private key for it. If satoshi dies and leaves the keys for his heirs, then its just a normal asset. If the keys are gone, then that money is unrecoverable, just like burning cash.

nathanaldensr• 10 years ago

These are some great questions. Given a long enough timeline, it's possible (probable?) that nearly all private keys will be lost. It's funny that Bitcoin seems to have built into it its own demise: mortal people.

nkrisc• 10 years ago

The coins belong to whoever (one or more) has the key.

jaredandrews• 10 years ago

I wonder about this. It's seems like the most likely scenario. But... from my understanding Satoshi made appropriate effort to pass on the Bitcoin project before he disappeared. So unless he was leaving to commit suicide, I don't think he _has_ to be dead. (he == she == they)

benmmurphy• 10 years ago

it could also be that gavin/jon are satoshi or know who satoshi is and went along with the scam so no-one would think they know who satoshi is.

headgasket3• 10 years ago

or that Craig Wright is the real Satoshi, and want to establish to everyone that he's not to keep the huge btc stash from the Ozzie taxman...

gtrubetskoy4• 10 years ago

My (non-provable) theory is that Satoshi is not a person but a team, now defunct, that was tasked with developing a crypto-currency. They are probably more scientists/mathematicians/economists than they are software developers, which would explain the very sound but not exactly elegant initial code.

It would also explain the silence - the project is over, the team is probably bound to secrecy because this stuff is classified.

The only time Satoshi spoke out (edit: and we don't even know that it was authentic, see discussion below) was to help the poor bloke who was mistaken to be Satoshi and his life was being ruined, and that was probably a collective decision by the former team members, it was the right thing to do.

This is a different case - Satoshi speaking out wouldn't help in this case, Craig sounds like someone in need of help from a professional psychiatrist or psychologist, http://www.drcraigwright.net/ almost sounds like a suicide note. I feel sorry and worried for the bloke.

user242• 10 years ago

The only time Satoshi spoke out was to help the poor bloke who was mistaken to be Satoshi

no, the forum account was hacked to make that claim. It wasn't by Satoshi.

gtrubetskoy4• 10 years ago

no, the forum account was hacked to make that claim. It wasn't by Satoshi.

Are you sure, I wasn't aware of that?

Edit: the "I am not Dorian Nakamoto" was on March 7 2014, the account hack on Sept 8 of same year. It doesn't prove it conclusively. In fact the hack may well have been done deliberately, for a (kind of) plausible deniability (i.e. now you can't tell whether it was the real "Satoshi" and thus there was no provable breach of secrecy).

dempseye• 10 years ago

Source for this?

dzmien3• 10 years ago

I wouldn't be surprised if we never know who Satoshi Nakamoto is, and his coins remain forever out of reach. I bet they collectively decided to throw away the keys, so to speak.

gtrubetskoy4• 10 years ago

If this is a classified government project of some sort (and again, I have zero proof of that, it just "seems" that way), then we _might_ know in, like, 100 years, perhaps. Depends on what country/agency is behind it.

CyberDildonics3• 10 years ago

Satoshi at one point made a calculation on what each unit would be worth if the entirety of the world's money supply was bitcoin. I don't know if he believed that that would be possible, but it wasn't as if someone made this to settle up with friends after a pub crawl and it suddenly took off.

With that view of the big picture I would be surprised if someone would throw away what may be the most valuable numbers in history, let alone the only proof that they created it while purposefully remaining anonymous.

cookiecaper• 10 years ago

If being considered Satoshi ruined some other guy's life too, isn't Wright's claim that he is Satoshi but he just chickened out of irrefutably proving it semi-plausible?

Mtinie2• 10 years ago

Dorian wasn't given the choice. He didn't announce that he was Satoshi but had the mantle thrust upon him by the media.

Mr. Wright made his claims but now is unable to prove them beyond a reasonable doubt.

headgasket3• 10 years ago

an alt-schyzo-personality of John Nash. He probably lost access to the blocks due to the sickness.

kilroy123• 10 years ago

Or, one or all of the team members are dead now.

samstave• 10 years ago

The NSA/Mossad. Got it.

ebbv3• 10 years ago

One thing that gives me a little pause and makes me think maybe he is telling the truth (even though all other evidence and logic says he's a fraud) is that the real Satoshi has not put out a statement calling this guy out as a fraud.

When the Dorian Nakamoto stuff happened the real Satoshi put out a statement saying he's not Dorian. That wasn't that long ago.

If he did that you'd think he'd step up and say he's not Craig Wright either. But maybe he did the previous one because he felt Dorian was being victimized whereas Craig Wright has made a mess of his own design.

It's hard to say for sure.

ramblerman• 10 years ago

It's not that unlikely that satoshi is dead given the sudden silence. Someone like Craig Wright might have gambled on that fact.

kbart• 10 years ago

I'm sure the goal of such step is exactly this -- to leave some room for doubt. The conman was moved in a corner during last few days, it was the only logical step left. It's only few commands to prove that you really poses the original key, no need for drama, screenshots and buggy scripts.

gamache• 10 years ago

When the Dorian Nakamoto stuff happened the real Satoshi put out a statement saying he's not Dorian. That wasn't that long ago.

My read on that is that Satoshi felt sorry for the hapless Japanese-American guy with tech media showing up at his house.

In contrast, Craig Wright asked for this.

celticninja3• 10 years ago

Also the old guy was going to have to prove a negative. Can't be done.

ebbv3• 10 years ago

I said that exact same thing in literally the next line of the comment you're responding to. :)

chjj• 10 years ago

is that the real Satoshi has not put out a statement calling this guy out as a fraud

And what about the inverse? If he is Satoshi, why didn't he just put out a signed statement saying he is Craig? Satoshi seemed perfectly capable of producing valid signatures (and he could do it without a 25-page blog post).

Stop giving him the benefit of the doubt. He couldn't produce a valid signature. He couldn't move old coins. He couldn't explain the blockchain with anything more than an amateur understanding of it (his article describing mining had at least 2 major factual errors I could pick out in the first 2 paragraphs). When he realized he couldn't keep the charade up, he gave up. It's really that simple.

ebbv3• 10 years ago

Like I said all evidence and logic leads to the conclusion he's a fraud, but it is a bit strange that the real Satoshi has not commented on this when he did on the Dorian Nakamoto stuff.

SyneRyder3• 10 years ago

Elsewhere in these comments, others have pointed out that probably wasn't the real Satoshi, the account was compromised:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11635818

rdtsc4• 10 years ago

is that the real Satoshi has not put out a statement calling this guy out as a fraud.

Why would he? He felt sorry for Dorian, why would he step into this mess and get tangled in this story.

crystalmeph2• 10 years ago

Tin-foil, but if I were Satoshi and wanted to remain anonymous, and some journalists started snooping around, one way to shut them down would be to publicly post a "proof" that seems technical enough to get the reporters to run out screaming "we got him!" but falls apart once more technical people start investigating...

chriswarbo• 10 years ago

If you treat the "proof" falling apart under scrutiny as evidence that he is Satoshi, then to remain consistent you must treat a strong proof which holds up under scrutiny as evidence against him being Satoshi.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/ii/conservation_of_expected_evidence

crystalmeph2• 10 years ago

To be clear, I don't believe my tin-foil conspiracy is true, and honestly it doesn't matter one bit to me if Craig Wright is the inventor of Bitcoin.

That said, I never said that his "absence of evidence that he is Satoshi" is actually "evidence that he is Satoshi". In fact, no one has provided any real evidence either that he is or is not Satoshi.

Again, assuming that the real Satoshi wishes to remain anonymous, but is on the verge of discovery anyway, he may have a difficult time "proving" that he isn't Satoshi, so his next best bet might be to sidestep proof entirely and instead play a kind of mind game to throw off the investigation. So conservation of expected evidence doesn't factor in, because he hasn't "proven" anything one way or the other, he's basically gambled that internet ridicule will achieve a desired goal.

arcticfox6• 10 years ago

This would be rather genius. And extremely unlikely, but effective if true and ever enacted.

CyberDildonics3• 10 years ago

Why would it be clever to put yourself on the map when before no one would have even considered you?

rdtsc4• 10 years ago

if I were Satoshi and wanted to remain anonymous,

That discounts the fact that nobody would be able to figure it out. You did though, and I've heard that theory before as well.

Then also unless real Satoshi issues a statement saying "I am not this guy", people will always keep an eye on this clown. Always watching his moves and suspecting him.

Now, maybe if he was the real Satoshi as your are claiming he should then issue a statement that he isn't. That'll surely misdirect things a bit. "We've heard right from Satoshi that this isn't Satoshi, so ok, just a crazy guy". But then again, same trap, that is what Satoshi might be experted to do if he was hiding and trying to misdirect the public. And we got another twist in the spiral and so on...

spdustin3• 10 years ago

Okay seriously, is anyone contacting the authorities to see if this man is still alive? I do not know who to contact or what his location is. His "blog" post sounds like a suicide note - I've had the misfortune of reading others, and there are telltale signs - and it doesn't appear that anyone is taking steps to see if he's okay.

Maybe he is a liar, maybe he's Satoshi, who gives a shit at this point when the jaded comments make it sound like we've been invaded by 4chan.

musha68k2• 10 years ago

Thank you for posting this <3

andremendes2• 10 years ago

As the author of one of those jaded comments, I'm worried about this possibility now.

I believe someone (healthy) close to him should take some care of him for a while. Regardless of his online identity.

sktrdie2• 10 years ago

I understand this, but there's also the dimension where his actions, whether true or not, are also damaging other people (Gavin's reputation is on the line).

We'd all be more worried for him if he wasn't so blatantly causing harm to other people's reputation.

Obviously he could suffer from severe mental illness, which combines elements of harming others and self harm, but as a society I think we should worry more about the person being harmed (ex. Gavin).

bwilliams18• 10 years ago

No, that's a horrible thought. If he truly is suicidal we should be doing what we can to make sure he is cared for.

sktrdie2• 10 years ago

@bwilliams, yep, and that's why I said "I understand this". We should help him. But we should also help, if not more, Gavin and the others who's reputation is on the line without much fault of their own.

nsajko• 10 years ago

Andresen (and Matonis) themselves should be considered responsible for the harm to their own reputations no?

devishard2• 10 years ago

Gavin's reputation is on the line because he is a security researcher, and he was duped by a not-very-convincing crypto scam. It's not a big deal to me; I wouldn't hold it against him much in, say, hiring. But whatever damage done to Gavin was done by his own choices. I'm not going to rush to feel sorry for him, either.

brador2• 10 years ago

The Goodbye at the end is worrying, but he simply needs to do one small action to prove his case and put an end to it all.

It would take less than 5 minutes, which leaves the question, why drag it on like this?

bpchaps4• 10 years ago

Because mental health issues can cause rationalizations to stack one on top of the other. It sucks, but it would explain it.

(I'm not actually claiming that's what's actually going on, for what it's worth. Just that the behavior has a familiar feel.)

mathattack• 10 years ago

I read the Goodbye as someone backed into a corner who can't prove it.

adwf• 10 years ago

Probably because there are enough people who would still claim that he's not Satoshi. They'd just say he stole the signing key or something. There are already some saying that it was a colleague who he's taking the credit for, it's only a small leap for conspiracy nuts to jump to the theft idea.

Of course, it's vastly more likely that he is not Satoshi and he's just trying to save face.

rbanffy• 10 years ago

It would take less than 5 minutes

I wouldn't keep the keys to US$ 500 million on my laptop's hard drive.

devishard2• 10 years ago

This post reminds me of a tactic abusive people use to prevent their victims from leaving them. When confronted with their bad behavior, they apologize profusely and pretend to feel remorse for their actions to the point that people worry about them. Once people feel adequately sorry for them and are distracted from their bad behavior, they go right back to doing what they were doing.

But the giveaway that shows it's all fake is that they never really get to the root of the bad behavior and do anything to fix it. In this case, Wright still hasn't admitted that he isn't Satoshi and doesn't have the key to the genesis block.

I've seen this behavior far too many times from my ex--I'm not going to give in to it here. Sure, someone should go check that he's not going to kill himself. But that should not for a second distract from the fact that he's a liar and a fraud, and this is likely just his latest ploy.

bpchaps4• 10 years ago

My ex did the same thing and it's pretty shitty, but it still deserves serious attention. The best route is to call the cops and ensure they get proper medical attention if nothing else for a strong jolt to reality.

I don't think she would be alive now if I hadn't made that call.

golergka2• 10 years ago

Abusive people commit suicides as well.

musha68k2• 10 years ago

All of this wouldn't be that much of an issue if we weren't so pathologically curious all the time, the press wouldn't have any "story" whatsoever.

It's us angry monkeys who are the creators of this kind of behaviour.

At least on HN let's concentrate on the technology FFS.

AFAIK none of the current "blockchain" tech has managed to successfully introduce a robust "proof of stake" system versus the wasteful "proof of work" yet - and that's just one of the many problems we need to solve.

Essentially the whole Internet is broken so unfortunately we cannot even seriously talk about the significant scalability issues which AFAIK all of the current decentralised crypto state machines still suffer from out there on the githubs...

spdustin3• 10 years ago

To be certain, it is; it's a textbook tactic used by abusers who themselves suffer from some neurosis. Abusers sometimes do, after threatening it so much, anneal themselves with the constant threats and their perceived ineffectiveness, actually follow through as a final, "I'll show them!"

Either way, it is a loss of life. I do feel better knowing that his safety (or, at the very least, status as a living, breathing human being) is confirmed. I also think he needs help, real professional help, to overcome whatever is pushing him in this apparent downward spiral.

Of course, he could just be some asshole trying to get airtime or to socially engineer access to Satoshi's funds. Maybe Satoshi had a psychotic break, and he (as Satoshi) is the result of it? Point is that we have only the evidence that has been shared (by him, the media, former colleagues) in a very haphazard way. It's easy to get wrapped up in theories and plot twists when there's a level of anonymity between us and the subject of our conspiracies. We simply do not know. Maybe we won't ever know.

Hopefully the next step for him begins a path to peace, rehabilitation, restitution, acceptance or any combination thereof.

empath75• 10 years ago

Someone should check on him out of an abundance of caution, but his note is laughably melodramatic.

Lxr• 10 years ago

Sometime between this being posted and now he has changed the homepage from an image to HTML, so I'm betting he's alive.

jnbiche2• 10 years ago

He realized the image wouldn't be indexed by Google, I'd imagine.

nikcub• 10 years ago

I saw the post within a minute of two of it going up and also read it as a suicide note. I reached out to everyone I knew and heard back indirectly through someone else that he's ok.

He's also updated his homepage in the last few minutes.

Despite knowing just how much of a manipulator Craig is I think it's worth erring on the side of caution here.

spdustin3• 10 years ago

Thank you for letting us know. Whether he's a lying asshole or not, I've learned the hard way to take someone seriously when they seem to be threatening self-harm, even if they've been insincere in the past. Someone who feels the need to lie so much isn't exactly neurotypical, and depressive thoughts with suicidal ideations often go along with such a compulsion. Better safe than sorry.

Thanks again for checking in.

jnbiche2• 10 years ago

Sadly, this type of behavior is also the hallmark of a master manipulator. Given his track record of deceit upon deceit (lied about PhD as confirmed by university, lied about supercomputer as confirmed by SGI, got caught backdating PGP key, multiple acquaintances in Australia on record about his sketchy business practices, etc. etc), I'd guess that the emotion here is significantly less than genuine.

That said, I agree that if I knew the man, or had any idea where he is then I'd feel compelled to check in on him. But it sounds like people have checked in on him and he's OK [1].

But I'm guessing it's just more showmanship and more attempts to distract from the fact that he has no proof he's who he's claiming to be.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11636144

nihonde• 10 years ago

Yes, certainly we should sympathize with this person who is behaving in a confusing way.

Even if he made a calculated decision to manipulate the news media here, the blame must be shared by the journalists who promoted the story, and to an extent, the portion of the audience that was simply looking for an easy answer and a satisfying resolution.

At the end of the day, the whole lot of us should be responsible for being skeptical enough to prevent a destructive person from turning their personal issues into a global crisis.

Many people stepped up to debunk this story quite readily. It was the mainstream media that was really exacerbating the situation.

spilk• 10 years ago

Why is there even an argument? It is not rocket science to produce a signed message with a key, the reference software can do this trivially. Until that is provided I don't see why anyone should entertain the possibility. Anything else is just theatrics.

koktang• 10 years ago

Is the website image steganographic?

mastazi• 10 years ago

I thought the same. The image has been taken down, is there anyone who saved it?

headgasket3• 10 years ago

that would be tha bomb. a satoshi signed message in the jpg

cporios• 10 years ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20160505121147/http://www.drcrai...

supercoder• 10 years ago

It's a suicide note.

serf• 10 years ago

it's a suicide note

.. or an attempt to bolster the flames of a dying media spectacle that keeps your name up at the top of the news feeds.

I hope I'm right, I hate the idea of a guy being driven to suicide; even more than I hate the idea of him social engineering media outlets en masse to self-promote.

l33tbro• 10 years ago

As cringey as this whole episode has been, I genuinely hope this guy is alright and doesn't do something dumb.

woodman• 10 years ago

The subsequent modifications to the website lead me to believe that the chances of this being a suicide note are really low. But everything leading up to this leaves me confident that he will continue to "do something dumb", just not suicide.

jbmorgado6• 10 years ago

I think it follows the typical modus operandi of large part of the Bitcoin community:

1 - Propose flawed argument.

2 - Insert pink unicorns.

3 - When asked for proof, don't give it and instead claim this is exactly what's best for the world but that we are too short minded to understand it.

snitko4• 10 years ago

What you're trying to do here is to project your hatred for Bitcoin using fraud as somehow representative of the ideas embedded into Bitcoin, which have nothing to do with that fraud.

jbmorgado6• 10 years ago

I'm sorry, but only the people that feel the need to follow something as some kind of religion or philosophy really need to attribute the adjectives "hatred" or "love" to some kind of technology.

The rest of the world at large (EDIT: that knows about bitcoin as sub intended by the rest of the sentence) that is not part of the bitcoin cult, looks at the thing for its technological prowess - or lack of it - and mostly sees it as a cryptographic experiment gone right and a financial experiment gone very wrong.

tinkerrr• 10 years ago

Your prejudice against "Bitcoin community" is quite telling, given the fact that it took the Bitcoin community less than 2 hours to disprove the supposed proof and very few in the "Bitcoin community" would consider Wright one of their own.

jbmorgado6• 10 years ago

They also don't consider Gavin Andresen one of their own then?

Which begs the question, exactly what what means being "one of their own", and if they have any kind of plans to re-instate the Spanish Inquisition.

ParadisoShlee• 10 years ago

that’s the kind of apology I would expect from the zodiac killer..

threatofrain• 10 years ago

It's hard for me to believe that he's backing out of his promise to provide stronger evidence because the pressure is too much, because the pressure of being known as a fraud is a lot worse than being known as an inventor.

dpweb• 10 years ago

This whole "controversy" is incredibly boring. The real Satoshi would be able to prove it easily. Prove it, or STFU and we can move on from the who is Satoshi mystery?

arcticfox6• 10 years ago

It's not that boring at all. How did he smoke and mirror two of the best Bitcoin devs on the planet?

At worst, it's an interesting discussion of a con man running into a technical wall.

haakon• 10 years ago

Matonis is not a Bitcoin developer or a person of much technical merit, if that was one of the two you referred to. Good question about Gavin, though.

AKifer• 10 years ago

The only blamable thing in this story is that the so called mainstream media are not technically knowledgeable enough to "scientifically" check their news sources. Good thing, all the nerds around have exposed the scheme in such a short time, I like this era !!

azernik• 10 years ago

And the New York Times story about this still insists that his initial "proof" was genuine!

kelnage• 10 years ago

Except they were also working off the assurances of two major Bitcoin "nerds". Why not blame them too?

bpchaps4• 10 years ago

Odd note - his page just turned from a jpeg to use actual text. So, uh. yay, I suppose.

oneloop• 10 years ago

The words "absolute moron" come to mind.

Geekette2• 10 years ago

Given his history as a prolific liar, I find his post to be utter bullshit. Note how he's still lying about things he was caught at: "When the rumours began, my qualifications and character were attacked. When those allegations were proven false". NO - it was established (with confirmation from the schools in question) that he lied about having a PhD from Charles Stuart U. and he definitely does not possess 8 masters degrees. Not to mention other lies about having super computers and partnership with SGI to build more with fake reference letter (all clarified by company as false), etc.

Now, because he knows he can't successfully claim Satoshi's identity and in light of possible charges based on ongoing police investigation (fraudulent use of tax credits), he wants to dramatically disappear. I hope the authorities have his passport(s). His thirst for fame is unreal.

pinewurst2• 10 years ago

Perhaps the Satoshi show is his way to convince Australian tax authorities of diminished capacity to lessen the penalties for his fraudulent acts? A sociopath grasping at any lever that could work in his favor.

dsfuoi3• 10 years ago

I still haven't seen anyone write what those fraudulent acts are exactly. Since Craig Wright (let's not call him what he isn't) apparently has several companies, these should be some clue about that?

danielweber2• 10 years ago

First search for narcissist checklist got me

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-legacy-distorted-lo...

If you toss out the ones about romantic relationships, Craig hits on most of them.

nacs2• 10 years ago

I'm in the Wright is a liar/con-artist camp but the items on that list apply to most "normal" people (including myself).

rdiddly• 10 years ago

You beat me to it! I was about to post this one from the same site: https://www.psychologytoday.com/conditions/narcissistic-pers...

(click on "Symptoms")

Aelinsaar6• 10 years ago

Could be, but this level of public self-destruction might be sociopathic/anti-social.

darren2000• 10 years ago

You want the Hare PCL-R for psychopathy/sociopathy: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Psychopathy_Check...

Interesting that it has now been deleted from wikipedia...

This is also good: http://www.wikihow.com/Spot-a-Sociopath

hkjgkjy• 10 years ago

This comment is the toughest diss HN has ever seen

mathrawka• 10 years ago

He already made it out of Australia and is "hiding" in the UK.

Geekette2• 10 years ago

I'd read of that elsewhere but wasn't sure. Here's to hoping both countries have adequate agreements to facilitate shipping him back home to face the music.

static_noise• 10 years ago

Why would anyone want to acquire 8 masters degrees? Usually one is enough. Some people get two which makes sense for them. By three you've surely proven that you can learn and replicate stuff and don't need to go to any more exams to prove that. You're better off getting other qualifications.

criddell• 10 years ago

His note doesn't make any sense to me.

If I were to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he is Satoshi, this note still doesn't make any sense. Removing all doubt that he at least controls the keys is almost trivial.

id122015• 10 years ago

these stories about bitcoin are like those long drama's/soap operas/ Tween Peaks, I dont know anything about because I didnt have time to put up with it. Only women..

imsatoshi2• 10 years ago

True that

Tenoke• 10 years ago

Can someone please explain how Gavin can still think he is Satoshi? I am very confused.

mpeg• 10 years ago

People who get conned will generally refuse to believe they've been scammed, even when presented with evidence.

bitmapbrother• 10 years ago

I suggested this from the start. A simple transaction from Satoshi's account to an agreed upon 3rd party is all that would have been needed to prove his claims. Claiming to not have the "courage" to perform this simple verification is just ridiculous.

glaberficken• 10 years ago

Link to archived version of full May 3rd post https://web.archive.org/web/20160504045648/http://www.drcrai...

abalone• 10 years ago

What is the best theory of how Gavin Andresen and Jon Matonis were deceived?

tommynicholas2• 10 years ago

To those of you who have never known a conman or someone with borderline personality disorder, this behavior might seem odd. To me, it's like looking at a picture of a dog and going "oh that's a dog!"

danielweber2• 10 years ago

The best indicator for me was, instead of providing something right away, saying you will provide it "soon," and then waiting for the inevitable excuse when it doesn't happen.

tommynicholas2• 10 years ago

Not just the excuse, but making themselves into a martyr SPECIFICALLY as the excuse. This type of person can never simply say they can't do something, they have to be larger than life even when failing to do something.

johnjac• 10 years ago

We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of 'Satoshi Nakamoto' for the week. But all the decision of that Satoshi have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting.

neuropie• 10 years ago

It's very interesting that he asked the media to send coins to one of Satoshi's Bitcoin addresses, and that he would return them. All of Satoshi's original coins are Pay-to-Public-Key, whereas the BBC's money was sent Pay-to-Public-Key-Hash (P2PKH). This means that Craig would have to present a signature along with a public key that just has the same hash as the Satoshi public key, not a signature for Satoshi's public key itself. I think he is banking on finding another key with the same hash, as a final desperate attempt to forge his identity.

m-i-l• 10 years ago

If Craig Wright did indeed purchase the supercomputer which was placed at number 17 on the list of the world's fastest supercomputers in November 2015, perhaps its sole purpose was to do a collision attack. Although as with other claims, it is uncertain whether he did buy this computer (SGI deny it was bought from them but concede that it could have been bought on the grey market[0]).

[0] http://www.zdnet.com/article/sgi-denies-links-with-alleged-b...

TheBlight• 10 years ago

To move the coins in a P2PKH output the signature also needs to include the public key.

biot• 10 years ago

In the video he claims that he is the one known by the "monkier" [sic] Satoshi Nakamoto. A very appropriate misspeak of the word "moniker".

jsprogrammer3• 10 years ago

Humans are not monkies and never were. It is believed that the two species shared a common ancestor at some point.

Edit: If someone has evidence otherwise, please post.

nickfrostatx• 10 years ago

Your comment was seen as pedantic and nonconstructive.

jsprogrammer3• 10 years ago

And a comment referring to us as "angry monkeys" is non-pedant constructivism?

Where can I view these observations?

PhasmaFelis2• 10 years ago

I think it was clear to most people that "angry monkeys" was a metaphorical figure of speech, not a serious assertion regarding the ancestry of humankind.

dang• 10 years ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11636167 and marked it off-topic.

jsprogrammer3• 10 years ago

Why?

satysin• 10 years ago

The guy sounds like a pathological liar and narcissist. Amazing so many were sucked in to his bullshit. The journalists involved should be embarrassed as they look like utter fools.

throw7• 10 years ago

"There are very credible people besides Gavin and Jon who still think he is Satoshi - people who are privy to other information and whose judgement I respect."

Oh? Pray tell.

ajonit• 10 years ago

I really wish Satoshi comes out from hiding before he (or the group) is dead (assuming he is not already); otherwise it will forever take #1 position on those listicles sites ("The top 10 mysteries of all time; You really want to know #1")

tunesmith• 10 years ago

For those of you who haven't had firsthand experience with truly weird habitual liars, this is exactly what it's like... not saying Wright is a liar but he hasn't differentiated himself from it.

saalweachter• 10 years ago

Thought experiment: Suppose Satoshi, whoever it is, is still alive somewhere in the wild. But he doesn't have his original keys (hard-drive failure with no backup, apartment fire with no offsite backup, etc etc).

How would Satoshi prove himself then?

jamoes• 10 years ago

He could still have access to his PGP private key, which would be a strong data point. It could be possible that someone stole this key though, so this alone wouldn't completely prove his identity.

If he had the foresight to know he might want to prove his identity at some point in the future, he could have embedded the hash of a message into an early block (using the public keys of coinbase transactions). The message could say something like "Satoshi Nakamoto is <real name>. <salt>". In order to prove his identity, he'd just have to reveal the contents of the message (he'd have the make the salt something he could memorize so that it wouldn't be at risk of being destroyed by a fire). Ideally he'd encode this message hash in multiple early blocks (using a different salt in each message, so that the hash is different each time).

I think anything like the "knowledge of the content of private emails" is flawed. Satoshi's email account was hacked, so most of his "private" emails are no longer private (supposedly he didn't use PGP for most of his private correspondence).

CydeWeys7• 10 years ago

A Bitcoin private key is only 51 characters when expressed in the Base58 format that Bitcoin uses. Here is an example private key expressed in such a format: 5Kb8kLf9zgWQnogidDA76MzPL6TsZZY36hWXMssSzNydYXYB9KF

If I were Satoshi I totally would've committed it to memory. I have more random characters than that memorized for passwords to various accounts.

Or, even easier, have a smaller simple password, and then be able to reconstruct them using an algorithm that your remember, e.g. SHA256(SHA256(SHA256("correct") + "horse battery") + "staple").

fapjacks2• 10 years ago

According to that awesome analysis[0], he was backing his stuff up pretty regularly (every five days at first). I would find it very hard to believe that someone with the wherewithal to make backups is not making an off-site copy of those backups. I haven't met many people that make backups but only store a copy locally. History is rife with horror stories. It's a good question though. Specifically there might be things only Satoshi knows among some of the original adopters (but clearly Gavin is not one of those people, if he was fooled by Crazy Craig).

[0] http://organofcorti.blogspot.com/2014/08/167-satoshis-hashra...

keypusher• 10 years ago

I believe that David Kleiman was the one with the Satoshi keys, they were kept on an encrypted USB. He died unexpectedly in 2013, and his brother took the USB. Nobody knows how to unlock it.

jonah• 10 years ago

Bitcoin needs a "For Entertainment Purposes Only" disclaimer on it.

fapjacks2• 10 years ago

Wow, I'm psychic! Turns out all the guy really had was a rubber suit in a freezer. It wasn't a bigfoot after all!!

Shocking.

PhasmaFelis2• 10 years ago

The entire "who is Satoshi" thing is basically the tech equivalent of gossip rags.

The_knight• 10 years ago

I'd be willing to bet that the coins will move soon.

6nf2• 10 years ago

I will take your bet, what would you like to wager?

imsatoshi2• 10 years ago

This guy is not the creator. No body is. Evolution!!

jheriko• 10 years ago

Unsurprising. Being vague and mysterious is the hallmark of bullshit.

The fact that some people believe it is more a testament to their naivete than anything else. I pity them... :(

kazinator2• 10 years ago

The Nick Szabo hypothesis is plausible, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto#Nick_Szabo

In December 2013, a blogger named Skye Grey linked Nick Szabo to the bitcoin's whitepaper using a stylometric analysis.

All that, and the NS/NS: Nakamoto Satoshi / Nick Szabo. :)

I assign a low probability to the proposition that Nakamoto is other than Szabo.

Suppose Nakamoto isn't Szabo. Why the various similarities? They could be deliberate: Nakamoto isn't Szabo but another researcher who not only runs with the same ideas, but mimics the elements of writing, duplicates the timezone of activity and so on. Even chooses the letters N and S for his pseudonym to tantalize people with the hypothesis that he is Szabo. The problem under this hypothesized scenario is that Szabo would almost certainly have cried foul: "Hey, world, this Bitcoin Nakamoto dude is ripping off my research without crediting me at all!" Secondly, why would someone who wants to create a digital currency system based on Szabo's ideas go to the trouble of creating all these irrelevant similarities.

On the other hand, there is the why: why wouldn't someone who obviously knows a lot about security an privacy issues not put more effort into building plausible deniability? Maybe Szabo simply doesn't care about having anything near air-tight claim that he isn't Nakamoto, and so just let himself be sloppy. Perhaps he actually wants there to be all that circumstantial evidence, and is biding his time until the right moment to admit that he is Nakamoto, at which time with just some small piece of proof, it will be iron-clad to everyone.

cogentleman• 10 years ago

Haha can't handle the limelight, this fella reminds me of the Flappy Bird creator.

I think he's BSing as well.

lazzlazzlazz• 10 years ago

Nobody here should be surprised; we knew Wright has been engaging in pathological behaviors for years now. The question is how Gavin will handle the damage to his reputation. I feel bad for him.

bitmadness• 10 years ago

What an ass

DonGateley• 10 years ago

Perhaps he was simply clued to some seriously bad consequence of proving his ownership of the Satoshi hoard.

Bitcoin 'creator' backs out of Satoshi coin move 'proof'

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