The Face Behind Bitcoin?

http://mag.newsweek.com/2014/03/14/bitcoin-satoshi-nakamoto.html

by warrenmiller • 12 years ago

1165 677 12 years ago

mag.newsweek.com

verroq3• 12 years ago

HN can't decry censorship and keep flagging this article because it includes Satoshi's dox.

maxerickson2• 12 years ago

Well, there are multiple people here, so differing views aren't really inconsistent.

But it's also possible to believe that certain government powers should be very limited while at the same time believing that individuals should strive not to be assholes to each other.

Information wants a banana.

danielweber6• 12 years ago

First:

This is a private board, we are guests here. Even boards dedicated to discussing free speech regularly regulate the speech on their board because they need to keep peace. It's a big Internet, and you can make your own space.

Second:

I don't know how the people who run HN have ever claimed to be special free-speech proponents. They probably think, like most Americans can be shamed into thinking, that the government shouldn't punish you for speech, but aside from that I'm not aware of them, say, calling out other message boards for regulating their content as "censorship."

Third:

Unfortunately, once a general-purpose journalism piece lists your information, that's usually where claims of "doxxing" end.

awakeasleep• 12 years ago

Flagged as a troll, if you're genuinely suggesting what you write, consider that we can desire dissemination of public information or of government & corporate actions without believing individuals have no right to privacy.

mikeash3• 12 years ago

Why not? There is absolutely nothing inconsistent about simultaneously believing "people should not do X" and "the government should not prevent people from doing X".

eli• 12 years ago

I don't think you know what censorship means.

da_maire• 12 years ago

HN may be user-driven, but it's heavily moderated, privately run and those operating it have a long established policy of banning and deleting content (or sometimes entire sources, e.g all of Gawker Media) at will for any reason they see fit. Same applies to discussion and the 'ghosting' of specific users with poor reputations. There's no guidelines for what's 'allowed' and 'disallowed' (at least none they've committed to) so bans are completely arbitrary and usually carried out with no official explanation or notification. This is actually standard operating procedure for any moderated discussion board and HN's particularly aggressive stance has contributed to it's success - higher quality content, higher quality discussion. Slashdot operated under similar rules and enjoyed success for at least a full decade despite the same complaints of 'censorship' coming up constantly. Slashdot eventually fell apart for unrelated reasons (shrinking/aging audience, failed attempts at modernization) but it's still a proven model with plenty of precedence. If you're concerned that you're being intentionally kept from reading about something, get your technology-related news from multiple sources. There's plenty of sites with looser guidelines to choose from.

One thing that annoys me about HN though is that I read it primarily through Feedly, and content often gets pushed to HN's feed prior to deletion, so I end up with a lot of annoying dead links to HN in Feedly.

shawabawa3• 12 years ago

Not sure why this keeps getting deleted.

Newsweek have already made it public, no point trying to protect his identity now

maxerickson2• 12 years ago

One poster chose to delete his (I saw his comment to this effect). I imagine users flagged the second one dead.

easytiger• 12 years ago

Can we ban paywalled articles?

henryaj• 12 years ago

Open it in private browsing/Incognito mode and you'll be fine.

sp3323• 12 years ago

Private browsing didn't work for me. Just a blank page for 5 seconds, then a full-page ad and no article.

nkuttler• 12 years ago

Fwiw, I don't get a paywall. Might be one of my ad blocking things.

sp3323• 12 years ago

That would be fine with me! http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?strip=1&q=cache...

blumkvist• 12 years ago

So, we don't want advertising and we don't want subscriptions.

It seems like we don't know what we want.

zache• 12 years ago

Just block cookies from them, it works on most sites with a similar set-up.. Some sites you have to set to remove when you close the browser instead though.

dTal2• 12 years ago

Wait, it was just a single smart dude whose actual real name is Satoshi Nakamoto, and here we've been theorizing shadowy pseudonymous cabals of libertarian cryptographers?

I feel very silly.

jessaustin• 12 years ago

I always assumed it was a real dude, since only a certain type of westerner would use a Japanese pseudonym, and that type of westerner would have chosen "Kenichi Kusanagi" or something similarly ridiculous.

[To be clear, I had also assumed that a Japanese crypto person who wanted privacy would have used a western pseudonym.]

But yeah, it almost seems like the crypto community didn't really want to dox Nakamoto, even if many of them could have.

mcphilip• 12 years ago

Apparently the author of this newsweek piece will be on CNBC sometime this morning:

https://twitter.com/SquawkCNBC/status/441544016421978112

greyskull2• 12 years ago

I feel really bad for Mr. Nakamoto. He would have likely been found out at some point, but this is the worst way for it to happen. Now everyone knows.

If he was put off by just one journalist visit, I imagine he'll consider relocating now.

danielweber6• 12 years ago

Was he "put off"? He seems to have consented to the interview, and to have posed for a picture.

Having interacted enough with bad members of the media [NB: there are also good ones], I'm not so naive as to think that there's no way they could have persuaded him to do it with lies or bullshit or empty threats, but without evidence for that he could have just said "I don't want to talk to you" and left it at that.

EDIT: I've re-read and might be changing my position. He didn't actually consent to any in-person interview. It was very very clear he didn't want to talk in person. So where did the picture come from?

hisabness• 12 years ago

the best part of the interview is when she says she used a team of investigators similar to the CIA, and then goes onto thank only 2 people for their work. hilarious.

Blahah3• 12 years ago

The author of the piece can be reached in these ways:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1zpmo8/the_face_beh...

If you think this article is a dangerous invasion of privacy, tell her and her employers (Newsweek).

noir_lord2• 12 years ago

Forget Dangerous... it's down right irresponsible They list the guys entire family including kids and where they work etc.

Beside that the article has very little content other than "he's a little bit weird" an observation that is not exactly original, it's almost a stereotype that really smart people are often a "little bit weird" .

Blahah3• 12 years ago

That's exactly my point. It's dangerous because she's made his address, car registration and all his family's details public. I'm saying we should raise it with the people responsible if we think it's a problem.

edit: now you've edited for clarity, it's clear we're saying the same thing.

wernerb• 12 years ago

This poor guy. Does the US have no legislation in regard to protection privacy?

saalweachter• 12 years ago

Are you missing the part where his family happily talked to the reporter?

Brother: "My brother is an asshole. What you don't know about him is that he's worked on classified stuff. His life was a complete blank for a while. You're not going to be able to get to him. He'll deny everything. He'll never admit to starting Bitcoin."

Daughter: "He would keep his office locked and we would get into trouble if we touched his computer," she recalls. "He was always expounding on politics and current events. He loved new and old technology. He built his own computers and was very proud of them."

etc etc etc.

Angostura2• 12 years ago

While I empathise withe guy and understand his discomfiture at being discovered, I don't have any particular problems with the ethics of the piece.

dagw6• 12 years ago

They basically published not only his full name and home address, but that of his whole family. What journalistic purpose does that serve?

They could have written exactly the same story, but without giving away exactly where he and his family lives, and it wouldn't have suffered in any way.

Blahah3• 12 years ago

Really? From the photo of his house, people on reddit have already got his address. And the photo shows his car registration.

They also explicitly state he's got keys worth ~$400 million.

Seems like painting a target on him.

leigh_t3• 12 years ago

Well, she's also rather helpful in giving us things like these:

http://leahmcgrathgoodman.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Jer...

Which may or may not be out of date

http://leahmcgrathgoodman.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/vis...

Which has other useful info on it.

revdinosaur2• 12 years ago

This has a tinge of pettiness to it, don't you think?

mr_spothawk• 12 years ago

I really don't think this is appropriate material in the comments of an article about Satoshi Nakamoto. If you want to write an article about the Author's important contribution to the history of Bitcoin which includes her home address, you might have a leg to stand on.

selmnoo• 12 years ago

If you think this article is a dangerous invasion of privacy, tell her and her employers (Newsweek).

How adorable! You think Newsweek is going to give Leah a talking to, because of the piece constituting a 'dangerous invasion of privacy'? That's just really too cute.

We live in the age of the Facebook. We live in a place where dollar rules, and folks like Zuck and Jobs, and other actors of questionable ethics excel. No, Newsweek is not going to punish Leah, Newsweek has actually just recognized an employee who's able to expertly stir the pot, attract attention, and sell a lot more rags. She's getting a nice raise.

atmosx2• 12 years ago

We live in the age of Facebook

And how is this relevant, does this Satoshi has a facebook profile? Did the journalist send a fried request and article's Satoshi accepted? If none of this happened then I see no connections.

We live in a place where dollar rules, and folks like Zuck > and Jobs, and other actors of questionable ethics excel.

Agreed. Mandela and Ghandi excelled too, in areas more important than business... Of course being rogue helps you excel in some areas, but it's not the only or main characteristic.

No, Newsweek is not going to punish Leah, Newsweek has actually just recognized an employee who's able to expertly stir the pot, attract attention, and sell a lot more rags. She's getting a nice raise.

Given the fact that NW is a failed magazine, both financially and morally, I believe they probably give her a raise cut. But I don't think this is going to revamp their sales... Their articles, in all areas, are of very poor quality. If the magazine doesn't upgrade the content quality swiftly, it will face extinction soon enough.

mzs4• 12 years ago

Total agreement, Newsweek is so tenuously even a magazine at this point, but in the recent past I emailed the editors of a very large newspaper that did something similarly irresponsible to someone living in an arguably more dangerous place - and heard back nothing.

wetmore• 12 years ago

Why are you mocking them? At least they're trying to do something about it. You just come off as a cynical asshole.

But oh wait, this is hacker news.

repatDE• 12 years ago

http://www.file-upload.net/download-8686500/satoshi.pdf.html

stupid paywall.

bachback3• 12 years ago

worst reporting I've seen. it implies this person has admitted working on bitcoin. actually that's not even true, if you read the words.

why on earth all this work, just to chose a real name? this does not make any sense. as if SN could not haven chosen a name to deflect his identity.

cpwright• 12 years ago

This quote tells you how sloppy the journalism is: "Even so, Bitcoin is vulnerable to massive theft, fraud and scandal, which has seen the price of Bitcoins whipsaw from more than $1,200 each last year to as little as $130 in late February." The MtGox price in February was meaningless, a more accurate representation would have been $1,200 to somewhere around $500 that reputable exchanges were selling for (I don't know the actual price, just enough to know that his figures are misleading).

edraferi2• 12 years ago

The Mt Gox price divergence actually makes her point stronger. she's highlighting the volatility, and the failure of a major exchange is pretty volatile.

Mtinie• 12 years ago

The ~$130 price was on BTC-e. It was very short-lived, and was caused by a very large dump of coins that were bought up by a bunch of bots, which met all the standing buy orders from ~$680 down to (if I remember right) $102.

The price immediately rebounded to the mid-$400's, once that order was consumed.

furyofantares• 12 years ago

I believe it is intentionally misleading, not sloppy.

nwh3• 12 years ago

Being labeled Satoshi regardless of truth is pretty much going to get you robbed, kidnapped or killed. This dude lives in this town and has $400M of untraceable currency? The article gives his name, face, address and relatives. You can be sure as hell that somebody will do something stupid to try and get to it.

I wouldn't wish this label upon anybody, it's exactly why the community tries to avoid speculating about it. It's extremely irresponsible of the newspaper to publish this — truth or otherwise — especially in such vivid detail.

⁢

Article sans paywall — http://archive.is/wbw97

Gavin seems to acknowledge the article — https://twitter.com/gavinandresen/status/441547758827474946

ig12• 12 years ago

As I pointed out in the now dead earlier thread that while there's obviously privacy issues and Newsweek should have written the article without so many personal details there is clearly a public interest angle here.

If the article is accurate the bitcoin founder has a background working as a software engineer on classified US government projects, which makes it a public interest issue due to pre-existing concerns that a government could have designed bitcoin to have secret vulnerabilities/backdoors.

Semaphor• 12 years ago

Sure, I don't think many people would complain if they had written an article like that. The problem is the article this tabloid decided to publish.

eloff• 12 years ago

The government now wants to backdoor bitcoin? I think you need a reality check.

ewoodrich2• 12 years ago

It is hardly untraceable.

I hear Bitcoin advocates frequently claim that government has an interest in "shutting down Bitcoin", but compared to the all-cash industry of most organized crime, Bitcoin's pseudonymity is law enforcement's dream come true. A state actor would merely have to obtain the identity of one key in a series of transactions on the blockchain, and would gain far more information than any informant could provide. Sure, mixers and other methods could obfuscate this, but it's not like 7/11 tracks serials of hundred dollar bills, so the blockchain by definition is richer source of transaction data.

Full disclosure: I believe strongly in the concept of crypto currencies and Bitcoin, but do not own any coins/alt at the moment.

(Modified repost from dead original thread)

rtpg• 12 years ago

One thing that someone noted is that for a seller of illicit goods, bitcoin is better than paper in that with dollar bills you have to physically pick them up at one point.

With bitcoin, sure you can trace coins, but laundering services (namely things like exchanges) can make you disappear a bit quicker.

Overall, though, bitcoin is the IRS' dream.

nwh3• 12 years ago

Hyperbole. Bitcoin is presented in some media as an "anonymous" "untracable" currency, but it's really neither.

(Repost from dead original thread)

draugadrotten• 12 years ago

Bitcoin's pseudonymity is law enforcement's dream come true. A state actor would merely have to obtain the identity of one key in a series of transactions on the blockchain, and would gain far more information than any informant could provide.

This is true. Bitcoin transactions has already been used as evidence in Sweden. In 2013 bitcoin transactions were evidence in at least 6 drug cases alone.

(Source: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=sv&tl=ru&js=n&prev=...)

sexmonad• 12 years ago

It's true. The blockchain is at best pseudoanonymous. If you are careful about how you get your coins, and use a high latency mixer (which don't exist as far as I know, but can be faked by multiple runs through a low latency mixer) and take your profits out slowly, you can make them quite anonymous. While they are a richer stream of data that a purely cash business, they don't have the same hassles (mostly physical size and security issues) as cash.

trafficlight• 12 years ago

Blockchain anonymity is what Darkcoin is aiming to solve. Beta tests are currently ongoing on what they call Darksend, a method of anonymously transferring money between wallets.

http://darkcoin.io/

brohee3• 12 years ago

The main issue here is that Newsweek is not a newspaper anymore. It was sold for a pitance to a small Internet only publisher named IBT media ans is now a glorified blog.

A recent article on France showed that fact checking wasn't part of the editorial process anymore...

At this pace, the name will be completely worthless within five years...

edit: well, it seems it is back in print just this week, but with very few printed

watty2• 12 years ago

Why are you so certain he will get robbed, kidnapped, or killed? There are many many people with $400M+ and their information is freely available online and in the media as well.

mike_hearn• 12 years ago

Their money is in banks. The existing financial system is much better at protecting peoples money from extortion and kidnapping than Bitcoin is: you can either request money in cash (and get arrested the moment you try and pick it up), or you can request a wire transfer to an account you had to give a passport to open up and where the transactions can be rolled back at any time.

The fear is that it's not actually safe to be rich in Bitcoin at the moment. In theory, this can be resolved through the use of tamper-resistant secure hardware (like the chips used in credit cards): you put your bitcoins under the control of such a device and then it's programmed to only allow small "cash" withdrawals to unauthenticated addresses, and it does risk analysis and requires authenticated addresses for everything else. But no such devices exist yet.

JabavuAdams3• 12 years ago

For the same reason that you don't keep your retirement savings in bearer bonds, and then tell everyone that they're in your apartment.

massysett• 12 years ago

And many of them have protection. For instance ExxonMobil has security for its executives. They need it: one of their execs was kidnapped for ransom and stuffed alive in a box.

arrrg5• 12 years ago

Doxxing? That is such a stupid term. It’s called journalism. Reporting on people with a huge impact on the world is sort of what journalists do. Of course that includes identifying information.

Sure, publishing identifying information of people who did nothing special is unethical but that can hardly be said about Satoshi. If the story is correct then this is some insanely rich dude who got rich by inventing Bitcoin which now got huge. I don’t think he needs you to defend him. (If any of this is incorrect her reporting is quite obviously highly irresponsible and unethical, but I’m assuming it is for now.)

Also, quit being so paranoid.

sillysaurus35• 12 years ago

Regarding your point about paranoia: Here's an example of people in Ecuador executing a father and son for a mere $20,000: http://www.reddit.com/r/MorbidReality/comments/1zktth/quito_...

This is what the Nakamoto family now has to worry about. It wasn't a random killing. There were at least 6 people arrested in connection with the murders. Apparently the robbers had people inside the bank who they were paying to alert them whenever someone withdrew large amounts of cash.

People get killed over money a lot. It's probably not paranoia. I would recommend you watch the video to understand the gruesome nature of what Nakamoto now has to live with.

sounds4• 12 years ago

If you're so comfortable with journalism, I'd like to interview you. But first please provide:

• Full names and home towns of your children and your wife

• Picture of your house – include a clear photo of your car's license plate

• Your home town, so anyone can locate you on Google Maps

• Your work history

• Your net worth

• Your health history

• Any notable personality traits you have, so the whole world can comment on them

Seriously, put up or shut up.

Jare• 12 years ago

No, you quit being so insensitive. I hope you never have to suffer a similar attack on whatever you consider most important in your life.

bertil4• 12 years ago

If I may: first, your tone is a bit off.

More importantly, ‘doxx’ing covers two situations:

* bad individual actors (disrespect in a public space, violence against weaker beings) where the outrage is the motivator; it is often wrong to make those information public, and the investigation should rapidly fold and forward its conclusion to law enforcement; it's not journalism, or gutter-journalism at best, and even low-level rags do it properly;

* people with significant impact, but whose role requires anonymity (or rather: empathic pseudonymous steganography): leakers, etc. Revealing their motivation but not their identity is good journalism. I agree that in Satoshi Nakamoto’s case, revealing details about his life adresses key issues (BitCoin public image; the incredible dedication of so many, humility and gender-role in technical fields) against his will. This article, hopefully will take away the unwanted attention from his back, focus BitCoin as an open-source project with contributors, and a product-vision that was grown/twisted by Andersen’s more clear and open views.

However, there is a word that is morally loaded and useful to describe the irresponsible behaviour of 4chan and ‘Flesh search engines’. It’s distinct from good journalism. This article is the later, not the former -- but it’s very much on the edge. The journalist could easily have avoided mentioning the location, or said that the name was a pseudonym or a mispelling.

ThomPete4• 12 years ago

The press has a lot of knowledge of high interest to the public that they never publish for various reasons.

Sometimes they can't prove a relation, other times they don't feel the public can deal with the information and finally sometimes they are simply asked not to post it.

the primary kind of stories where this is normal is with politicians.

In other words. You argument would have some more weight if it was used everywhere else too.

The press always have a choice and they also did here. It's not in the public interest to figure out who the creator of bitcoin is. It serves no purpose. It ads no value to bitcoin.

brohee3• 12 years ago

It's not journalism when everything hints at the wrong person being doxxed http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1zpmo8/the_face_beh...

He now likely has ground to sue Newsweek, sadly I'm afraid their pockets ain't too deep these days...

wpietri10• 12 years ago

Like you, I'm a little amazed at the notion that we should collectively work assiduously to preserve the anonymity of people who have set out to have a substantial effect on the public sphere.

I think average citizens have a substantial right to privacy. But it sounds crazy to me that we shouldn't be able to ask questions about the people behind major news items, people changing the world we live in.

That's especially true in this case given that the guy used his own freaking name. Presumably somebody with a security clearance working on a cryptocurrency knows the implications of that. Yes, as a nerd I too am uncomfortable when I become the center of attention. But the whole world is not obligated to tip-toe around my personal discomforts.

john_b9• 12 years ago

"Sure, publishing identifying information of people who did nothing special is unethical but that can hardly be said about Satoshi."

This is wrong on so many levels. Here is a guy who created arguably the largest financial innovation of the century and who only wants to be left to live a humble, private life instead of claiming his riches, and you think that a mass of curious strangers have a right to intrude into his life, jeopardizing his safety and that of his family just so you can have the satisfaction of putting a face with a name?

Journalism isn't the same as stalking. This is a man who clearly values his privacy and who had it compromised by his own overly talkative family and by questionable actions on the part of Newsweek (note that they carefully omit how they acquired his email from the model train website). Your response encapsulates everything that is wrong with celebrity voyeurism in America.

dagw6• 12 years ago

Not that I think publishing his name and address was in any way a good idea, but how many US citizens from this list: http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/#tab:overall get "robbed, kidnapped or killed" each year?

ceejayoz3• 12 years ago

Their money can't be irretrievably sent across the world instantly. You'd have to hold them hostage for at least a few days, make them sell all their shares and other holdings, wait for those transactions (which may well have tanked some stocks, leading a dozen reporters to your hostage situation) to clear, wait for the money to get into the bank, wait for the bank to transfer it to another account, and hope that at no point in the process anyone gets suspicious that a billionaire is liquidating everything and sending it to Eastern Europe.

rickyc0912• 12 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_kidnappings#Modern_kidn...

List of the known ones, think about how many are unreported...

prostoalex9• 12 years ago

Their personal security spending runs millions of dollars a year.

For example: http://gizmodo.com/5517656/amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-has-17m-wor...

sillysaurus35• 12 years ago

Also, if Nakamoto wishes to remain private, then it's their right to remain private.

deong2• 12 years ago

That isn't, strictly speaking, true. It's certainly his right to refuse to comment, appear on camera, accept interviews, etc., but it's also Newsweek's right to say what they want about his life and his work. As long as they aren't writing falsehoods and don't cross the line into harassment, they're free to publish.

wpietri10• 12 years ago

Could you explain how you think this right works, and to what extent it protects people aiming to effect the world from scrutiny by that world?

The US does have a right to privacy, but invoking to suggest nobody should have asked about Nakamoto suggests you are talking about something entirely different.

michaelq• 12 years ago

He used his real name. And a distinct name, at that. There are only 8 results on LinkedIn for "Satoshi Nakamoto", and at least one of them is a fake one. If he truly wished to remain anonymous. And despite this, it took journalists 5 years to find him. If he'd made up a name, he could have probably been anonymous for life. But he chose vanity over anonymity. And now he's an outed public figure. He can no longer sue for 'slander' and must instead argue the much more difficult case of 'libel'.

GFischer• 12 years ago

He's not the first person with 400 million or more.

I guess he'll have to adjust to living like a millionaire/celebrity.

The owner of the company I work for has thirty times the money Satoshi allegedly has, and yes, he has a bodyguard at most times.

That said, I wish they'd protected his privacy more. It seems he didn't want to be outed.

TacticalCoder• 12 years ago

OK but what if it's not him and some bad people think it's him? Then he has to adjust living like a millionaire but without the money to do so?

corresation• 12 years ago

This dude lives in this town and has $400M of untraceable currency?

It isn't untraceable, and by consensus the Bitcoin community could de-list all of the origin block mining outputs. Alternately the creator could simply say that he deleted the private keys, which it seems likely that he probably did. They have always hung like a stench over the currency, people wary that one person holds so much of the reserves, with the ability to collapse the market completely at any time.

I don't quite get the outrage about this article. He used his real name on the original paper, and he did something famous. That makes people look for him.

The article sounds like it makes some leaps, however. He worked in shadowy areas, so that is proof that he is the original author? Where is the actual proof beyond innuendo? Someone tacitly saying "it is me" can as likely be someone looking for a little excitement and attention. It's also weird that he refuses to talk, but then his children are gregarious about it.

unclebucknasty• 12 years ago

Not for nothing, but it's a bit ironic that you rail on against the irresponsibility of the paper for publishing this, then throw up a non pay-walled link to help ensure that people can access it.

But, thanks.

nwh3• 12 years ago

Streisand effect.

dkersten• 12 years ago

I read this book a few years ago: http://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Invisible-Protect-Children/dp/1...

In it there is a section where he asks "Why would you want privacy anyway?" and this is exactly one of those reasons. You get labelled in some way, even if its not true, and that label sticks with you forever, potentially ruining your life or putting you in danger...

stevewilhelm• 12 years ago

There is a long tradition of reporting the details of wealthy people. [1]

[1] http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/#tab:overall

gasull2• 12 years ago

I don't think Gavin is acknowledging that this is the real Satoshi (he cannot even know). He's just complaining about the doxing of the Nakamoto family, regardless of if this guy is or not the real Satoshi.

georgemcbay2• 12 years ago

"Being labeled Satoshi regardless of truth is pretty much going to get you robbed, kidnapped or killed."

People say that a lot as it pertains to Satoshi, but I don't see any realistic basis for it except watching too many bad movies. Even if you had $400M in stolen bitcoin, how are you going to unload that quickly enough for the payoff to be worth murder/kidnap or whatever else? The Winklevii seem to have fulltime jobs getting PR on the fact that they hold $40M in bitcoin, what's the tipping point at which they will certainly be killed?

If a "feature" of bitcoin is that if you happen to get wealthy in it you're bound to be killed, well that's a pretty shitty feature of a currency. Luckily, the idea that this will happen is just hogwash.

The whole beauty of bitcoin is that because nobody is sure how to regulate it, you can steal/embezzle huge amounts of it and likely never get in trouble. Why fuck that up with the dirty business of murder and kidnapping, which are very clearly illegal?

cyanbane• 12 years ago

I am not a big fan of the way the article was written, but I can definitely see how some may decry it as being news worthy.

I think the author should be ashamed for posting a picture of this man's house. No need for that and it doesn't add to the story after the description.

junto• 12 years ago

I think I can see the thieves lining up to break in to his house to steal his bitcoins already.

Whether he is the Nakamoto behind Bitcoin or not, I think Newsweek have basically made him a target.

Let's put this another way. I see him as a potential target worth $400 million, and I'm not even inclined to partake in breaking and entering. So, what about the uncrupulous people who don't know much about bitcoin. Oh yeah, let's steal the guys computer. It is worth $400 million dollars.

Newsweek just lined this poor guy up as a target for every crook in LA.

I feel really sorry for the guy.

brunoqc• 12 years ago

It's weird that some police officers would know who Satoshi Nakamoto is.

tonyhb2• 12 years ago

Not really – the Kentucky police chief is paid in bitcoin: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57614544-93/kentucky-police...

People don't have to be working in the tech scene to be interested.

cbr2• 12 years ago

a Kentucky police chief

sounds4• 12 years ago

Ironically, the officers didn't know it was _Satoshi_ _Nakamoto_ until she said so.

They're just helping the guy remove a trespasser, which is well within their line of duty. Oh, and the homeowner who called them is named "Satoshi Nakamoto." What do you want to bet they don't really know/care who that is?

Especially if he is cleared for classified work, he will know exactly who to call to get some law enforcement backup. Seriously, don't try to break into a guy's house who is employed by the U.S. Government and has access to that kind of stuff. (I know she didn't break in, but she's definitely invading.)

edraferi2• 12 years ago

Sadly, government contract work doesn't usually include your own personal drone army. our the authority to mobilize national law enforcement assets. they're just jobs.

drrotmos• 12 years ago

Um... I don't know about the U.S., but I've done some work involving classified information in Sweden, and it's not like you get access to a special hotline or anything. If you are in immediate danger you still call the regular emergency number like everyone else.

Besides, not everyone works with Top Secret information, that's the entire purpose of having different classifications. Even Restricted information is still classified.

whyenot2• 12 years ago

Seriously, don't try to break into a guy's house who is employed by the U.S. Government and has access to that kind of stuff.

I'm sure he has Fox Mulder's number.

nawitus• 12 years ago

Is it weird that police officers read the news?

bachback3• 12 years ago

Can this be real? a guy calls the cops, but admits he was involved?

"Tacitly acknowledging his role in the Bitcoin project, he looks down, staring at the pavement and categorically refuses to answer questions."

"I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it," he says, dismissing all further queries with a swat of his left hand. "It's been turned over to other people. They are in charge of it now. I no longer have any connection."

topynate• 12 years ago

It sounds like he's 'on the spectrum' - very strong commitment to the literal truth goes with the territory. As does desire for privacy, tendency to work alone obsessively on unusual projects, lack of interest in money (or in being rich, rather)...

rthomas6• 12 years ago

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.

pessimizer• 12 years ago

It had better be real, because the entire story hangs around the unprovable observation of that vague admission. Otherwise this is a story about harassing a shut-in and his family.

jxf3• 12 years ago

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-resolution image

* His exact address has more or less already been discovered using only the information in the article

* Full names of family members were used

It's a legitimate story -- understanding Nakomoto's motivations for creating Bitcoin as discovered from his past is a worthwhile topic. (For example, would your feelings about cryptocurrency change if it turned out Nakomoto was a high-level NSA operative?) But, again, it could have been reported in a way that didn't compromise his identity so thoroughly.

Tyrannosaurs2• 12 years ago

I agree with you, but would temper it very slightly by saying that a man with a $400m fortune has some options here.

That doesn't make it right and his wealth doesn't make him free game but it does mean that he's not completely been hung out to dry.

ewoodrich2• 12 years ago

Using any of his Bitcoin would attract far more attention than any dubiously sourced article though, and could risk proving both that he is Satoshi and still has access to an enormous amount of money. (For all we know right now he could have lost/destroyed all of his private keys).

fnordfnordfnord3• 12 years ago

They haven't presented any evidence. The Satoshi they found sounds like a plausible Satoshi but is it really him?

If he is the real Satoshi he may have lost or discarded his private keys.

Some snarky comment about how this is why bloggers aren't journalists because a "real" news organization has ethics or something.

unreal372• 12 years ago

What if he doesn't have a $400m fortune? What if it never existed or he's destroyed the private keys?

There's no proof here he has "money".

greyskull2• 12 years ago

It's a joke, really. It's like she didn't even think about what she was doing... I encourage people to send her an email voicing whatever opinion you have, it's readily available (I don't know if it's against HN rules, so I won't post it myself just yet).

polymatter4• 12 years ago

Well, I can't see how its against HN rules to post it. Her email is lmcgrathgoodman (at) gmail (dot) com. Thats the email she posts on the contact section of her own website (http://leahmcgrathgoodman.com/).

To be clear, I am not encouraging anyone send her abusive emails, or anything that might be illegal. I am simply posting her contact details in the context of people wanting to tell her what they felt about this article. She is an investigative journalist who is no stranger to courting trouble. She managed to get herself thrown out of the UK apparently for asking too many questions.

I very much doubt that will do anything though. If you really felt that this article needed to be pulled/modified, you're probably better off contacting someone from Newsweek. http://mediakit.newsweekdailybeast.com/contact.html

But this seems to be their lead story. And they are getting all this extra publicity and page views because of it. So unless Satoshi or his family brings a court case I don't see why they would.

clouds• 12 years ago

dox the doxing doxer

Seriously, the story is best of psyops.

fnordfnordfnord3• 12 years ago

A determined attacker (the kind that needs worrying about) would find Satoshi even if Newsweek hadn't posted a photo of the house or license plate in their article.

jxf3• 12 years ago

Right, but this lowers the bar to any random yahoo who's capable of a Google search, rather than just "determined attackers". That's part of the issue.

jameshk• 12 years ago

You're right, they really did not think about the consequences did they...

lucb1e3• 12 years ago

I'm sure they thought about the consequences. They just got themselves a huge load of publicity...

danmaz742• 12 years ago

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...

runeks3• 12 years ago

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

dabernathy89• 12 years ago

Can you even call it "outing" when he didn't bother to hide his identity?

jxf3• 12 years ago

There's a huge difference between knowing:

* your name is Alice Smith

and knowing:

* your name is Alice Smith

* your age

* your car's license plate

* the street address of where you live and work

* the names and identities of your close family members

* the fact that you are worth ~$400M

dpcheng2003• 12 years ago

I think the real story is how Satoshi unveiled the elusive Newsweek reporter. I didn't realize those were still around! /sarcasm

continuations• 12 years ago

Does the concept of privacy mean anything to Newsweek?

r4pha3• 12 years ago

As much as I don't like this - at the very least - ridiculously unethical article, I'm pretty sure a lot of papers would be dying to publish this piece.

bruceb7• 12 years ago

How is it unethical? The guy created a currency that is used around the world and is a mystery.

uptown• 12 years ago

I see it as good investigative journalism. You don't think the single person that potentially originated a new form of global currency that's dominating headlines, and receiving the attention of world leaders is newsworthy? I'm a firm believer in privacy - but when something one has put into the world stands to have a massively disruptive force, it's worth exploring who that person is, and what their motivations are.

dagw6• 12 years ago

And they could have done all of that without revealing his identity.

hengheng• 12 years ago

Investigative journalism has its place whenever there is information to be revealed. This story is the skeleton of that. All the investigations were done very smartly, but they didn't reveal anything relevant. I'd say the journalist doxed him out of spite.

rzt2• 12 years ago

Absolutely agree.

Bitcoin is one of the hottest news stories right now. People want to know more about Bitcoin. A big question about Bitcoin is "who created Bitcoin?" Newsweek answered that question.

This is journalism 101.

Many of you disagree with this premise –– and I sympathize and understand why you're upset –– but this is how the system operates.

bri3d• 12 years ago

Right, but the journalist could have found him and written an article about his background and motivation without putting a picture of his license plates, home, face, and location in a prominent article, all of this after harassing him to the point that he felt it necessary to call the police. That's just dumb.

This brings up an interesting question, too - does writing a prominent piece of software qualify you as a "public figure" and allow the paparazzi to chase you everywhere and stalk your acquaintances and family?

john_b9• 12 years ago

How far would you take this? If such a person hid their identity better than Nakamoto and refused all contact (even contact initiated under a false pretense, as in the article), would it be justified to break into their house to learn about them? To follow them to and from work? I'm not trying to be provocative, simply illustrating that the needs of the many (voyeuristic curiosity) do not necessarily outweigh the needs of the few (personal privacy and safety).

dionyziz• 12 years ago

Bullshit.

blakesterz• 12 years ago

"What?" The police officer balks. "This is the guy who created Bitcoin? It looks like he's living a pretty humble life."

That quote smells totally fake to me. There's just no way some random office would know what Bitcoin is, and even if he did, that's not something a police officer would say. I don't know what that says about the rest of the article, but that quote doesn't read very factual to me.

dagw6• 12 years ago

Bitcoin is all over mainstream media. Its ups and downs are covered in the finance section of even the most old school and conservative of newspapers. Hell my father-in-law knows what bitcoin is, and he is about as far behind on the technology curve as you can get.

carrja99• 12 years ago

This. My mother can barely use her computer and yet she knows what bitcoin is too. My parents even brought it up in conversation the last time they visited.

watty2• 12 years ago

Why couldn't a random officer know what Bitcoin is? My father heard of it and knows nothing about technology. It's no longer a secretive online currency, it's everywhere.

xsace• 12 years ago

yeah but it doesn't mean everyone know the name of Satoshi

joncrocks2• 12 years ago

If you read the article, it suggests that the police officer is told that the person is Satoshi Nakamoto and the officer exclaims:

"What?" The police officer balks. "This is the guy who created Bitcoin?"

I can accept that the man on the street would have heard about bitcoin, but to know the name of the person who did the original work on the currency? That just seems a bit unlikely.

joncrocks2• 12 years ago

Yeah, sounds like artistic license to me.

jtbigwoo• 12 years ago

In the mainstream media, Bitcoin = Silk Road = Drugs. It's not too surprising a random cop would know about that.

mbrubeck• 12 years ago

The quote does sound odd, and I wouldn't be surprised if it were an embellishment or paraphrase.

But you know, the New York Times has been running stories on Bitcoin for a couple of years now. It's been all over CNN and other mainstream news sources. The New Yorker printed a feature about Satoshi Nakamoto back in 2011 [1]. Popular TV shows like The Daily Show have talked about Bitcoin [2]. Newspapers are printing political cartoons about it [3]. The Washington Post has three Bitcoin headlines on the front page of its web site this morning! (One about MtGOX, one on Nakamoto, and one on Autumn Radtke.)

Anyone who has read, watched, or listened to news in the past year has a good chance of knowing some stuff about Bitcoin, just like they know that Steve Jobs died and what Google Glass is. The name Satoshi Nakamoto is reasonably memorable and distinctive. And law enforcement officers in particular might have some professional curiosity about the Bitcoin economy.

[1] http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/10/10/111010fa_fact_...

[2] http://www.thewire.com/entertainment/2014/02/daily-show-help...

[3] http://buttcoin.org/bitcoin-hardy-har-har

neurobro• 12 years ago

Supposing there is some truth to the quote, I have to assume she skipped over the part where she told the police officer "He is the guy who created Bitcoin."

natch• 12 years ago

There's just no way some random office would know what Bitcoin is..

"no way"... You lost me and your credibility with that one.

davesque3• 12 years ago

Good call. That's what I thought.

emin-gun-sirer• 12 years ago

No culture deserves to have its creation myths exposed or destroyed. Ironically, Newsweek's behavior makes a strong case for anonymous communication and payment systems.

stefanve• 12 years ago

So Newsweek hires paparazzo's now? The need to disclose everything about the guy and call several family members etc is really wrong. Which I could undo my click...., no need to invade his privacy so much, "fun to know because interesting" is not a good enough reason to write the article...

bruceb7• 12 years ago

Call his family, that is what reporters do to confirm a story. The man created a currency that is used world wide, is talked about every day on HN. Can you imagine if facebook was created and we didn't know who did it?

marvy• 12 years ago

Sure, why not?

Raphael• 12 years ago

The plural of 'paparazzo' is 'paparazzi'.

confluence4• 12 years ago

There's one thing that doesn't add up: why would such a privacy conscious man use his real name on a project he thought might be illegal? If he was so serious about his privacy, he would not have used his real name in public.

sounds4• 12 years ago

My guess is that Satoshi doesn't think Bitcoin is illegal per se.

You don't have to have something to hide to want privacy.

fab13n• 12 years ago

The main issue for him today isn't legality; it's being a prime target for extortion, from entities other than governments.

adventured• 12 years ago

Usually the simplest explanations are the right ones. Who expects to create a new form of exchange, that goes on to become a $10 billion network (and maybe one day far larger)?

It's entirely plausible that Satoshi thought using that name, on his little project, would be enough. There is sometimes a lab mentality among people whose work has mostly been hidden away, they would never expect it to touch every corner of the world economy. It was just an experiment early on, and by the time it was obvious it would be more than that, his name was already attached.

bachback3• 12 years ago

no, not at all. read the very first posts he made, where he predicted world wide use. he was absolutely aware of the possibility.

pdkl95• 12 years ago

That's easy - bitcoin isn't and never was about "privacy". It was about defeating that supposedly-horrible "fiat money" and the associated inflation. It's always been more about escaping government-backed money. From the very beginning, when selling the idea of bitcoin, the true believers praised the lack of regulation and how your money wouldn't lose its value over time. Privacy was secondary, if mentioned at all.

I suspect the Silk Road connection is what popularized the idea of a public ledger somehow providing privacy.

nly• 12 years ago

Being a private person doesn't necessarily mean that you go to great lengths to conceal yourself. It just means you don't offer more for free, like posting your personal life all over Facebook for example.

smsm4210• 12 years ago

Why would Bitcoin be illegal?

maxk42• 12 years ago

You just killed a man you dumb shit.

bruceb7• 12 years ago

How did they kill him? He will be fine.

gexla3• 12 years ago

Now that the article outed him, maybe he will spend some of his Bitcoin on a fortress, security and drones (coded himself of course) to patrol his house.

jbondeson2• 12 years ago

I'm torn about the article. On one hand this seems like a horrid breach of privacy and a terribly dangerous thing to do. On the other, even if they just said he lives in his family home in California, people were going to find out all this information.

Half of me thinks it's better everyone knows they were doxed all at once.

GuiA• 12 years ago

On the other, even if they just said he lives in his family home in California, people were going to find out all this information.

How is the argument "X was going to happen anyway so it's fine if it happens now" ever right?

jbondeson2• 12 years ago

If the objection is privacy it's not right.

However if it's safety, it's better to know up front than to think you're anonymous.

r4pha3• 12 years ago

I thought that bitcoin as a whole would be badly shaken at the second Satoshi touched his coins. What if, now that he allegedly has a face, he could have allegedly legitimate needs to spend his coins on?

* takes off tinfoil hat

lucb1e3• 12 years ago

"He was the kind of person who, if you made an honest mistake, he might call you an idiot and never speak to you again," Andresen says. "Back then, it was not clear that creating Bitcoin might be a legal thing to do. He went to great lengths to protect his anonymity."

Except that he used his full, real name. That is what seems so odd to me.

If it really is him though, I'm very much afraid this article just destroyed his life...

4dl0v3-p34c3• 12 years ago

Isn't this entire article illegal?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personally_identifiable_informa...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_privacy_law#Califor...

Whatever. Satoshi-san can sue if he likes. The damage done in the article alone is devastating for even persecution charges.

stan_rogers• 12 years ago

No. Those laws only make it illegal to release information, or insufficiently protect it, in a legal relationship of trust and guardianship (and to gather such information by pretending to be party to such a relationship). No such relationship exists here, and unless a SSN (or equivalent protected identifier) was released, it's merely ethically questionable, not illegal.

ufmace• 12 years ago

Even if it was, lawsuits are entirely public, and filing and litigating one would result in exponentially more publicity than this article has already given him.

argumentum9• 12 years ago

Quite an odd article for such an important (if true) expose. The only reason I think its possibly true is Gavin's vague tweet.

50% of the article deals with material about bitcoin that is redundant to anyone whose been following it for more than a day (like most here).

45% deals with "Dorian S. Nakamoto"'s family, personal background and that he's a libertarian oddball, with a penchant for math (but no other significant accomplishment within it or CS) who (other than possible being the Satoshi) has led a fairly normal, middle class southern california lifestyle.

The remaining 5% or so details a brief encounter with the man, in which he neither confirms or denies it.

I'm skeptical.

flaxin• 12 years ago

same here

dTal2• 12 years ago

To be honest I agree with you that there quite a few red flags about this article. However, short of Newsweek outright making everything up, isn't the lack of a denial in this instance tantamount to an admission? I mean, if it were me, and I valued my privacy that much, I would a) have used an actual pseudonym, b) responded to questions about Bitcoin with "bit-what-now"?

michaelt• 12 years ago

  isn't the lack of a denial in this instance tantamount to 
  an admission? I mean, if it were me, [...] responded to 
  questions about Bitcoin with "bit-what-now"?

If all his friends and family know he shares his name with the creator of bitcoin, he might have already heard all the jokes and think "not this shit again" as well as not being able to credibly deny knowing about it.

There's a british general who goes by Mike Jackson when his real name is Michael Jackson [1]. If someone asked him to moonwalk I'd expect the resigned frustration of someone who has heard that lame joke a thousand times before - rather than him denying having heard of the pop singer of the same name.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Jackson

bertil4• 12 years ago

And you should. But nothing about BitCoin ever seems confirmed in anyway so… I'd take that the main benefit is dTal's reaction, remembering all the conspiracies: “I feel a bit silly.” That’s the good stuff.

unreal372• 12 years ago

Gavin doesn't know who Satoshi is. He just regrets speaking to that reporter. His tweet doesn't lend any credibility to the story.

argumentum9• 12 years ago

I agree, the reporter made it seem as if Gavin "knew".

seanalltogether• 12 years ago

Seems like a confirmation?

masmullin5• 12 years ago

or false confirmation. He might not have invented bitcoin but know all about it (because of his name). He would know that acting all shadowy and evasive would make him seem more like the real Satoshi.

tl;dr - Give me proof, not vague "seems like he confirmed it."

mikeg8• 12 years ago

If you want to email the Newsweek editor and let them know your disapproval, the address is letters@newsweek.com.

bruceb7• 12 years ago

They don't care. This is the story of the day and week.

hnha• 12 years ago

There would be an easy way to protect his well-being: Crash Bitcoin so that it is worthless.

sandis• 12 years ago

Except then someone who has invested a fortune in Bitcoin might go nuts and take it out on him

jmnicolas• 12 years ago

From the article :

"He is the only person I have ever known to show up for a job interview and tell the interviewer he's an idiot - and then prove it."

Priceless.

bane23• 12 years ago

Topic other than discussing the irresponsibility of "outing" a guy using the clever tricks of using his name and public records look ups.

A libertarian, Nakamoto encouraged his daughter to be independent, start her own business and "not be under the government's thumb," she says. "He was very wary of the government, taxes and people in charge."
What you don't know about him is that he's worked on classified stuff. His life was a complete blank for a while. You're not going to be able to get to him.

Growing up and living in the D.C. area, I'm constantly surprised at the paradox of the deeply conservative anti-federal government types who work for the government - directly or as a fed contractor. Who'll rattle off about privacy issues before hopping on the bus to their job working on an NSA contract at a Fed contractor...that sort of thing.

I've even pointed out point-blank that their salaries are paid for by the same taxes they rail against incessantly and are met with blank stares or wry grimaces before they launch into an extended soliloquy about "values" or personal responsibility or some such. I've even had folks in the military swear up and down that some military benefit program isn't a result of tax payer dollars but mysteriously appears out of some kind of pay differential sacrifice they've made instead of working in the private sector.

It's rather bizarre and I guess to Nakamoto's credit, he actually did something about it in a sense.

edit meta-response to the replies indicating that perhaps his close contact with the government is what motivated him to develop bitcoin, I think that's plausible. What we don't know is if he developed this philosophy before or after working with the government.

I'm curious though, in the general sense about people who have a fundamentally anti-government philosophy, then take roles supporting and building up the same government they clog their facebook feeds rallying against.

hngiszmo• 12 years ago

I guess if you work for the NSA you become paranoid knowing the actual power they have. All theory is grey.

mseebach2• 12 years ago

First, "deeply conservative" and "libertarian" aren't freely interchangeable.

Second, it's a quite small branch of libertarianism that doesn't recognise any role for the state (and thus, taxation) at all - and the one they do recognise is mostly concerned with security.

bane23• 12 years ago

Something I've learned over the years is that there are a tremendous number of highly different personal philosophies that call themselves "conservative" or "libertarian" that share only the loosest similarities, but the people who self-identify these ways also seem to comfortably self-group and display similar behavior and thought patterns. This is regardless of the textbook definitions of what these philosophies should, in the normative sense, be.

For example, if you ask somebody of any of these various personal philosophies, regardless of what the textbook definition is, to self identify, they'll say "conservative" or "libertarian" and often they'll self-identify as both...and their Facebook feeds will be clogged with endless anti-Obama anti-Government pro-gun patriotic religious posts sprinkled with quotes from the Constitution and reposts from Libertarian Girl, Fox, the NRA their favorite ultra-conservative or libertarian congressperson and then their occupation will be listed as "Department of..." or "<insert Fed Contractor>".

So folks definitely self-group and self-select and self-identify with these labels even if by some strict definition it doesn't make any sense.

And I guess that's what my point is, I run into people like this who've fundamentally constructed an anti-government world view that simply doesn't make any sense internally or externally...and here, in this area, it's shockingly common among civil servants and federal contractors and I find this pattern curious.

droopybuns3• 12 years ago

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 define you as a conservative, liberal or whatever. Along the way, any sense of true, genuine compassion goes out the window until they interact with you more and find where their modeling isn't correct. Then they redefine their cubbyhole for you, unless you entertain or arouse them. Then you're Truly Unique.

So for what it's worth, I appreciate that you're trying to defend a more independent view point, but I argue that doing so on a message board (and in this thread in particular) is utterly futile.

mikeash3• 12 years ago

My favorite are the guys who rail against socialized medicine while simultaneously praising the care they get from the VA.

I think a lot of these people just subconsciously see "the government" as simply not including the security apparatus.

buttsex2• 12 years ago

Reminds me of the tea party protesters that had signs like: "Keep your government hands off my medicare!" at Obamacare rallies.

twoodfin• 12 years ago

So because the government feeds its soldiers it would be hypocritical or illogical to rail against nationalizing farms and supermarkets?

confluence4• 12 years ago

A term exists for such self serving and convenient thinking: cognitive dissonance.

The religious are no different, they rail against how wrong science is, and yet at the same time have no problem using the fruits of scientific labor like air travel, the Internet or clean water.

People just do what's most convenient for them at the time.

peterwwillis3• 12 years ago

Cognitive dissonance actually refers to the excessive mental stress and discomfort suffered by holding two opposing ideas in one's mind at the same time. Since these people don't seem to be particularly discomforted by this, the term 'hypocrisy' might apply better.

rolandukor• 12 years ago

The religious are no different, they rail against how wrong science is, and yet at the same time have no problem using the fruits of scientific labor like air travel, the Internet or clean water.

Tone it down or be more specific. You are making a very sweeping generalization. And do not worry, I am not going to get into an extended conversation on this.

cgore3• 12 years ago

The "science-hating religious person" is just a straw man for Dawkins and the like. Most religious people have no problem with science, and see no contradiction between the two. Many of them even are engineers, scientists, and doctors, often some of the most renowned of their fields.

The groups who actually do see a contradiction typically aren't hypocritical at all about it, to the point of not getting blood transfusions even if it means their death, to use the example of the Jehovah's Witnesses.

omegaham• 12 years ago

Oh god yes.

I'm currently a relatively junior flunky in the Marine Corps, and the GS civilians who work here are hilarious. "We need to cut the fat!" We work at a minor airbase in the middle of nowhere... oh. Oops. Whatever we are, it sure as hell ain't muscle.

"Government spending is out of control" while talking about how they exploit the DTS system to get as much per diem as possible.

"Those lazy people who expect everything to be handed to them, and that Muslim in charge is just giving it all away" while sitting in their chair bitching whenever a Marine disrupts their Freecell session to ask about equipment repair.

I don't even talk to them about it, mostly because the fact that they are capable of this caliber of doublethink indicates that they're beyond saving.

Jtsummers5• 12 years ago

From a young AF lieutenant here: Taxes are theft!

My response: But you're paid with those taxes.

His response: Oh, right. <subject change>

I live in a military town, 20k people work directly for the base (there are only 120k people in the county, 250k in the counties most of the employees live in). They rail against the fat, then when furloughs happened last year railed against that. No shit, you want the government to spend less, you've got to take a pay cut or a program has to get cut. You're consistently late on delivering equipment and completing jobs, you're the ones that'll get cut. And the safety record, the morons think it's government interference (damn OSHA!) to insist on PPE [edit: personal protective equipment], and don't wear it so their kids end up with heavy metal poisoning when they carry the crap home on their clothes.

MadManE• 12 years ago

Taking advantage of the existing situation for maximum personal gain doesn't indicate doublethink. It only indicates that they care more about themselves than they care about "the greater good" - which, in my opinion is how it should be.

Somebody's going to be getting paid for doing nothing - it might as well be me.

bane23• 12 years ago

One of the things I find curious is the dichotomy between rhetoric and intent.

"We need to shrink the government!"

Sequestration happens

"Well not those specific things I like!"

Doesn't that imply then that those bits that shouldn't have been shrunk are therefore not part of what they think is "the government"?

Considering that the list of things that usually people who want to shrink the government think should be exempted usually includes the military, I find that particularly troublesome.

sanderjd• 12 years ago

My anecdotes differ from yours. Most of the people I have met that are living that dichotomy are very aware of it, and just think "well this is the system we live in, so I have to play along until it changes". Many of them are really bummed about it. Sometimes being the change you want to see in the world is impractical, but that doesn't necessarily mean you have to change your mind about it.

hudibras• 12 years ago

[search saver :]

DTS = Defense Travel System. The online system through which official DoD government travel is arranged.

timdiggerm• 12 years ago

Intentionally not taking a job with the Federal Government would not cause the Gov to shrink. There's no inconsistency, just an acknowledgement that, ideally, you would need to find a new job.

gexla3• 12 years ago

Maybe he developed those views after working for the government. Maybe he saw something while working for the government (that we don't see) which helped shape those views. Maybe for him, given the chance to do things he found to be interesting and challenging was greater than his views of the government.

This story obviously leaves a lot out from a guy who has had a long secretive life. Also, he isn't on a soapbox. He didn't share these opinions and I imagine, not thrilled that any information about his has got out.

Iftheshoefits2• 12 years ago

Those things are all possible--but unlikely, in my experience. I've worked for the government and for government contractors. I did not ever come across even one single self-proclaimed conservative or libertarian individual who fell into any of the "maybe" hypotheses you describe. To a person there is one word to describe them: hypocrite. They did exactly what the parent wrote: railed against government while earning a decent (in some cases extremely nice) living that is 100% the result of government activity.

crucialfelix• 12 years ago

We should also consider that its improbable if not impossible that he has not since been visited by contacts from the Government. They knew exactly where he was. So any change of mind he has had since the explosion of Bitcoin should take that into account.

spindritf• 12 years ago

the paradox of the deeply conservative anti-federal government types who work for the government - directly or as a fed contractor

Those are the people who have a realistic, first hand understanding of the government innerworkings.

Also, a contradiction between believing that allocation of capital would be more efficient under a less centrally-influenced system, and being willing to accept higher pay and benefits from one of the central institutions only exists if you believe that individuals should strive for public good even at great personal expense. Which strikes me more as a moral view taken by nationalists than libertarians.

wpietri10• 12 years ago

I think what your proposed cognitive model of anti-government government workers is missing is something Upton Sinclair pointed at:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

I've worked for financial trading companies and for advertisers before, but I can't do that work anymore because I think those industries mainly make the world worse. Not won't do it, but can't. The daily conflict between my principles and my actions would be too painful.

Cognitive dissonance is really uncomfortable. I don't think most people can live with the cognitive dissonance of being an anti-government government worker. Not without falling into what user omegaham correctly identifies as doublethink.

And I think that would be especially true of the libertarians I have known. If I were to generalize about them, I'd say that on average they're unusually thoughtful and unusually principled. Most people don't even try for a coherent political philosophy. I just don't know a lot of people who will think that deeply and then be totally ok not living by those principles.

bradleyjg• 12 years ago

Nationalist and libertarian are not orthogonal in practice. Try talking to any self professed libertarian about free movement of labor.

On the theoretical side it goes back to the whole Trotskyism/Stalinism debate.

cgore3• 12 years ago

I think a lot of people seem to be confusing Libertarianism with Anarchism. Libertarians typically do see roles for SOME government, and those roles are typically the military, judges, roads, police, and the like.

Not other things though, so no Social Security, no Obamacare, no National Endowment for the Arts, and no space program (other than for space weapons, so get rid of NASA and establish some sort of "US Star Force.")

So with that world view, working at a defense contractor isn't a conflict at all, instead, it is the one "true and legitimate" reason for government in their eyes.

gnarbarian8• 12 years ago

As a federal/state contractor myself. That's what happened to me. My job has driven me to a libertarian viewpoint over a period of years after seeing inefficiency and wastefulness of the organizations I deal with. This is across many state and federal departments.

And I do make an effort to push them toward more cost effective technologies and processes but the sad truth is they don't want to hear it because they prefer to waste money on oracle licenses and aligning text on reports nobody will ever read, than have their budget reduced.

There really ought to be incentives/bonuses built in for employees in govt who can successfully cut their budget and perform the same job at the same level of quality. We would instantly see a drastic reduction in the cost of our government.

tootie• 12 years ago

There was another guy like that in the news recently. Ned Snowman or something.

candybar2• 12 years ago

This isn't everything, but racism is a significant part of what's motivating the economic right:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics

Obviously, a lot of people are caught up in the bubble without being racist or even being aware of the implicit racism of those around them, but much of the motivation behind the right's demonizing rhetoric against the freeloaders seems rooted in race.

Edit: also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_queen

frogpelt4• 12 years ago

That's what you've heard?

Couldn't the argument be made that the other side is rooted in racism too since it appears their goal is to keep a large percentage of African Americans completely dependent on the government fixed-income for their whole lives?

That's what I've heard, anyway.

rayiner3• 12 years ago

Rhetoric aside, I've met almost no libertarians of the anarchist persuasive in D.C., the kind who reject the existence of government. There are a lot of small government conservatives, though, but I think they object more to the 60% of the budget that is comprised of transfer payments and aid to states than the 5-10% of the budget is comprised of federal payroll. More generally, compartmentalization isn't hypocrisy. Everyone has the programs that they like and the ones they don't. People deeply opposed to defense spending or the drug war still justify working for e.g. the EPA.

bane23• 12 years ago

I've met almost no libertarians of the anarchist persuasive in D.C.

Anecdotal I know, but quite a few of my friends are former military of some type and their facebook feeds are jam pack full of libertarian group reposts.

Everyone has the programs that they like and the ones they don't.

It's too bad that the rhetoric is "shrink government" not "I don't like this specific program". Because the former statement creates hypocrisy when a program they like is shrunk, but of course picking and choosing individual programs to shrink/cut requires actually knowing what's going on above and beyond catchy political slogans and reposting a repost from a Fox news article who's headline ended in a question mark.

drcode• 12 years ago

Just because someone plays by the rules of the system doesn't mean he/she doesn't have the right to criticize it.

mindslight• 12 years ago

"Play" implies actively taking part and therefore positively consenting to the system, as opposed to just doing the bare minimum to avoid and not run afoul of it. So yes, they have become a direct supporter and thus have lost the right to criticize it.

ctdonath5• 12 years ago

Non-fing-sequitur straw-man.

We can point at ANY part of the sociopolitical spectrum and find hypocrites. I could spew the same sort of such outrageous examples about liberals/leftists/progressives/socialists but won't because it has nothing to do with the topic.

Suffice to say Nakamoto did have a change of mind and did do something world-changing about it. And, golly, he is a libertarian who made a herculean effort to live up to his own ideals.

And as to your "curiosity": catchphrase-labeling usually grossly overstates the POV/philosophy. People labeled "anti-government" are rarely true anarchists; they understand government has its proper place but are (as the label is currently applied) dismayed at how this government is exceeding its granted powers and abusing that which is proper. Ex: Making weapons for government use is a legitimate industry; that those weapons are used to violently invade the home of the terminally ill solely for the purpose of seizing a few plants is worth railing against on Facebook.

bane23• 12 years ago

Suffice to say Nakamoto did have a change of mind

We actually don't know that. On the surface sure look like it, but he could have had a similar personal philosophy before during and after his time working for the government.

We can point at ANY part of the sociopolitical spectrum and find hypocrites.

Absolutely agree. I could add also the large number of pacifist liberal vegan types I know who work for the DoD or whatever.

Non-fing-sequitur straw-man

It's obviously not, if by your own theory his philosophy is what drove him to develop bitcoin, then it is sequitur to examine that philosophy and how it's expressed.

I could spew the same sort of such outrageous examples about liberals/leftists/progressives/socialists

What example did I provide that was outrageous? You either don't work in or near the Fed-space and haven't come across this kind of person daily or you're living in a state of denial.

mpyne17• 12 years ago

Suffice to say Nakamoto did have a change of mind and did do something world-changing about it.

It's not clear he actually changed his mind though, at least not since young adulthood. His daughter grew up being told to imagine a government agencies, with the correct reaction being to hide in a closet from there. Nakamoto's views certainly appear to be long-held and consistent.

The "change" that occurred was related more toward having to experience inter-bank transfer fees while buying model trains from the U.K. After all as late as 2001 he was working for the FAA.

logfromblammo• 12 years ago

Familiarity breeds contempt.

If you have never worked in the government sector or in the military-industrial complex, you may suspect that it is a giant dungpile of inefficiency, good-ol'-boy networks, and outright fraud.

If you have worked in it, you know.

johngalt2• 12 years ago

If anti-government and inexperienced then: 'These libertarians are just backwards and don't understand government'

If anti-government and experienced then: 'Hypocrites!'

else: more government

It's a stronger position to oppose something you are experienced with and benefit from. Imagine a nuclear engineer who's advocating that the new plant she's working on is being built dangerously by the people in charge. Would you refuse to listen to her because she works there?

jdjb• 12 years ago

I wouldn't refuse to listen her but I'd question her morality if she continues to knowingly put the lives of people in danger just for her pay cheque.

cairnsh3• 12 years ago

A libertarian government worker would be more like a nuclear engineer who thinks nuclear energy plants are intrinsically dangerous. So dangerous that they should be avoided if at all possible.

nether• 12 years ago

John Galt hid in plain sight too...

winstonsmith2• 12 years ago

These quotes are not just Orwellian, but straight out of Animal Farm:

He doesn't like the system we have today and wanted a different one that would be more equal. He did not like the notion of banks and bankers getting wealthy just because they hold the keys," says Andresen.

"Four legs good, two legs bad."

Holding the keys has also made early comers to Bitcoin wealthy beyond measure. "I made a small investment in Bitcoin and it is actually enough that I could now retire if I wanted to," Andresen says. "Overall, I've made about $800 per penny I've invested. It's insane."

"Four legs good, two legs better!"

Apparently, early adopters are "more equal than others" -- the Gini coefficient of bitcoin is near .9.

Torgo3• 12 years ago

The analogy to holding bankers' keys in bitcoin is holding 51% of mining power, and not a percentage less. Just having a lot of bitcoin gives you the ability to affect the price of the currency, but again this is directly proportional to how much you hold, not because of an artificial power like legal authority to take advantage of fractional reserve, or being a member of the Fed.

waterlesscloud• 12 years ago

He didn't get rich by just holding the keys, he got rich by getting involved in new tech early. In fact, he helped build something he believes will change the world.

Entirely different scenarios.

leoc• 12 years ago

Alternatively, if you're partial to pg's theory that Bitcoin was produced by a government, you might find enough support in the article to keep that idea alive, seeing Nakamoto as an agent of influence for people still inside the US government. Some things that seem to suggest otherwise could be explained away (so he wrote the implementation all himself? All the better to hide external influences on the high-level design. He disappears at the mention of a CIA connection? Just what you'd expect of someone trying to obscure his connection with the US "intelligence community"). That said, I don't really feel it's likely. (Partly because my hunch is that if US agencies really did want to run such an agent of influence they'd be more likely to choose someone who was a bit more subtly "mobbed up" (spooked up?) than Nakamoto.) I haven't studied the Bitcoin timeline or this latest article really closely, though.

goatforce5• 12 years ago

Story time: I knew a guy who was in to network security and was smart and experienced enough that the only employers who could fully take advantage of his talents were government departments or banks. He worked in different roles for both for a while, but it ate him up the whole time.

The cognitive dissonance became too much, he took some time off and last I heard he was working for a small start-up, probably taking a huge pay cut in the process.

I guess the other path is to develop an internal logic that somehow justifies you working for what you despise so that you can get through the day. "I'm surrounded by idiots, sheeple and corporate whores! I'm not one of them! I'm smarter than that!"

gonehome• 12 years ago

I think it's more nuanced than that, maybe not always - but usually.

A person can dislike some things an organization does while finding value in others, government systems are complex. You can ignore the government and work outside of it or you can work within it to try and push things in a certain direction.

3pt141593• 12 years ago

Well bane let me, a libertarian, explain to you why I worked for the government while I was a libertarian.

Sometimes the solutions that are government mandated or subsidized would appear in a different form if the government didn't run them. So, for example, mass transit, like subways would still exist if the government didn't use coercion to fund and run it, it would just be owned by private individuals. Just because the government decides that they should be the ones that run the subways and I disagree with that, doesn't mean that I should be exempt from working for the TTC's construction engineering department.

These are two different things. When you live in a system that coerces you into giving up half of your income it doesn't mean that you are in the wrong for working for it or even taking things like subsidies.

bane23• 12 years ago

When you live in a system that coerces you into giving up half of your income it doesn't mean that you are in the wrong for working for it or even taking things like subsidies.

I'm positing that it does.

In fact, there's only one case where I can find working for the government while thinking it shouldn't exist is workable, and that's working for the government in a capacity where you can dismantle the government. Which is often what happens right?

Privatization of previously government run programs is one of the example methods for doing that. I'm not interested in discussing the politics of this method, or if it is good or bad. I'm interested in cases where somebody specifically holds a viewpoint, then does everything in their power to work against that very viewpoint.

You were perfectly capable of finding a job that wasn't with the government, yet you specifically chose to apply, interview, get hired and maintain employment with an entity that you didn't agree with. I bet you signed paperwork and everything and happily collected your taxpayer provided paycheck.

It's actually the very definition of hypocrisy to the letter. In fact you put effort into ensuring that you behaved as a hypocrite.

It sucks, and sometimes people do hypocritical things. I'm not condemning you for it. But I do think it's more useful to call a thing what it is and proceed from there.

If you say "I'm a hyprocrite, it sucks and I know it but...meh." I'm actually fine with that.

But saying you aren't when you explicitly, textbook definition, are, is silliness and no amount of explanation or word bending can change that.

It's this exact behavior, this lack of meta-cognition and self-awareness that I find explicitly curious. You haven't explained why you engaged in hypocritical activities at all. You simply said that you did it and that what you did isn't hypocritical and you should be free and clear from behavior inconsistent with your beliefs because...?

anigbrowl21• 12 years ago

So, for example, mass transit, like subways would still exist if the government didn't use coercion to fund and run it, it would just be owned by private individuals.

Given the dearth of private subway companies, I question this claim. There are lots of places where a subway would be highly desirable but doesn't exist, why hasn't some entrepreneurial soul built one already?

theorique3• 12 years ago

My government job is cool, because I do work and stuff.

Other people, of course, suck at the government teat, and drive welfare Cadillacs to the welfare office to pick up their food stamps and welfare check to pay for their 15 kids by different fathers.

In other words, if you do it, it's wrong and you need to change. If I do it, it's because you just don't understand.

(Edit: Do we need an irony tag? This is a humorous comment meant to illustrate one kind of mindset that exists with some of the people who hold 'eliminate all the government' kind of views.)

astrodust• 12 years ago

If only it was actually humorous...

mattgibson2• 12 years ago

This is called the fundamental attribution error: If I do it, I know the circumstances so it's understandable, whereas if you do it, the circumstances are unclear so I blame your (assumed to be unpleasant) personality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error

canistr• 12 years ago

Honestly, I think it's just as hypocritical to be working for Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, or anyone who works at a company that analyzes email or any amount of user data and still be up in arms about privacy issues.

lmg643• 12 years ago

Why disregard the topic of the way Newsweek handled this? Here's a private citizen. He has $400mm in an anonymous currency. Here's the city he lives in. Here's what his house looks like. I recognize they are just trying to prove that he isn't living some ostentatious lifestyle but for someone who appears to have no personal security, they could just say "he lives in a modest home" and that is really enough.

Focusing on the article itself - I'm glad it was not a pseudonym. Takes a lot of the mystery and shadiness away from the origins of the coin. Just an individual who believed in what he put together and didn't want a lot of attention or celebrity. I think that's a positive. I'd buy him a beer for sure.

As far as anti-government libertarians being hypocrites - who isn't? Silicon valley heavily favors the democratic party, a party that generally favor higher tax policy, and also has the largest tax avoiding corporations in the world. At a certain point, it's hard to rationally engage with what people claim to believe. Just watch what they do, focus on the outputs.

bane23• 12 years ago

Why disregard the topic of the way Newsweek handled this?

Not disregarding it. I just think the topic is already beaten to death elsewhere in this discussion. I wanted to talk about something else.

joyeuse6701• 12 years ago

Hypocrites are everywhere even in the private sector, nothing particularly strange that they exist in the public one.

I've even pointed out point-blank that their salaries are paid for by the same taxes they rail against incessantly and are met with blank stares or wry grimaces before they launch into an extended soliloquy about "values" or personal responsibility or some such.

There's this kind of sick expectation of consistency. I think it's fine if someone directly benefits from taxes and calls for their decrease. You make a villain out of them, but when someone like Warren Buffet says 'the rich can contribute more' you applaud him even when he directly benefits from less contribution. Anytime anyone espouses some belief and doesn't reflect adequate action to demonstrate that belief you could fault them for it. If you're going to fault the deeply conservative anti-federal government types for being inconsistent, you may as well fault everyone who doesn't meet your standard, less you yourself become the inconsistent one.

bane23• 12 years ago

Or they could just adopt rhetoric consistent with their behavior. There's some kind of strange and pervasive social fear of just being honest about ourselves that I find very troubling.

There's this kind of sick expectation of consistency.

Is it sick to live in a constant state of dishonesty and conflict between your words, thoughts and actions or is it sick to try to live a life free of hypocrisy?

I don't think anybody would disagree that it's perfectly fine for people to have normative desires that aren't reflected in current reality. People who desire less or more taxes still pay the taxes at the current rate.

But it's an entirely different animal to rail against something that you are 100% participatory and complicit in.

crazy1van7• 12 years ago

You make a villain out of them, but when someone like Warren Buffet says 'the rich can contribute more' you applaud him ...

Good point on Buffet. Claiming the rich should pay more taxes but having an army of accountants and lawyers on staff to minimize your tax burden seems very hypocritical.

Symmetry• 12 years ago

Speaking for myself, I used to be sort of libertarian when I was young. Getting a job that paid well and living on it convinced me that paying taxes really wasn't that bad and made me more liberal. Then I worked for the government for a while and found that a lot of what people complain about with regards to how the government spends money weren't just true. Nowadays I'm ok with taxes, but I'd rather the government get things done by just mailing checks to people, which is simple and hard to mess up.

dba7dba• 12 years ago

I knew a guy who used to work for a city govt and he was pretty open about his anti-tax. He complained how he saw so much waste in the govt.

And guess what? He was also working hard to switch his job into a department that had more pay/benefit to increase his pay.

prostoalex9• 12 years ago

If the system is inefficient and wasteful, it should be exploited to the maximum level, otherwise it will stay inefficient and wasteful forever.

crazy1van7• 12 years ago

Growing up and living in the D.C. area, I'm constantly surprised at the paradox of the deeply conservative anti-federal government types who work for the government - directly or as a fed contractor.

Couldn't this also be seen as principled? Arguing for a concept such as smaller government even when it hurts your own career seems courageous in a sense.

alasdair_2• 12 years ago

I'm curious though, in the general sense about people who have a fundamentally anti-government philosophy, then take roles supporting and building up the same government they clog their facebook feeds rallying against.

Snowden did the same thing. Sometimes people feel that you need to understand the beast before fighting against it.

anigbrowl21• 12 years ago

It's the same in local government. I know a firebrand Tea party fellow who not only works for the city of San Francisco as a legal administrator, he's a member of the AFSCME (white-collar public sector union) and brags about clocking out on the dot of 5pm. I think the attitude is that other people are getting this great deal, so why shouldn't he?

Mind you, I'm not exactly consistent either. I'm quite liberal but I far prefer working in the private sector or even freelance and have never joined a union. Perhaps our political views are an expression of frustration with the negative aspects of our life choices.

prostoalex9• 12 years ago

their salaries are paid for by the same taxes they rail against incessantly

1) It's possible to be employed by an institution and maintain an independent opinion about its value. Many employees in the private industry are critical of their employers, smart companies encourage that. You can also be part of a herd, which is a reasonable option as well.

2) It might not be as much of an opposition to taxes per se, as per specifics of such taxation. Watching personal income tax rise as highly-connected corporations carve out new loopholes to keep their rates at a minimum is probably discouraging. If United States personal income tax rate dropped to 0% across all brackets, we'd return to Clinton-era budget spending, and a lot of government institutions were funded back then.

olalonde2• 12 years ago

Ron Swanson.

badman_ting• 12 years ago

Yes, most of my in-laws are people whose entire life was funded by work done for the Federal government. And they all think the government sucks. They'll bitch about welfare and then they'll bitch about, like, a pool being shut down that they used to be able to use because they're related to a service member. It's dumb.

ropman762• 12 years ago

I tend to lean libertarian and did some GIS and tax programming for some county governments. I never saw issues with it. There are some government functions that really only government can do. In this case figuring out exactly who owns what piece of property where. 90% of the people I worked with in government were stand up people and fairly good at their jobs. It was the remaining 10% that is why government accountability becomes extremely important. One government IT director went to jail for fraud. Another IT director cost his city thousands of dollars because he refused to upgrade an old AS400 platform and the county had to employ us to wrangle the data so they could read it.

The more I work with government and see more examples of waste and out right fraud the more I think it should only have limited powers (and the whole issue with the NSA seems to support that point). Just because I want a very limited government doesn't mean I can't support the government in things it should be doing well.

baddox10• 12 years ago

I've even pointed out point-blank that their salaries are paid for by the same taxes they rail against incessantly

In fact, this very idea is a matter of intense discussion about libertarian types. What exactly can/should you do that makes you benefit from the government? It may seem obvious that working for the NSA would be a no-no, but where do we draw the line? What about working as a public school teacher? What about using public roads?

api• 12 years ago

It's an ideology. Ideologies are sort of intellectual trinkets that people keep for various reasons such as aesthetics or social acceptance, but they often bear no connection whatsoever to actual behavior.

argumentum9• 12 years ago

It's absolutely not bizarre, hypocritical, paradoxical or even ironic.

By your logic, every libertarian who disagrees with taxes (or the level of taxation) should break the law and face the consequences (of a miserable, tortuous life in prison).

It's one thing to have a political view, and argue for it. Democracies (and republics) wouldn't have a chance of working if citizens didn't take this much upon themselves.

At the same time, you also have one life to live. Some people want to be politicians or activists, others may want to be engineers, scientists or artists.

The latter don't want to spend their entire being on an idealistic crusade, but they still deserve the right to a political opinion like everyone else.

npizzolato5• 12 years ago

Oh please. Do we have to drag everything to its extreme? The consequences of not paying your taxes are not anywhere near the same as the consequences of not accepting a job in a government position. One lands you in jail. The other lands you in a private sector job, maybe with a pay cut.

latj• 12 years ago

I've read this sort of sentiment before. Here is what is confusing you.

You are trying to over-simplify the complex political philosophy and worldview of a person.

To say that someone is a libertarian, for example, tells you almost nothing about that person.

I am one of those "all models are wrong" kinds of people, but if you were trying to model the beliefs of a person, I would say the minimum questions are:

1. In the ideal state of the universe, how is humanity organized?

2. In the ideal state of the universe, how are the humans close to you organized?

3. How should one act to aid the transition towards the ideal state?

To explain the individual you are describing who is anti-federal government but works for the federal government, there are a number of hypothetical people we can imagine.

For example, one could believe that in the ideal state there is no organization of power at the global or federal government level (#1). But they could also believe that (#3) there is nothing an individual can do to speed up that transition in any meaningful way. They may be waiting for some cultural evolution of humanity or a game-changing shift in technology (e.g. unlimited free access to power).

Or they could believe that the way to transition is by participating to ensure that it does as little evil as possible- or they could even be actively undermining the system from within. There are countless possibilities that could explain what you are describing.

On the other hand, they could just be big fat hypocrites. ;)

jokoon• 12 years ago

Don't you think he might just have built this opinion while working for the government ? Sometimes having an insider look might makes you more knowledgeable.

And even if this opinion is widespread and stupid, working for the government doesn't make your opinion more or less valid, because every voter is the same. Anyways it's just an opinion, and I don't think it has a lot to do with bitcoin anyways.

It's not like anyone is seeking political advice and opinion from this guy, that's not why he's famous, so why bother ?

grej• 12 years ago

I wonder if Leah McGrath Goodman would like photos of her home published and members of her family identified against her will? I wonder if she thought about that, or the man and his family's safety, before choosing to publish this information about him?

Reading the description of the man and recognizing the value he placed on privacy and anonymity, I'm genuinely sad for him. I also fear for his personal safety and that of his family for the reasons others have stated.

smacktoward2• 12 years ago

I wonder if Leah McGrath Goodman would like photos of her home published

Nobody at Google Street View, which cheerfully publishes pictures of millions of peoples' homes without consent or even notification, appears to have ever wondered that.

bruceb7• 12 years ago

Homes you can drive by. Hardly that big of a deal.

nilkn• 12 years ago

I've seen a number of homes blurred out on Google Street View.

lucb1e3• 12 years ago

"Dorian can just be paranoid," says Tokuo. "I cannot get through to him. I don't think he will answer any of these questions to his family truthfully."

What the hell, if many family members are so eager to forward questions from the press to him and spill anything they know, I can totally understand Satoshi doesn't answer them truthfully. I also feel very sorry for Satoshi's position in which he doesn't seem to have anyone to talk to truthfully :/

Of course, none of this puts to rest the biggest question of all - the one that only Satoshi Nakamoto himself can answer: What has kept him from spending his hundreds of millions of dollars of Bitcoin

Isn't it obvious? It would destabilize the market and begin a huge frenzy to find out who he is, and he knows it. Now the latter is a moot point, but I can totally understand he doesn't want to backstab his brainchild.

Besides, who says he didn't mine other coins early on anonymously for his own use? Wasn't the point of Bitcoin that you can't know who's who? If he did this and got some money, he totally deserved it.

Jach• 12 years ago

The article says he lives with his mother, and since the article said nothing else about her, I suspect she may be the one person he can talk to truthfully...

liopleurodon2• 12 years ago

"The punctuation in the proposal is also consistent with how Dorian S. Nakamoto writes, with double spaces after periods and other format quirks."

wtf!! That's how you're supposed to write!!

smacktoward2• 12 years ago

Actually, no. Double spaces after periods are an artifact of the formatting limitations of typewriters (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_spacing#Mechanical_typ...). In an age of properly kerned digital type, there's no reason to use more than one space.

As a result of this, you can get a rough sense of a person's age by looking at how they handle sentence spacing. People old enough to have learned how to type on an actual typewriter (like, um, me) will very frequently use two spaces; people younger than that, less so. (Except on the web, of course, where browsers enforce the proper usage for you and collapse multiple spaces after a period into one no matter what you type.)

jellicle• 12 years ago

In an age of properly kerned digital type, there's no reason to use more than one space.

But there's also no reason not to use two spaces, as kerning can turn one space into 1.5 and can also turn two spaces into 1.5.

wpietri10• 12 years ago

Exactly. In high school I took a typing class, and there, two spaces after the period was the rule. I switched to one space later on, probably because early word processing and desktop publishing tech produced over-spaced results if you used two spaces.

aestra2• 12 years ago

No it isn't.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_spacing

Until the 20th century, publishing houses and printers in many countries used additional space between sentences. There were exceptions to this traditional spacing method—some printers used spacing between sentences that was no wider than word spacing.[6] This was French spacing—a term synonymous with single-space sentence spacing until the late 20th century.[7] With the introduction of the typewriter in the late 19th century, typists used two spaces between sentences to mimic the style used by traditional typesetters.[8] While wide sentence spacing was phased out in the printing industry in the mid-twentieth century, the practice continued on typewriters[9] and later on computers.[10] Perhaps because of this, many modern sources now incorrectly[5] claim that wide spacing was created for the typewriter.[11]

Many experts now say that additional space is not required or desirable between sentences.[12] Typesetting programs such as TeX[13] can modify kerning values to adjust spaces following terminal punctuation, so there is less need to increase spacing manually between sentences[9] (provided that there is some cue to distinguish the end of a sentence from the end of an abbreviated word). From around 1950, single sentence spacing became standard in books, magazines and newspapers,[14] though the recommendation of using 1.5 spaces persisted at least to 1996.[15] Regardless, many still believe that double spacing is correct. The debate continues,[5] notably on the World Wide Web—as many people use search engines to try to find what is correct.[16] Many people prefer double sentence spacing for informal use because that was how they were taught to type.[17] There is a debate on which convention is more readable, but the few recent direct studies conducted since 2002 have produced inconclusive results.[18]

Much modern literature on typography says that double spacing is not desirable,[19] but other sources indicate that it could be used on a typewriter or with a monospaced font.[20] The majority of style guides opt for a single space after terminal punctuation for final and published work, with a few permitting double spacing in draft manuscripts and for specific circumstances based on personal preference.[21] Grammar and design guides, including Web design guides, provide similar guidance.[22]

http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/how-many-...

liopleurodon2• 12 years ago

wow, thank you for posting this. I learned something new.

pistle• 12 years ago

Doxxing the guy is not nice.

With this out of the way, maybe cryptocurrency can focus attention on leveling up protocols and systems to improve utility. When bitcoin becomes the Friendster of cryptocurrency, Satoshi won't matter, just the disruptive ideas around our proxies for value and the new tools and power that can be used in positive ways to help improve the lot for all humans.

People want the confidence that they are able to securely accrue and employ the value of their efforts and wisdom to improve their standard of living. The values of the mainstream of humanity will determine the fate of this stuff. The current level of technical acumen required to handle and secure most any crypto$ is too high for them right now.

It's time to level up.

markbao• 12 years ago

Honest question: it seems like Nakamoto wanted to keep his identity secret. If that's true, then why did he reveal so much information (by implying that he was part of Bitcoin) and allow a photo of him to be taken, instead of saying "I have no relation to Bitcoin"? It doesn't add up.

km3k• 12 years ago

I don't think he allowed that photo to be taken. The reporter probably got it from a family member or friend.

acjohnson553• 12 years ago

I'll probably be slammed for this, but I actually think it's a pretty good piece. Maybe it could do without the picture of Satoshi's house, but it probably wouldn't be so hard to find the house anyway if you know you're looking for an actual "Satoshi Nakamoto in Temple City".

If the dude hadn't used his real name, we'd probably still be wondering who he is. So I think the indignation is a bit misplaced. It's not at all uncommon or nefarious for news reports to be written about people who don't particularly want the coverage.

treebridge• 12 years ago

Goodman writes: "Two weeks before our meeting in Temple City, I struck up an email correspondence with Satoshi Nakamoto, mostly discussing his interest in upgrading and modifying model steam trains with computer-aided design technologies. I obtained Nakamoto's email through a company he buys model trains from." This is so sneaky and sad.

michaelbuddy• 12 years ago

that is the most genius newsweek cover image. I'm stunned by how smart it was to create that artwork.

atom-morgan• 12 years ago

I'm surprised nobody else has brought this up. It's almost too good. I didn't notice my first time.

lcasela• 12 years ago

This is a really irresponsible article. Imagine what this guy is going to have to live with for the rest of his life.

nmeofthestate• 12 years ago

I'm wondering how many of the commenters that are equating holding BTC with a death sentence by violent criminals would consider themselves pro-BTC.

rl123452• 12 years ago

On the bright side: if keeping his anonymity was Satoshi's main reason for not touching his BTC fortune, now he and his family will finally be able to use all that money and take benefit from it - well deservedly.

mathattack• 12 years ago

If Nakamoto ever sells his Bitcoin fortune, he would likely have to do so at a legitimate Bitcoin bank or exchange, which would not only give away his identity but alert everyone from the IRS to the FBI of his movements.

I think they just did that.

Amazing that he actually used his real name. This tells me that he didn't realize how far it would go when he started it.

adamzerner• 12 years ago

How hasn't anyone guessed that the math wiz named Satoshi Nakamoto is indeed Satoshi Nakamoto of Bitcoin?

Also, being that he's so secretive, why on earth would he use his real name?

wil421• 12 years ago

I feel sorry for this guy. The reign of hell newsweek is about to put on him is not going to be fun. Especially since this guy is pretty ecentric and doesnt like being in the public eye.

My hopes are no one tries to rob this guy or kidnap his family to get to his supposed 400m.

theklub• 12 years ago

Could be worse, if he has a meltdown and hurts himself.

glimmung• 12 years ago

I hope nothing negative happens to the subject of this piece.

I hope something thoroughly educational happens to the author of this piece.

Cheesy and ill-considered.

gnoway• 12 years ago

I would be worried if I was the reporter. If anything happens to Satoshi, I suspect there are a moderate to high number of people who will make this reporter's life miserable as retribution. I'm thinking of all the bs that Krebs has to put up with.

Seriously irresponsible reporting. Not brave, not necessary, not helpful, not interesting, just stupid.

socialist_coder2• 12 years ago

0% this is actually the real Satoshi Nakamoto.

bruceb7• 12 years ago

I will bet you a bitcoin it is.

socialist_coder2• 12 years ago

good thing you didn't really bet. /lol

donutdan4114• 12 years ago

That page took about 20s to fully load. Over 300 requests... wtf...

kaishiro• 12 years ago

Ugh, it's so awful. And the mobile kicks the asides into the middle of the fucking article.

thekevan• 12 years ago

This may not add to the discussion but I still cannot help my self and have to comment that this doxxing is disgusting and irresponsible.

basseq• 12 years ago

Is anyone else surprised that that police know that Satoshi is the creator of Bitcoin? That seems like an esoteric piece of knowledge for someone not in the tech space.

frogpelt4• 12 years ago

This is Newsweek's watershed. They're laying Satoshi Nakamoto on the line to recreate their brand as a hard-hitting journalism publication.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsweek

EDIT: The relevant parts of the wiki article are at the end of the first section.

1. Newsweek merged with The Daily Beast.

2. Newsweek ceased print publication and transitioned to an all-digital format.

3. IBT Media acquired Newsweek. IBT Media plans to relaunch a print edition of Newsweek on March 7, 2014. (Guess what today is!)

rhizome3• 12 years ago

Nice catch!

wnevets2• 12 years ago

bitcoin fanboys are funny.

yoha• 12 years ago

Breaking history navigation + mandatory cookies…

The Wikipedia article saved me some time getting to the point:

Though Nakamato's identity was a source of speculation since the launch of Bitcoin in 2008, an article in the news magazine Newsweek by Leah McGrath Goodman, published March 6, 2014, made the case that his true identity was Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto (born 1949), a Japanese American man living in California.[8]

atmosx2• 12 years ago

Cool article but says virtually nothing. We have:

* A smart man, according to the article * Who worked for the government at some point in time (according to the article) * Who's name is Satoshi Nakamoto * Who values privacy (so much that he used his real name LOL)

So apart from the stalking and extremely irritating privacy breach this article shows about Newsweek's[1] journalists and chosen course of action, proves or states nothing.

He didn't admit anything, but seriously... Even he did, why do we care at this point?

[1] I was holding NS in low regard anyway. Now it's as low as it gets in my eyes.

sarreph2• 12 years ago

I'm not up-voting this because Leah Goodman has violated even the most simple of journalistic integrity that should be afforded to such a sensitive topic.

Firstly, she very dubiously breached Nakamoto's trust by attempting to get through to him by talking about his passions. Then, when she didn't get the response she wanted, she posted this article that lists multiple family members' full names, most of Nakamoto's (if this is even the real Nakamoto) personal and employment history, and then has the audacity to post a photo of Nakamoto's house that is close enough to a google street view photo, enabling others to pinpoint his location.

If something bad happens to Nakamoto as a result of the personal information disclosed in this report, it will be a great shame for Newsweek.

potatoman2• 12 years ago

"This man is Satoshi Nakamoto."

"What?" The police officer balks. "This is the guy who created Bitcoin? It looks like he's living a pretty humble life."

- I do not believe this exchange took place. The police would've had his name from his initial call to them, and a random officer from the Sheriff's department would not likely recognize that name as the creator of Bitcoin. Just saying.

robotcookies• 12 years ago

He did change his name from Satoshi to Dorian and maybe that's what the officer had.

crazy1van7• 12 years ago

"What?" The police officer balks. "This is the guy who created Bitcoin? It looks like he's living a pretty humble life."

Wow. Bitcoin is pretty mainstream if a random police officer knows the name of the guy who invented it.

deanclatworthy• 12 years ago

So this guy was found using public records as it's his real name or used to be? I would suspect that the authorities therefore would have known about him for far longer than Newsweek.

fiatpandas• 12 years ago

Completely irresponsible to put a picture of his house in the article. I mean, she didn't even blur out his house number. It took me a single google search to find his full address with that number (matching street view).

It's been taken out of the article now, but the damage has been done.

bambax• 12 years ago

There are several Satoshi Nakamotos living in North America and beyond - both dead and alive

I too would like to be living in North America when I'm dead.

smsm4210• 12 years ago

You'd like to be a zombie in North America? You know North Americans don't like zombies - just watch their constant anti-zombie propaganda, it's disgusting. And all for a bunch of folks whose only fault is a high appreciation one's brain.

robocaptain• 12 years ago

I'm confused, I am seeing all these comments about how it was wrong to out him and then a lot of stuff about governments and stuff.

But isn't it just crazy that they actually found him? I thought that was a big deal? Last I checked, lots of people doubted he was even a real person.

otikik• 12 years ago

Paparazziweek.

tomasien2• 12 years ago

A lot of people are calling this "doxxing" which it isn't - identifying someone based on their ACTUAL NAME and profession isn't doxxing. It may be horrible, irresponsible, dangerous, I don't know - still forming an opinion about that, but that's not doxxing as I know it or see it defined anywhere.

xg15• 12 years ago

I actually don't care if it matches the strict definition of doxxing - it's enough that it was horrible, irresponsible and dangerous.

tomasien2• 12 years ago

Definitions matter, words matter. That is all.

dharma1• 12 years ago

For a professional journalist to sink to such a level - with zero consideration for others in order to advance their own career - never ceases to amaze me.

smsm4210• 12 years ago

Isn't that what professional journalists routinely do?

declan2• 12 years ago

Those would be journalists who are not acting professionally.

sktrdie2• 12 years ago

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.

citricsquid• 12 years ago

This is a very common Americanism, double spacing after periods is something I see more than single spacing. I would be more surprised if a 50s American didn't double space after periods. http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2011/01/...

BU_student• 12 years ago

You should read this comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2103480

Manjoo was wrong.

gnaritas• 12 years ago

Pretty much anyone who learned how to write in the age of typewriters double spaces after a period, this is not a unique trait for anyone in their mid 30's or up. Hell I still do it, it's deeply ingrained.

Crito5• 12 years ago

As far as I know, many public school typing classes still teach double-spaces. It isn't until you get to things like classes in journalism tracks at universities that the concept is dispensed with.

runeks3• 12 years ago

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.

cryowaffle2• 12 years ago

The article doesn't have the picture of his house anymore

cryowaffle2• 12 years ago

... and now the article put the photo of the house back up. I suspect Newsweek realized that removing it implied guilt.

vezzy-fnord• 12 years ago

Very few people here seem to be discussing the fact that the article offers little real evidence that this is the Satoshi Nakamoto of Bitcoin, and that most likely they just set up an eccentric old man with an unfortunate name collision to end up getting mobbed by the public.

anigbrowl21• 12 years ago

Apart from the guy not saying 'no, I am not the inventor of Bitcoin, you have the wrong Satoshi Nakamoto.'

davesque3• 12 years ago

Assuming that he actually said that, of which the author of the article has no proof.

Steko• 12 years ago

Shorter HN:

Would you all just think of the poor superrich for a minute? Clearly they are the ones in our society who need special protections and immunities from journalism.

lukifer• 12 years ago

We have no strong evidence that is he is super-rich, even if it is likely. And outing his personal details would be just as wrong if he had kept none of the coins.

grondilu• 12 years ago

I knew it was his real name. I'm pretty sure I called it on bitcointalk.org (I'm grondilu there) and I was pretty much the only one who thought it was his real name.

act9• 12 years ago

Gavin Andresen: "I'm disappointed Newsweek decided to dox the Nakamoto family, and regret talking to Leah."

https://twitter.com/gavinandresen/status/441547758827474946

alasdair_2• 12 years ago

"I obtained Nakamoto's email through a company he buys model trains from."

In Europe, this would be completely illegal. I'd suspect that in the US this at least breaks the privacy policy of whatever site Nakamoto was using.

"Two weeks before our meeting in Temple City, I struck up an email correspondence with Satoshi Nakamoto, mostly discussing his interest in upgrading and modifying model steam trains with computer-aided design technologies. "

I understand that this is sometimes how journalism is "done" but the sneakiness of it all seems pretty low.

anigbrowl21• 12 years ago

A lot of journalism is just plain old social engineering.

m_myers• 12 years ago

You have reached the limit of 5 free articles a month.

I haven't read any Newsweek articles this month. And it appears I'm not going to, either.

Google cache link for anyone else who gets the same message: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?output=search&s...

gms7777• 12 years ago

Switching to incognito usually works too.

72deluxe• 12 years ago

The article appears to have many "from then on he stopped responding to emails" and "he then dropped off the map" phrases in it. He might not be replying to emails?

The article is cleverly written to make these perfectly ordinary (in)actions sound suspicious. People could write the same about me if I didn't reply to emails or phone calls for a while.

Myrmornis• 12 years ago

Well it's too late to get any points for this inference now, but I'm going to claim that there was a strong clue that the author of the PDF was old: the bitcoin paper cites "An Introduction to Probability Theory and Its Applications" by William Feller. This is a classic, from the 1960s, but I don't think it's very well known among people under 40 (correct me if I'm wrong).

mzs4• 12 years ago

It's also a classic, I used it as text in a course back in '98 or so. Also it's more widely used outside of USA, personally I believe that is because it is inexpensively reprinted and because Feller was Croatian. I believe it has been translated to a number of languages including Chinese and notably Japanese.

mpyne17• 12 years ago

That's a good inference, but it was actually mentioned by the journalist who wrote this article.

selimthegrim• 12 years ago

I'm 27 and I've certainly heard of that book - most people studying probability even for scientific applications will have encountered it. I actually recommended it to a friend about 3 years ago.

cyphunk• 12 years ago

"For anyone who's tried to wire money overseas, you can see how much easier an international Bitcoin transaction is. It's just as easy as sending an email." -- Bitcoin's chief scientist, Gavin Andresen

No actually it's only as easy as Western Union is. You either have to take a huge cut due to localbitcoin or other markups for markets that avoid the normal route of... registering at an exchange, giving them all your details which will take weeks to months, whom will then place major limits on what you can transfer (no more than a $2k-$10k) and potentially crash burn and be robbed while you wait for your FIAT.

So actually it's like transferring money between two Western Union branches that are both in war zones and staffed with employees taken from the DMV.

ChuckMcM2• 12 years ago

Doxing as journalism, kind of surreal. Not sure I get the point though. (I understand why irc enemies do it, but I don't get the journalistic value of 'outing' Satoshi)

anigbrowl21• 12 years ago

Oh come on, you're a smart person Chuck. You don't get the journalistic value of tracking down the person who founded a $10 billion cryptocurrency economy that is in the news on a weekly basis? Pull the other one, it's got bells on.

ChuckMcM2• 12 years ago

Oh I get the value of kind of "knowing the guy" but I don't understand the whole 'take down-esque' form the article took.

It would have been perfectly reasonable to use all that data and report that Satoshi is a brilliant, if quirky, guy living in Southern California. But to go through the hunt, the leads, the follow up, identifying his kids, family, and location. It has the feel of papparazzi taking pictures of Kate Middleton's panties on a windy day.

olalonde2• 12 years ago

Meta: this submission has 811 point and was posted only 5 hours, yet it is at #11 position. Is this the regular HN algorithm at work or is it weighted down due to its controversial nature? (I'm not trying to imply there is any conspiracy... I actually remember reading that submissions with a high vote to comment ratio are weighted down but I'm not completely sure)

gasull2• 12 years ago

Probably it has been flagged because it's full of speculation.

rhizome3• 12 years ago

It's also full of bitcoin, which has been crapping all over HN for weeks now.

knodi• 12 years ago

Why did the author out him.

ropman762• 12 years ago

The biases of this article aside, he sounds like a very interesting man. It saddens me that the way we found out who he really is was by a very gross invasion of his privacy. A sit down interview (in person or virtually)would have been much more interesting. I would have liked to have known eventually, but not like this

raymondduke• 12 years ago

Finally, the face of this super villain in his evil lair.

hiroaki• 12 years ago

References to Dorian Nakamoto on the web:

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/ATILATX3PEXZ4/ref=cm_cr...

Letter voting for an art rail project (search for "nakamoto"): http://media.metro.net/projects_studies/connector/images/Fin...

Google cache of a recent event where he was at (look for the guy in the yellow baseball cap): http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww.m...

sizzle• 12 years ago

lives in SoCal and a Cal Poly alumni, respect!

ParadisoShlee• 12 years ago

This is a pretty predatory article.

davesque3• 12 years ago

Poor guy. I hope he's going to be alright.

Uhhrrr• 12 years ago

"Reverse Polish notation" - was this originally Hungarian notation before some layer of "fact checking" ruined it? I have no idea how one would program using RPN.

dmourati• 12 years ago

+1 for RPN. Ha!

efuquen• 12 years ago

I'm going to skirt the ethical questions being asked, assuming everything done to get this information was legal and such and the accuracy of it lives within the bounds of journalistic integrity (of course none of that necessarily makes it ethical, but like I said, circumventing that question for now).

All that said, by the number of reactions I'm reading here I get the impression that in the Bitcoin world someone with a significant amount of wealth has to fear for their life? What is the difference between Satoshi Nakamoto and any other individual of significant wealth, i.e. Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Rupert Murdoch, etc. While I don't have any exact addresses or other information about these people on hand, I'm sure I could get it rather easily.

The emphasis I keep seeing is on how he has $400 M of "pseudo-untraceable, digital cash" and assume the concern is something along the lines of it would be more difficult to extract that much from Bill Gates if you attacked/kidnapped him and get away with it vs Bitcoin, which you could theoretically extract the keys guarding the coin from the victim and quickly transfer out to other wallets without much issue.

So, the gist I'm getting, is that in the world of crypto-currency if you get wealthy ... man you better watch out because people are going to be gunning for you to steal your coin by force if they ever find out where you live. Live In Fear. If this is the great future of finance you all envision, then I really wouldn't want any part of it.

*Side note, I really don't believe any of the above but given some of the responses I've seen I think we need to take a step back and examine the conclusions that would result from some of the statements being made.

est• 12 years ago

aaaannnd now he is not

https://twitter.com/byandreachang/status/441687863222996992

2810• 12 years ago

This is the best "He is the only person I have ever known to show up for a job interview and tell the interviewer he's an idiot - and then prove it."

The Face Behind Bitcoin?

Related Stories