51 pointsby jfirebaugh4 hours ago12 comments
  • kaladin-jasnah4 hours ago
    > I’d learned enough by then to know that P.G.P. relies on public-key cryptography.

    > So does Bitcoin. A Bitcoin user has two keys: a public key, from which an address is derived that acts as a digital safe deposit box; and a private key, which is the secret combination used to unlock that box and spend the coins it contains.

    > How interesting, I thought, that Mr. Back’s grad-school hobby involved the same cryptographic technique that Satoshi had repurposed.

    I read up to here, but I wasn't convinced that this is the revelation that the author claims. To my knowledge, asymmetric cryptography is widely used. I have no opinions on the rest of the article, though.

    • kgeist2 hours ago
      >I read up to here, but I wasn't convinced that this is the revelation that the author claims

      The rest of the arguments is as weak:

      1) both released open-source software

      2) both don't like spam

      3) both like using pseudonyms online

      4) both love freedom

      5) both are anti-copyright

      etc.

      Basically, the author found that Adam Back used the same words on X as Satoshi did in some emails (including such rare words as "dang," "backup," and "abandonware") and then decided to find every possible "link" they could to build the case, even if most of the links are along the lines of "Both are humans! Coincidence? I think not."

      • tovejan hour ago
        I think this misses the point. The point is that interests and writing style matches, which means there's a higher chance they are the same person.

        The more similarities you find, the closer the match. It's in no way proof, of course. But it does provide good reason to look closer

  • hnsdev15 minutes ago
    Particularly I believe that Satoshi Nakamoto is a nation-state who created Bitcoin to bypass sanctions. Simple as that.
  • instagrahaman hour ago
    I don't think this reveals Satoshi's identity, nor that any prior piece of reporting may have done so. But I do think there's a high probability that Satoshi lurks or has lurked on HN, and perhaps reads these posts with an initial sense of apprehension followed by a chuckle at the inevitable misidentification.
    • szmarczak40 minutes ago
      > misidentification

      We don't know if that's misidentification either. The author provides good evidence that the writing style matches, which doesn't provide a strong proof, however it's a good clue of who might it be.

  • chistevan hour ago
    If Satoshi is still alive (I believe it's a single guy), then it's incredible the amount of self-control he has to not reveal his identity after all these years. Not needing the wealth or the fame and ego-stroking that comes with being behind such a revolutionary technology is enviable.

    Not many people are like that.

    If he is still alive and just moved on to other things as he said, I can't applaud that kind of personality enough.

  • gertop24 minutes ago
    I'm surprised that this is the best NYT investigative journalism could do. It's well written and comprehensive, but it also contains no new information.

    And I truly mean it, all the proofs listed here are so well known that you're likely to learn just as much by watching one of the hundreds of "Adam is Satoshi!!1" YouTube videos.

    Given the title (a quest!) I would have expected some personal findings to be added to the shared narrative, not just rehash of the first 2 pages of a Google search.

  • vintermann3 hours ago
    You can't sell books or articles from saying something that's been said before, but Nick Szabo remains the best Satoshi candidate by a mile.

    He had developed the system closest to Bitcoin, he was actively seeking collaborators to turn his system into a practical offering briefly before Bitcoin was released, and he was the only cipherpunk who conspicuously said very little when the system he'd been trying to realize for a decade suddenly appeared. Satoshi credited all his inspirations except for the most obvious one, Szabo's. No one in the cipherpunks mailing list thought any of this was odd, probably because it was obvious to them who Satoshi was.

    In contrast to a certain convicted Australian fraudster who got caught trying to backdate his statements, Szabo got caught trying to front-date them. His politics are a match to Satoshi (tbf. true of all the cipherpunks), his coding style matches Satoshi, his writing style matches Satoshi if you disable the British English spellchecker. For good measure his initials match Satoshi.

    I view articles like these as a good test of which investigative journalists are hacks indifferent to the truth - except for that Wired guy, who I think knows better but thinks it's righteous to lie a little to protect Satoshi's anonymity.

  • triage8004an hour ago
    Hal Finney
  • donkeylazy4563 hours ago
    another pointless debate. who cares who satoshi is. only TV and magazines.
  • 2 hours ago
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  • xvxvx4 hours ago
    He’s not one person but a front for a US law enforcement task force dedicated to tracking down cyber criminals and anyone who would need anonymity online. It started, alongside TOR, as a way for drug dealers, weapons dealers, and pedophiles to do business. Neither cryptocurrency nor TOR are actually anonymous. They’re part of a pretty impressive honeypot ecosystem.

    What I’m interested in is the pivot when crypto tried to go legit. Some spook or suit decided that it would be used for other reasons also. Now it has some semblance of legitimacy.

    Before anyone asks: social media is another part of the same ecosystem. Nurtured and protected by the government and law enforcement, despite any number of practices that would bankrupt most companies and sent people to jail.

    • someperson4 hours ago
      The FBI created the purportedly encrypted "AN0M" messaging app [1] as part of a sting operation running between 2018-2021 used to catch drug-traffickers.

      Creating a fake app that people believe is secure or anonymous is an easier way to run a police sting operation than first making a significant breakthrough in Distributed Systems around the Byzantine Generals Problem.

      For your conspiracy theory to be true, at some point a honeypot/sting operation must actually end and arrests be made and the evidence be used in court.

      [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Trojan_Shield

    • WhereIsTheTruth2 hours ago
      That's my theory as well, but not just to catch digital criminals, but it's a test bed for the digital wallet / ID

      I don't think it's exclusively american tho, it's a consortium between US/EU/ASIA, to establish the foundation of the world government, digital first