Satoshi Nakamoto made a post after years of silence? | Hacker News Reader

Satoshi Nakamoto made a post after years of silence?

p2pfoundation.ning.com

78 pointsinsulanian82 comments

It seems more likely to me that the ning account was compromised, but this is fun/interesting nonetheless.

For example, reading through his initial launch post is kind of fun:

http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topics/bitcoin-open-sour...

> I've developed a new open source P2P e-cash system called Bitcoin. It's completely decentralized, with no central server or trusted parties, because everything is based on crypto proof instead of trust. Give it a try, or take a look at the screenshots and design paper: ...

I enjoyed one of the replies,

> The reason balance of the system is important: if it's going to be used for payments, you don't want to have large changes in the value of the coins. It would lead to distortions, I believe, by continually increasing the "purchasing power" of a single coin.

Stability of the coins' value is desirable for long term use.

And yet Bitcoin is one of the most volatile currencies I can thing of, somewhat flies in the face of all of the promises made for it.

Not promises, but predictions. I don't think Nakamoto anticipated the massive interest in speculation, which is driving the lack of stability.

Long term, I'm more bullish on solutions like GNU Taler[1][2] that don't try to invent a currency, but instead work with existing currencies to simply transactions. I don't think Taler will necessarily be _the_ solution, but something like it could work out.

- [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micropayment#GNU_Taler - [2] http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/taler/

Was Bitcoin meant to be an enduring project?

I mean, I get that a lot of people see it that way, but it's always struck me as giving off an experimental vibe. Presumably an enduring solution to something as fundamental as a monetary system should have stronger design principles. By contrast, Bitcoin feels more like a prototype/demonstration of blockchain technology mixed with a social experiment.

Minor point, it’s a cryptocurrency not a currency. I don’t think it’s fair to compare it to government backed currencies because of its novelty and decentralized properties.

If you could only get Team Fortress 2 hats or whatever with Bitcoin, that's one thing. People have been exchanging it for USD. Since it doesn't have any intrinsic value (it's not like a concert ticket or gold) outside of a medium of exchange and a store of value, comparing it with other currencies is completely fair.

Neither gold nor concert tickets have intrinsic values.

I don’t think bitcoin will stabilize until

1) there is a bed of competing currencies around it with their own strengths and weaknesses

2) those strengths and weaknesses are well known and understood in the finance world

3) there are established versions of the major services we have around the US dollar: fraud protection, escrow, banking, exchange, etc

I would say that 2) probably requires two full rounds of PhD level study, so let’s say 15 years from wide scale awareness at a minimum.

We already have 1) although I suspect some of the true neighbors are early in development at this time.

3) Is slow going it seems. The USD ecosystem has had a long time to develop. It’s not trivial to set up sturdy, legal, reputable replacements since it’s an n-sided market problem.

... but I do think it will stabilize. Until then it has uses even with the instability, but it’s just not possible to estimate its true value.

Points 2 and 3 would seem to violate the essential anarcho-capitalist nature of Bitcoin, though. If it can be effectively regulated and stabilized in opposition to the volatility of the free market then it would seem to have failed at its purpose.

ambitions != promises

To give people a heads up. There has been a huge amount of drama in the Bitcoin space, and this is related to the individual known as Craig Wright.

Craig Wright made a bunch of claims a couple years ago, that he was Satoshi. He released a bunch of "proof" that was proven false.

Recently, he created a new crypto coin callee bitcoin Satoshi's Vision.

This new post is almost certainly another fake attempt by Craig to claim that he is Satoshi.

That's a speculation.

It's speculation, but if you've been following the drama like I have (I'm not particularly interested in cryptocurrency per se, but I love reading about it like a sporting event), it's almost certainly Craig.

Craig Wright has been caught numerous times falsifying evidence that leads people to think he's Satoshi Nakamoto. It's such a ridiculous ruse, and I think the only reason he's still hanging around is he's backed by a billionaire named Calvin Ayre who has thrown his full weight behind Craig Wright. Ayre built a whole company around Craig that's constantly trying to promote him as being Satoshi.

A couple weeks ago, a new twitter user with the handle @satoshi emerged and tweeted a signature that validates with Satoshi's public key. The problem? A signature in ECDSA can easily be forged using only knowledge of the public key. It doesn't prove anything unless you're signing a non-gibberish message. This is also very similar to a trick Craig Wright already tried when he first tried to claim he was Satoshi in 2016.

The twitter user got suspended, so that got shut down without much of a fuss in the media, but if you follow this closely, you know that Craig was involved based on MO and because the public relations blitz of his company was very carefully coordinated almost exactly when @satoshi started tweeting. (Among other things, @satoshi and Craig's typical twitter posted extremely similar tweets within a few minutes of each other.)

Similarly, in this case, Craig and associated social media accounts started making thinly veiled oblique references to "light" and "nour" at the same time.

There is only one person in the space who is constantly making fake Satoshi claims that get proven wrong every single time.

That chances that this is the same fake claim is very high.

The only way someone can prove they're the "real" satoshi (note: Craig Wright is NOT satoshi, he's a fraud), is to use a known-only-to-satoshi private key to move some arbitrary amount of coin from a very early wallet to a new wallet.

And by doing so crash bitcoin value since it is believed those early wallets with lots of coins are effectively destroyed.

I would bet money it would have the opposite effective. Imagine the number of news articles, discussion, and hype that action would bring. Rational investors might see it as a negative, but...

It seems to be doing a pretty good job of crashing on its own, at present.

Laughed out loud. Have some karma.

How do we know what addresses are Satoshi's? I guess the genesis block reward address...

The first million bitcoins were mined by Satoshi before bitcoin was made public.

What if he's lost the key?

Then he/she/they cannot prove. It is what it is.

What I would do, is to start a new project, under a new pseudonym, to demolish representative democracy and move towards a direct democracy. The possibility is already there because of modern technology. The only ones who would fight this are the current representatives.

I would be leery of upending representative systems that at least theoretically have an anti-majoritarian bias. Even if I'm in the majority today, there's no guarantee that I will be tomorrow, and a system that helps to preserve my rights against mob rule seems reasonable.

You mean a system that does not allow change? Or only in the interest of the system and the people that believe in it?

A direct democracy might make sense for any issue on which most citizens are both well enough informed to make a decision, and also motivated. But not even full-time parliamentarians can stay informed on most of them, so they need subcommittees and so forth. Given how many issues come up for governments to deal with, some amount of division of labor seems better. Not that our current representative democracy does not have plenty of issues of its own...

Yeah I'm not a big fan of straight majority rules... not to say the US government is perfect...

Hi from the UK, where I am currently getting a little tired of having to explain the difference between ochlocracy and democracy(1) to people who keep insisting that 52% is 'the will of the people' and that to not immediately fall in line behind that 52% is to be a traitor to the country and an enemy of democracy itself.

(1)The 'demos' being all the people and the 'ochlos' being the mob.

Satoshi was an anarchist

Me too.

I'd never damage or take your property if you don't want that.

Nor would I force any sort of change upon you based on what I believe is true, as long as I don't feel threatened.

you mean direct democracy like the one which caused Trump become president, Hitler become chancellor and UK leaving EU? i think what we really need it's removal of age limits and basic intelligence/adulthood test for voting right

But...

Trump is the representative of America right?

Hitler was a representative for some political party right?

And the UK is representative of its people right?

That site isn't even served over TLS. I don't doubt somebody easily compromised it.

If someone compromised it, wouldn't they post something more interesting than '"nour"'?

No. Not necessarily.

This is interesting because Iv'e had countless discussions with Bitcoin Maxamilsits who assume that all of Satoshi's coins are never moving and that he's gone forever.

Assume... or hope?

I had a CISSP for a few years and used to do security deploys and audits for highly secure systems. One part of our teams process was assessing risk. Based on my training, it looks like they _assume_ the coins will never move. The thing is that nobody knows Satoshi's OpSec and events like this don't help.

People are saying Ning was hacked, but is that for sure? Did Satoshi's computer get hacked, did the Ning get hacked, what happened? We may never know, but for me there has always been a non-zero chance that Satoshi's coins could move. I don't know what the result of that would be.

1) Lots of headlines

2) A new hope to find out his identity. He couldn't really pay someone anonymously without using a tumbler, the tumbler he'd use would gain a ton of PR and could become the quasi-official Bitcoin tumbler.

3) Depends on the amount, but I think there'll be a great fear that he could move all of it - that amount would almost certainly being the Bitcoin economy down since its value is (I think) based on the assumption that the coins will never move, so the BTC price would decrease sharply.

That's my guess.

I think one of the potential vectors is that his gmx account was hacked.

Since we are throwing out random theories, I feel fairly confident that Satoshi Nakamoto lives on the East Coast of the United States and is unlikely to ever touch any of his previously used accounts.

Very interesting that for a website/forum operated by people with a high degree of technical skill, I see no https (TLS1.2) anywhere. All plain http.

The entire infrastructure of P2P Foundation Wiki was from 2008, and nobody bothers to rebuild, I believe...

I half-ironically propose it is meant to be read as "no, you are"

I half-ironically support this.

It's interesting to note that Google Translate (on "Detect Language" set) translates "nour" as "Light" in Arabic.

Alternatively, the Urban Dictionary defines 'nour' as a very attractive and funny girl.

I find the Satoshi puzzle to be far more interesting than bitcoin itself. The level of operational security Satoshi has achieved is incredible - 'The wise one who lives in the middle' has proven to be a good choice of name. All things considered, I would not be at all surprised if Satoshi turns out to be a small team inside GCHQ, or somewhere similar.

Nour/Noor is a very common name for girls.

It is also my name. I am a guy. Thanks Mom and Dad.

Short for Noureddine, a common male name. Source: several North African friends with this exact name.

Well I hope, if nothing else, that the experience has turned you into a Johnny Cash fan.

It’s the closest thing we have to something out of a comic book, maybe besides Elon Musk.

That's it. Satoshi is obviously Elon Musk.

I've actually read this being suggested in a "popular science" magazine.

Over a long enough timeline, all popular science magazines eventually turn into 'BBC Focus'.

Satoshi is Kira. Mystery solved.

I think the word "Nour", meaning "light" as people have pointed out, is also commonly used as a woman's name in the middle east. Maybe irrelevant but who knows?

It indeed means that in Arabic and a bunch of near by languages.

Maybe Satoshi is a Japanese-Brazilian? (Or -Peruvian, -Uruguayan, etc.) Brazil has some pretty good coders (cf. Lua) who might often find themselves with nothing to do (poor job market) and who have direct experience with the downsides of capital controls (protectionism), plenty of whom are of Japanese descent and who could get away with pretending to be Japanese to throw people off.

wot

Have you read the Bitcoin Origins story by Phil "Scronty" Wilson?

http://vu.hn/bitcoin%20origins.html

In it he claims that the Satoshi handle was actually shared by him, Craig Wright and Dave Kleiman, and they created Bitcoin together.

This all looks really fake. Plus, there's incentive to fake something like this, because of Satoshi Nakamoto's fame, elusive nature, and lack of identity ownership.

It is exceedingly likely that if Satoshi was not Hal Finney, s/he has probably been somewhat active (under a non-Satoshi nym, obviously) this whole time.

I firmly believe that Nick Szabo is Satoshi. Academic background, studies currencies, highly intelligent, worked on bitcoin-esque project before. Perhaps he had some help from a few close friends who do not know him as Satoshi.

I'm pretty sure most people in the Bitcoin community know this, but it's generally avoided as a topic of discussion out of respect for Szabo.

Totally. I just pointed it out as others have speculated. I'm sure nobody will bother him about it and respect his denial. I wouldn't want to be outed as Satoshi either.

I think it was a group of people and Nick Szabo was definitely involved. Have you seen these basic stylometry analysis results that somewhat support this theory?

https://towardsdatascience.com/stylometric-analysis-satoshi-...

Nick Szabo as Satoshi Nakamoto seems way too obvious to be true -- I'm guessing he's probably a honeypot for Nakamoto's identity, so that the true Nakamoto remains hidden. That, or like another commenter mentioned, Nakamoto is a group of people and Nick Szabo may have had some involvement.

For the sake of the entire space, I'd hope this belief was whispered about in darker corners than HN ;)

He denied it. I'd doubt it on other grounds too, but that's good enough for me.

I asked him about it directly, in person, in private, in a place not likely to be surveilled, and he denied it then, too.

But there are incentives to maintain it as a separate cover identity, of course. Ultimately I personally don’t give two fucks about who Satoshi is/was but the fact that it has become this central witchhunt and front page news has taught me a tremendous amount about brand building and the power and necessity of identity and narrative in our society and world.

I believe he is Finney. Finney was one of main developers of PGP so he had a strong crypto knowledge.

Do you remember Satoshi Dorian Nakamoto? It turns out he lived near Finney. Maybe Finney knew him and thought it was a nice name.

Just a curios question: since bitcoin.org was initially bought and maintained by Sathoshi. Is it possible to track some info from domain registrar?

Like today, there were a handful of providers of anonymous hosting and domain service. Satoshi registered the domain and hosted the website via anonymousspeech.com. So no, it's not possible to obtain his identity directly from the domain name.

But there is a potential flaw - anonymousspeech.com used to accept cash-in-mail, but stopped for a while, then started accepting cash again. It is unclear whether Satoshi used cash, or credit card/bank transfer. If he used the latter one for payment, the government can just subpoena all the financial records. But there are evidences to believed he used anonymous deposit. So the answer is still no.

IMHO, by today's standard, Satoshi Nakamoto's anonymity is flawed. A large portion of the infrastructure for anonymity and privacy (Bitcoin!!) didn't exist back to that time, in addition, he didn't demonstrate the extreme rigorous practice of operational security similar to underground blackhat hacking groups, for example, he was using GMX as his main mailbox, which was not known for its security, and obviously it was eventually hacked, etc.

In conclusion, he did enough to obtain a reasonable degree of 2008's anonymity. But his anonymity is saved only because it wasn't/isn't illegal so he wasn't a target in the beginning, and by now time has buried all the traces. It probably won't survive a coordinated takedown by multiple law enforcement agencies (something you can accomplish with a fair chance of success today).

Regarding GMX: I know it as a very German-focused service, so could we infer something about him this way?

I'm also sure he connected to the site through proxies.

considering this come when bitcoin it's falling for months and someone wanna bring media attention to bitcoin and push price higher i am certain it's hack, just look for the motivation

Also interesting: https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2018-November...

That's from 2018-11-28, before the ning post.

Doesn't mean anything, anyone can create a protonmail address and post to a public mailing list. Grammar and sentence structure reads like a fluent native English speaker that is attempting to impersonate the clumsy writing style of a non-native-english speaker.

I get that. But the timing is interesting, no? Just a day or two before the ning post. That suggests to me that somethings up.

These question marks after statements (or half sentence questions) really need to stop - I was hoping hacker news wouldn't slide into the lazy terrible internet grammar trends.

It is probably non native speaker like a Russian for example where it does work that way. (Of course posting in English one is expected to follow rules of English.)

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