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> I think Wright is just a smooth-talking conman with some crypto experience. I'm betting he met Gavin and other (unfortunately, merely "supposed" at this point

by comboy 10y ago

> I think Wright is just a smooth-talking conman with some crypto experience. I'm betting he met Gavin and other (unfortunately, merely "supposed" at this point...) experts in person, talked shop for a while, then took out his laptop and staged verifying the signature of blocks 1 and 9 with dummy commands. I don't believe that anybody with the most basic understanding of cryptography would fall for that. I don't think there is a slightest chance that Gavin would. So the most interesting part of the story to me is why did he publish his blog post.. Something made him do that, but it's beyond doubt to me that he did not take part in planning of this operation.

meowface 10y ago
I agree that it seems extremely absurd Bitcoin experts would fall for that. I'm very interested to see how this story develops.
- rdl 10y ago
  You say that like there haven't been a bunch of huge crypto/key management/ security/risk management fuckups throughout the world of Bitcoin from the start.
- zipwitch 10y ago
  It doesn't seem at all absurd to me that an expert at any subject, speaking to someone else they believe is another honest expert, but who is actually an experienced con-artist / fraudster, can be fooled. Don't think of it as one cryptographer deceiving another via cryptography. Think of it more like a Penn & Teller trick (to use an example of some well-known experts in the art of deceit - not that I think for a moment they'd ever actually defraud someone) only with the computers and cryptography. The actual deception is likely so far outside the mark's expectations and normal thought processes that the possibility of it never even occurs to them.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
meowface 10y ago
And Gavin's Bitcoin commit access just got revoked. I wonder if he was hacked, or if they think he's gone rogue. Or if they're just doing it as a precaution.
- danielweber 10y ago
  What's the reference for this? Where can I see his commit access being revoked?
petertodd 10y ago
Note that the genesis block is block _#0_, not block #1 When Bitcoin was publicly released, only the genesis block existed, so every block after that point could have been mined by anyone.
- zymhan 10y ago
  Block #0 has a timestamp of 2009-01-03 18:15:05 Block #1 has a timestamp of 2009-01-09 02:54:25 So, does this mean there were 6 days separating the first block in the chain and the first block to be mined? https://blockchain.info/block/000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f https://blockchain.info/block/000000000019d6689c085ae165831e... https://blockchain.info/block/00000000839a8e6886ab5951d76f411475428afc90947ee320161bbf18eb6048 https://blockchain.info/block/00000000839a8e6886ab5951d76f41...
  - petertodd 10y ago
    Yes! Since the genesis block is hardcoded in the software, what likely happened is Satoshi generated it in advance, added it to the code, and then did a few more days of final testing prior to release. Block #1 on the other hand was mined after the initial announcement on the cryptography mailing list: http://www.metzdowd.com/pipermail/cryptography/2009-January/014994.html http://www.metzdowd.com/pipermail/cryptography/2009-January/... (about seven or eight hours after if I got my timezone conversions correct)
    - Andrew_Quentin 10y ago
      So Wright is Hal Finney? Or, who else mined bitcoins seven or eight hours after it went live?
    - meowface 10y ago
      >As an amusing thought experiment, imagine that Bitcoin is successful and >becomes the dominant payment system in use throughout >the world. Then the >total value of the currency should be equal to the total value of all >the wealth in the world. Current estimates of total worldwide household >wealth that I have found range from $100 trillion to $300 trillion. With >20 million coins, that gives each coin a value of about $10 million. >So the possibility of generating coins today with a few cents of compute >time may be quite a good bet, with a payoff of something like 100 million >to 1! Even if the odds of Bitcoin succeeding to this degree are slim, >are they really 100 million to one against? Something to think about... First ever reply to Satoshi. Finney was a smart guy.
comboy 10y ago
Turns out, I was wrong: Andresen says an administrative assistant working with Wright left to buy a computer from a nearby store, and returned with what Andresen describes as a Windows laptop in a “factory-sealed” box. source: https://www.wired.com/2016/05/craig-wright-privately-proved-hes-bitcoins-creator/ https://www.wired.com/2016/05/craig-wright-privately-proved-... I still have enough respect for Gavin not to leave comment about that..

by comboy 10y ago

meowface 10y ago

I agree that it seems extremely absurd Bitcoin experts would fall for that. I'm very interested to see how this story develops.

rdl 10y ago
You say that like there haven't been a bunch of huge crypto/key management/ security/risk management fuckups throughout the world of Bitcoin from the start.
zipwitch 10y ago
It doesn't seem at all absurd to me that an expert at any subject, speaking to someone else they believe is another honest expert, but who is actually an experienced con-artist / fraudster, can be fooled. Don't think of it as one cryptographer deceiving another via cryptography. Think of it more like a Penn & Teller trick (to use an example of some well-known experts in the art of deceit - not that I think for a moment they'd ever actually defraud someone) only with the computers and cryptography. The actual deception is likely so far outside the mark's expectations and normal thought processes that the possibility of it never even occurs to them.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

meowface 10y ago

And Gavin's Bitcoin commit access just got revoked. I wonder if he was hacked, or if they think he's gone rogue. Or if they're just doing it as a precaution.

danielweber 10y ago
What's the reference for this? Where can I see his commit access being revoked?

petertodd 10y ago

Note that the genesis block is block _#0_, not block #1 When Bitcoin was publicly released, only the genesis block existed, so every block after that point could have been mined by anyone.

zymhan 10y ago
Block #0 has a timestamp of 2009-01-03 18:15:05 Block #1 has a timestamp of 2009-01-09 02:54:25 So, does this mean there were 6 days separating the first block in the chain and the first block to be mined? https://blockchain.info/block/000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f https://blockchain.info/block/000000000019d6689c085ae165831e... https://blockchain.info/block/00000000839a8e6886ab5951d76f411475428afc90947ee320161bbf18eb6048 https://blockchain.info/block/00000000839a8e6886ab5951d76f41...
- petertodd 10y ago
  Yes! Since the genesis block is hardcoded in the software, what likely happened is Satoshi generated it in advance, added it to the code, and then did a few more days of final testing prior to release. Block #1 on the other hand was mined after the initial announcement on the cryptography mailing list: http://www.metzdowd.com/pipermail/cryptography/2009-January/014994.html http://www.metzdowd.com/pipermail/cryptography/2009-January/... (about seven or eight hours after if I got my timezone conversions correct)
  - Andrew_Quentin 10y ago
    So Wright is Hal Finney? Or, who else mined bitcoins seven or eight hours after it went live?
  - meowface 10y ago
    >As an amusing thought experiment, imagine that Bitcoin is successful and >becomes the dominant payment system in use throughout >the world. Then the >total value of the currency should be equal to the total value of all >the wealth in the world. Current estimates of total worldwide household >wealth that I have found range from $100 trillion to $300 trillion. With >20 million coins, that gives each coin a value of about $10 million. >So the possibility of generating coins today with a few cents of compute >time may be quite a good bet, with a payoff of something like 100 million >to 1! Even if the odds of Bitcoin succeeding to this degree are slim, >are they really 100 million to one against? Something to think about... First ever reply to Satoshi. Finney was a smart guy.

comboy 10y ago

Turns out, I was wrong: Andresen says an administrative assistant working with Wright left to buy a computer from a nearby store, and returned with what Andresen describes as a Windows laptop in a “factory-sealed” box. source: https://www.wired.com/2016/05/craig-wright-privately-proved-hes-bitcoins-creator/ https://www.wired.com/2016/05/craig-wright-privately-proved-... I still have enough respect for Gavin not to leave comment about that..