7 ms·

Attempting (Failed) Verification of the Wright Signature

118 points by joeyspn 10y ago

cubano 10y ago
I am enjoying the spectacle and irony of the crypto-currency media being "hacked" by someone who barely understands the basics of the very thing that underpins the system itself. One of the very few things that Bitcoin meaningfully has accomplished as an ecosystem is a world-readable repository of reasonably-well-attested-to-keys. Yeah no shit.
- empath75 10y ago
  I don't think anyone in the 'crypto-currency media' believes that this guy is Satoshi. The mainstream media that covers bitcoin seems to have been conned, though.
  - Karunamon 10y ago
    These variations on a "we found Satoshi for reals this time" story seems to be on a ~6 month cycle. It happens, it gets debunked, it fades, it happens again.
    - Bartweiss 10y ago
      It's striking that they got burned by the same guy again though. Craig Wright came through as a fake Satoshi a bit over a year ago: http://hackingdistributed.com/2015/12/10/how-to-spot-satoshi/ http://hackingdistributed.com/2015/12/10/how-to-spot-satoshi...
- ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
  lol +1 on the irony. ecosystem-wise I think it's a bit too harsh :) Bitcoin's p2p network does work (not without hiccups of course) - if I wanted to I could send btc to someone in say Brazil or Malaysia and it WILL work after all. And in some respects it will work smoother than trying to send fiat there.
  - daveguy 10y ago
    You can use western union to send money all around the world without anyone having any accounts on a blockchain or any accounts in an exchange necessary to turn bitcoin into fiat that can actually use in the destination country. I would say it is cheaper to send bitcoin, and maybe smoother for two regular users of bitcoin (and who shop online at bitcoin accepting businesses). However, that description applying to any two people is extraordinarily rare. It is still definitely smoother, but more expensive, to send fiat. The infrastructure is already in place.
    - ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
      I'm not saying bitcoins ecosystem is more evolved than fiat, merely pointing out that it does exist beyond the 'key database' factor as it does allow transfer of value between counterparties around the world. Whether the actual experience of that transfer is 'better' than fiat (WU, Swift, etc) is a different story and yes that would depend on the parties involved.
    - aianus 10y ago
      > I would say it is cheaper to send bitcoin, and maybe smoother for two regular users of bitcoin (and who shop online at bitcoin accepting businesses). In many places it's easier to sign up for a Bitcoin exchange from your couch than to drive to Western Union. I can personally vouch for the US, Canada, and Thailand, where I've had experience with it.
zenon 10y ago
The non-experts did not ask to see things which would be hard for non-Satoshi to provide -- they were at the mercy of the charlatan (paging James Randi, James Randi to the courtesy phone please). I'm mystified as to how this got past Andresen, though. I think Randi would be the first to tell us that the skills required to detect a good conman are quite different from skills in technical fields. http://www.livescience.com/9066-magician-scientists-assume-infallibility.html http://www.livescience.com/9066-magician-scientists-assume-i... I bet Andresen simply got tricked, and I think he should not feel to ashamed about it (although he will) -- most of us would have fallen for it.
- oneloop 10y ago
  Nope. There is no way I would've bought into that "you can't keep the evidence" bullshit, I don't care if you're the Pope. I think Gavin maybe got a little starry eyed thinking he was talking to the bitcoin god himself and let his guard down. What a shame.
  - seren 10y ago
    I read it as a successful social engineering by Wright. If you have been convinced by Wright before the "proof" took place(by whatever seemingly convincing arguments or trick), it is easier to be taken off guard.
    - oneloop 10y ago
      Indeed
  - riprowan 10y ago
    If there's one thing you can fault Gavin for, it's maybe being too kind and trusting of others in a particularly hostile, dog-eat-dog tech space (Bitcoin).
- rudolf0 10y ago
  I agree, but look at what Andresen said: https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/4hfyyo/gavin_can_you_please_detail_all_parts_of_the/d2plygg https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/4hfyyo/gavin_can_you_p... >Craig signed a message that I chose ("Gavin's favorite number is eleven. CSW" if I recall correctly) using the private key from block number 1. >That signature was copied on to a clean usb stick I brought with me to London, and then validated on a brand-new laptop with a freshly downloaded copy of electrum. >I was not allowed to keep the message or laptop (fear it would leak before Official Announcement). It's quite suspect he wouldn't be allowed to keep the message, and that no public message and signature has been produced. But assuming he's not lying, this doesn't really seem like a scenario where he could be easily tricked.
lottin 10y ago
From TFA: You'll have to visually compare this against Wright's screenshots, but it matches. If this sounds fishy to you, well, you're right. Also fishy: making people hand-edit hex values to verify trivial parts of this evidence chain. To say that this is "fishy" is an understatement. To me it's proof enough that the man is a total fraud.
jere 10y ago
>Part of that time was spent on a careful cryptographic verification of messages signed with keys that only Satoshi should possess. But even before I witnessed the keys signed and then verified on a clean computer that could not have been tampered with, I was reasonably certain I was sitting next to the Father of Bitcoin. http://gavinandresen.ninja/satoshi http://gavinandresen.ninja/satoshi Probably a bit of confirmation bias there.
seren 10y ago
This is hard to believe but Craig Wright might actually have posted the hack in his blog announcement... From one of the reply to Gavinandressen: https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/4hfyyo/gavin_can_you_please_detail_all_parts_of_the/d2poy67 https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/4hfyyo/gavin_can_you_p...
- StavrosK 10y ago
  Why would you be so obvious as to misspell "signature", rather than replace one of the letters with an identical-looking high-Unicode alternative?
  - seren 10y ago
    If this is a honest mistake, at the very least, it shows some lack of professionalism or proof reading. And it should not be the code that have been used, because it should not work. Kinda weird when you are supposed to give step by step instructions.
  - scott_s 10y ago
    Because you didn't know such things existed? I'm inclined to think this whole thing is a con, but I'm unsure if bash variable is a part of it, or just a mistake. But if it is a con, then we can't assume the person perpetrating it has the same level of technical mastery as we do.
    - StavrosK 10y ago
      Given how easy it would be to prove that it's not a con, I'm surprised how anyone is buying any of this, really. All Wright has to do is sign today's headlines with the genesis key and publish the signature, and that's it. No other speculation or "convincing of a core developer" needed.
dantiberian 10y ago
I really don't understand how these media outlets were fooled for so long when it took Redditors familiar with the subject ~6 hours to see right through it.

118 points by joeyspn 10y ago

I am enjoying the spectacle and irony of the crypto-currency media being "hacked" by someone who barely understands the basics of the very thing that underpins the system itself. One of the very few things that Bitcoin meaningfully has accomplished as an ecosystem is a world-readable repository of reasonably-well-attested-to-keys. Yeah no shit.

empath75 10y ago
I don't think anyone in the 'crypto-currency media' believes that this guy is Satoshi. The mainstream media that covers bitcoin seems to have been conned, though.
- Karunamon 10y ago
  These variations on a "we found Satoshi for reals this time" story seems to be on a ~6 month cycle. It happens, it gets debunked, it fades, it happens again.
  - Bartweiss 10y ago
    It's striking that they got burned by the same guy again though. Craig Wright came through as a fake Satoshi a bit over a year ago: http://hackingdistributed.com/2015/12/10/how-to-spot-satoshi/ http://hackingdistributed.com/2015/12/10/how-to-spot-satoshi...
ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
lol +1 on the irony. ecosystem-wise I think it's a bit too harsh :) Bitcoin's p2p network does work (not without hiccups of course) - if I wanted to I could send btc to someone in say Brazil or Malaysia and it WILL work after all. And in some respects it will work smoother than trying to send fiat there.
- daveguy 10y ago
  You can use western union to send money all around the world without anyone having any accounts on a blockchain or any accounts in an exchange necessary to turn bitcoin into fiat that can actually use in the destination country. I would say it is cheaper to send bitcoin, and maybe smoother for two regular users of bitcoin (and who shop online at bitcoin accepting businesses). However, that description applying to any two people is extraordinarily rare. It is still definitely smoother, but more expensive, to send fiat. The infrastructure is already in place.
  - ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
    I'm not saying bitcoins ecosystem is more evolved than fiat, merely pointing out that it does exist beyond the 'key database' factor as it does allow transfer of value between counterparties around the world. Whether the actual experience of that transfer is 'better' than fiat (WU, Swift, etc) is a different story and yes that would depend on the parties involved.
  - aianus 10y ago
    > I would say it is cheaper to send bitcoin, and maybe smoother for two regular users of bitcoin (and who shop online at bitcoin accepting businesses). In many places it's easier to sign up for a Bitcoin exchange from your couch than to drive to Western Union. I can personally vouch for the US, Canada, and Thailand, where I've had experience with it.

zenon 10y ago

The non-experts did not ask to see things which would be hard for non-Satoshi to provide -- they were at the mercy of the charlatan (paging James Randi, James Randi to the courtesy phone please). I'm mystified as to how this got past Andresen, though. I think Randi would be the first to tell us that the skills required to detect a good conman are quite different from skills in technical fields. http://www.livescience.com/9066-magician-scientists-assume-infallibility.html http://www.livescience.com/9066-magician-scientists-assume-i... I bet Andresen simply got tricked, and I think he should not feel to ashamed about it (although he will) -- most of us would have fallen for it.

oneloop 10y ago
Nope. There is no way I would've bought into that "you can't keep the evidence" bullshit, I don't care if you're the Pope. I think Gavin maybe got a little starry eyed thinking he was talking to the bitcoin god himself and let his guard down. What a shame.
- seren 10y ago
  I read it as a successful social engineering by Wright. If you have been convinced by Wright before the "proof" took place(by whatever seemingly convincing arguments or trick), it is easier to be taken off guard.
  - oneloop 10y ago
    Indeed
- riprowan 10y ago
  If there's one thing you can fault Gavin for, it's maybe being too kind and trusting of others in a particularly hostile, dog-eat-dog tech space (Bitcoin).
rudolf0 10y ago
I agree, but look at what Andresen said: https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/4hfyyo/gavin_can_you_please_detail_all_parts_of_the/d2plygg https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/4hfyyo/gavin_can_you_p... >Craig signed a message that I chose ("Gavin's favorite number is eleven. CSW" if I recall correctly) using the private key from block number 1. >That signature was copied on to a clean usb stick I brought with me to London, and then validated on a brand-new laptop with a freshly downloaded copy of electrum. >I was not allowed to keep the message or laptop (fear it would leak before Official Announcement). It's quite suspect he wouldn't be allowed to keep the message, and that no public message and signature has been produced. But assuming he's not lying, this doesn't really seem like a scenario where he could be easily tricked.

lottin 10y ago

From TFA: You'll have to visually compare this against Wright's screenshots, but it matches. If this sounds fishy to you, well, you're right. Also fishy: making people hand-edit hex values to verify trivial parts of this evidence chain. To say that this is "fishy" is an understatement. To me it's proof enough that the man is a total fraud.

jere 10y ago

>Part of that time was spent on a careful cryptographic verification of messages signed with keys that only Satoshi should possess. But even before I witnessed the keys signed and then verified on a clean computer that could not have been tampered with, I was reasonably certain I was sitting next to the Father of Bitcoin. http://gavinandresen.ninja/satoshi http://gavinandresen.ninja/satoshi Probably a bit of confirmation bias there.

seren 10y ago

This is hard to believe but Craig Wright might actually have posted the hack in his blog announcement... From one of the reply to Gavinandressen: https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/4hfyyo/gavin_can_you_please_detail_all_parts_of_the/d2poy67 https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/4hfyyo/gavin_can_you_p...

StavrosK 10y ago
Why would you be so obvious as to misspell "signature", rather than replace one of the letters with an identical-looking high-Unicode alternative?
- seren 10y ago
  If this is a honest mistake, at the very least, it shows some lack of professionalism or proof reading. And it should not be the code that have been used, because it should not work. Kinda weird when you are supposed to give step by step instructions.
- scott_s 10y ago
  Because you didn't know such things existed? I'm inclined to think this whole thing is a con, but I'm unsure if bash variable is a part of it, or just a mistake. But if it is a con, then we can't assume the person perpetrating it has the same level of technical mastery as we do.
  - StavrosK 10y ago
    Given how easy it would be to prove that it's not a con, I'm surprised how anyone is buying any of this, really. All Wright has to do is sign today's headlines with the genesis key and publish the signature, and that's it. No other speculation or "convincing of a core developer" needed.

dantiberian 10y ago

I really don't understand how these media outlets were fooled for so long when it took Redditors familiar with the subject ~6 hours to see right through it.