8 ms·

It seems like Wright is attracting more and more (overly credulous) journalists to perform fawning bio pieces on him in lieu of the only evidence that will ever

by Aqueous 10y ago

It seems like Wright is attracting more and more (overly credulous) journalists to perform fawning bio pieces on him in lieu of the only evidence that will ever actually conclusively convince anyone. This evidence, unlike the several hundred thousand extraneous words here, also happens to be something that is extraordinarily simple to provide: cryptographically sign a message that we can all verify. He has not provided this single, legitimate proof to the public and worse yet he has provided fake proof that shows a deliberate willingness to deceive. Moreover, he seems to have demonstrated a willingness to exploit journalists' and the general public's lack of understanding about cryptography. This seems diametrically opposed to the spirit of the technology he allegedly gifted to the world - Bitcoin.

airesQ 10y ago
I'm so saddened by this. The proof would be so simple. They are so clearly being conned. The LRB? Really? I cannot even. Bitcoin is a technical marvel in a swamp of human fallibility.
- cbsmith 10y ago
  > Bitcoin is a technical marvel in a swamp of human fallibility. I'm going to use that quote.
  - airesQ 10y ago
    Be sure to attribute it to "some random person on the internet".
- vithlani 10y ago
  I am waiting for my copy to land in the mail before reading this. You are correct, LRB is generally not easily fooled into writing puff pieces; O'Hagen is a very sharp writer (check out his masterly analysis of Assange who is much more capable of blowing smoke than Wright). My prediction is that this will be looked upon more as a an essay about digital con men, and this is why M-K Willmers allowed it to be published. FWIW, I say Neal Stephenson is Satoshi :)
  - cookiecaper 10y ago
    Hey, it appears you're shadowbanned. I vouched for this comment because I don't see how it violates any rules, and it seems on-topic and useful. I checked your history and every comment you've made over the last several months (at least) is marked dead, which means only people who've enabled the "showdead" option in their profile can read them. It's a shame as most of the ones I saw look fine.
    - vithlani 10y ago
      Thank you.
  - selimthegrim 10y ago
    Seymour Hersh has been doing a pretty good snow job on them lately on the Bin Laden thing, (Syria was a little more credible)
    - vithlani 10y ago
      Snow job? As in.... obfuscating? I happen to agree with all the recent LRB Hersh pieces on Osama and Syria.
marcoperaza 10y ago
The total disregard that journalists have shown for facts in this saga should be a red flag that they're equally full of it when it comes to reporting on things that we aren't so knowledgeable about.
- acqq 10y ago
  "They literally know nothing" https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2016/05/05/white-house-official-on-some-reporters-overseas-expertise-they-literally-know-nothing/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2016/05/... And for anybody having doubts about Wright: https://dankaminsky.com/2016/05/03/the-cryptographically-provable-con-man/ https://dankaminsky.com/2016/05/03/the-cryptographically-pro... https://www.nikcub.com/posts/craig-wright-is-not-satoshi-nakamoto/ https://www.nikcub.com/posts/craig-wright-is-not-satoshi-nak...
- api 10y ago
  I lost all faith in the media a long time ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Ridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Ridge I remember watching this happen as a teenager via two sources of information: BBSes and the early Internet, and the mainstream media. The mainstream media told me Weaver was a child abusing neo-Nazi cult leader who was stockpiling weapons to conduct terrorist attacks or overthrow the government or something. The non-mainstream media told me he was a reclusive survivalist eccentric that may or may not have harbored some white supremacist beliefs (goofy or offensive beliefs are not a crime) who was being taken down dramatically in a frantic attempt by said government officials to cover their rear ends for a botched entrapment attempt. History proved the former to be all lies and the latter to be largely the truth. I never really trusted the news again. Stuff like this just proves my teenaged loss of faith was right. Newspapers and TV media are just "some guy's blog." That is not to say I trust the "alt" media either. It's media too and over time I've seen it become more and more full of crap as money has come into the equation. Now it seems like mostly a sales channel for dodgy "natural" pharmaceuticals and populist political propaganda. As Mulder would say: "trust no one." :)
  - the_watcher 10y ago
T-A 10y ago
This is not a fawning bio piece. If it's too long (it IS very long), skip to Coda, and start reading at "Do you want to know what I think?". BTW, the author's hypothesis is not half bad. In order to behave the way he did, Wright must have been sure the real Satoshis would not show up and ruin the show. How could he be so sure? Knowing that they are dead would be a pretty good way.
- jgrahamc 10y ago
  But there would be no need for Satoshi to turn up. Since Wright isn't Satoshi, then Satoshi knows that Wright can't provide cryptographic proof. Since Satoshi likes his anonymity he can safely sit and let Wright claim to be Satoshi with no downside.
  - T-A 10y ago
    That's what Satoshi might have been thinking, if he were alive. I am pointing to what Wright must have been thinking.
    - alphapapa 10y ago
      What if he's been hired to act out this part in order to draw out the real Satoshi?
      - wallace_f 10y ago
        Out of ignorance, I struggle to see all of the reasoning for such extreme desire of anonymity that the real Satoshi possesses?
        alphapapa 10y ago
        That would depend entirely on who or what "Satoshi" actually is. If it's an altruistic individual, there are many possible reasons. If it's a group or organization, there are many others. And whoever or whatever "Satoshi" is, there are a variety of reasons that a variety of people and organizations would like to know his identity. There may also be a variety of reasons that other, non-Satoshi entities would like it to remain a secret, depending on what the real story is. I guess most of us will never know.
Falcon9 10y ago
This reads like a comment from someone who didn't read the article. To call this piece fawning? And the author provides plenty of reasons for why Wright might not want to sign a message even if he could, and they're interesting and layered reasons that require going into detail into the warped psychology of a man who appears just crazy enough to be Satoshi and refuse to prove it, and just crazy enough to be willing to pull off an incredible elaborate hoax even knowing that he won't get away with it in the end. Granted, it's a LOT of reading - over 35,000 words. But why is the top comment on HN (at time of this comment) on an article of this length and breadth one that doesn't seem to have anything to do with the article's actual specific content? The point of the piece isn't that herein lies the truth -- this is simply the author's experiences (months of them!) laid bare. You could sum it up in this quote from the piece: "The reason poets dislike each other's books is because they seem wrong, false – a kind of lie. 'If you were telling the truth you would be writing the same poems as me.'"
- deleted 10y ago
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- Aqueous 10y ago
  Fair enough - I guess I was tired of being taken for a ride like every other time I've read an article about this obvious con artist. In this case, it still felt like I was being taken for a ride several thousand words into this absurdly long article, so I quit reading. It still seems to me that unless an article about a Satoshi candidate starts with a valid cryptographic signature from one of Satoshi's original keys, it very simply isn't worth reading.
- kneel 10y ago
  >the author provides plenty of reasons for why Wright might not want to sign a message even if he could, and they're interesting and layered reasons that require going into detail into the warped psychology of a man who appears just crazy enough to be Satoshi and refuse to prove it The author provides no believable reason why the scammer won't prove it. They're not interesting/layered reasons. He simply regurgitates the delusions of the scammer.
xivzgrev 10y ago
Can anyone rebuff the argument in the article that if he did do the single legitimate proof, hackers could steal his bitcoins? Also no word given that if he did prove himself what legal ramifications that opens himself up to with various governments
- kale 10y ago
  I think it's referring to the fact that you pay to a hash of a public key, but once you do a singe transaction, the public key becomes known. I'm not sure how that's a vulnerability, since the leftover balance is paid to a new address, and I was under the impression that early bicoins were paid to public address, and pay-to-hash-of-public-address was added later. I'd love for someone to enlighten this. (I got out of bitcoin when TradeHill was still running).

by Aqueous 10y ago

airesQ 10y ago

I'm so saddened by this. The proof would be so simple. They are so clearly being conned. The LRB? Really? I cannot even. Bitcoin is a technical marvel in a swamp of human fallibility.

cbsmith 10y ago
> Bitcoin is a technical marvel in a swamp of human fallibility. I'm going to use that quote.
- airesQ 10y ago
  Be sure to attribute it to "some random person on the internet".
vithlani 10y ago
I am waiting for my copy to land in the mail before reading this. You are correct, LRB is generally not easily fooled into writing puff pieces; O'Hagen is a very sharp writer (check out his masterly analysis of Assange who is much more capable of blowing smoke than Wright). My prediction is that this will be looked upon more as a an essay about digital con men, and this is why M-K Willmers allowed it to be published. FWIW, I say Neal Stephenson is Satoshi :)
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  Hey, it appears you're shadowbanned. I vouched for this comment because I don't see how it violates any rules, and it seems on-topic and useful. I checked your history and every comment you've made over the last several months (at least) is marked dead, which means only people who've enabled the "showdead" option in their profile can read them. It's a shame as most of the ones I saw look fine.
  - vithlani 10y ago
    Thank you.
- selimthegrim 10y ago
  Seymour Hersh has been doing a pretty good snow job on them lately on the Bin Laden thing, (Syria was a little more credible)
  - vithlani 10y ago
    Snow job? As in.... obfuscating? I happen to agree with all the recent LRB Hersh pieces on Osama and Syria.

marcoperaza 10y ago

The total disregard that journalists have shown for facts in this saga should be a red flag that they're equally full of it when it comes to reporting on things that we aren't so knowledgeable about.

acqq 10y ago
"They literally know nothing" https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2016/05/05/white-house-official-on-some-reporters-overseas-expertise-they-literally-know-nothing/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2016/05/... And for anybody having doubts about Wright: https://dankaminsky.com/2016/05/03/the-cryptographically-provable-con-man/ https://dankaminsky.com/2016/05/03/the-cryptographically-pro... https://www.nikcub.com/posts/craig-wright-is-not-satoshi-nakamoto/ https://www.nikcub.com/posts/craig-wright-is-not-satoshi-nak...
api 10y ago
I lost all faith in the media a long time ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Ridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Ridge I remember watching this happen as a teenager via two sources of information: BBSes and the early Internet, and the mainstream media. The mainstream media told me Weaver was a child abusing neo-Nazi cult leader who was stockpiling weapons to conduct terrorist attacks or overthrow the government or something. The non-mainstream media told me he was a reclusive survivalist eccentric that may or may not have harbored some white supremacist beliefs (goofy or offensive beliefs are not a crime) who was being taken down dramatically in a frantic attempt by said government officials to cover their rear ends for a botched entrapment attempt. History proved the former to be all lies and the latter to be largely the truth. I never really trusted the news again. Stuff like this just proves my teenaged loss of faith was right. Newspapers and TV media are just "some guy's blog." That is not to say I trust the "alt" media either. It's media too and over time I've seen it become more and more full of crap as money has come into the equation. Now it seems like mostly a sales channel for dodgy "natural" pharmaceuticals and populist political propaganda. As Mulder would say: "trust no one." :)
- the_watcher 10y ago

T-A 10y ago

This is not a fawning bio piece. If it's too long (it IS very long), skip to Coda, and start reading at "Do you want to know what I think?". BTW, the author's hypothesis is not half bad. In order to behave the way he did, Wright must have been sure the real Satoshis would not show up and ruin the show. How could he be so sure? Knowing that they are dead would be a pretty good way.

jgrahamc 10y ago
But there would be no need for Satoshi to turn up. Since Wright isn't Satoshi, then Satoshi knows that Wright can't provide cryptographic proof. Since Satoshi likes his anonymity he can safely sit and let Wright claim to be Satoshi with no downside.
- T-A 10y ago
  That's what Satoshi might have been thinking, if he were alive. I am pointing to what Wright must have been thinking.
  - alphapapa 10y ago
    What if he's been hired to act out this part in order to draw out the real Satoshi?
    - wallace_f 10y ago
      Out of ignorance, I struggle to see all of the reasoning for such extreme desire of anonymity that the real Satoshi possesses?
      - alphapapa 10y ago
        That would depend entirely on who or what "Satoshi" actually is. If it's an altruistic individual, there are many possible reasons. If it's a group or organization, there are many others. And whoever or whatever "Satoshi" is, there are a variety of reasons that a variety of people and organizations would like to know his identity. There may also be a variety of reasons that other, non-Satoshi entities would like it to remain a secret, depending on what the real story is. I guess most of us will never know.

Falcon9 10y ago

This reads like a comment from someone who didn't read the article. To call this piece fawning? And the author provides plenty of reasons for why Wright might not want to sign a message even if he could, and they're interesting and layered reasons that require going into detail into the warped psychology of a man who appears just crazy enough to be Satoshi and refuse to prove it, and just crazy enough to be willing to pull off an incredible elaborate hoax even knowing that he won't get away with it in the end. Granted, it's a LOT of reading - over 35,000 words. But why is the top comment on HN (at time of this comment) on an article of this length and breadth one that doesn't seem to have anything to do with the article's actual specific content? The point of the piece isn't that herein lies the truth -- this is simply the author's experiences (months of them!) laid bare. You could sum it up in this quote from the piece: "The reason poets dislike each other's books is because they seem wrong, false – a kind of lie. 'If you were telling the truth you would be writing the same poems as me.'"

deleted 10y ago
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deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Aqueous 10y ago
Fair enough - I guess I was tired of being taken for a ride like every other time I've read an article about this obvious con artist. In this case, it still felt like I was being taken for a ride several thousand words into this absurdly long article, so I quit reading. It still seems to me that unless an article about a Satoshi candidate starts with a valid cryptographic signature from one of Satoshi's original keys, it very simply isn't worth reading.
kneel 10y ago
>the author provides plenty of reasons for why Wright might not want to sign a message even if he could, and they're interesting and layered reasons that require going into detail into the warped psychology of a man who appears just crazy enough to be Satoshi and refuse to prove it The author provides no believable reason why the scammer won't prove it. They're not interesting/layered reasons. He simply regurgitates the delusions of the scammer.

xivzgrev 10y ago

Can anyone rebuff the argument in the article that if he did do the single legitimate proof, hackers could steal his bitcoins? Also no word given that if he did prove himself what legal ramifications that opens himself up to with various governments

kale 10y ago
I think it's referring to the fact that you pay to a hash of a public key, but once you do a singe transaction, the public key becomes known. I'm not sure how that's a vulnerability, since the leftover balance is paid to a new address, and I was under the impression that early bicoins were paid to public address, and pay-to-hash-of-public-address was added later. I'd love for someone to enlighten this. (I got out of bitcoin when TradeHill was still running).