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I've been asked this a lot, especially since I also research and teach cryptocurrency technology [1]. I haven't personally tried to do that. Satoshi clearly wis

I've been asked this a lot, especially since I also research and teach cryptocurrency technology [1]. I haven't personally tried to do that. Satoshi clearly wished to maintain their pseudonymity, and I'd rather respect that. I also think Satoshi's pseudonymity is a powerful statement about decentralized cryptocurrencies, namely that their viability rests on their technical merits, with no need to know or trust their creators. That said, I don't blame people for trying to uncover Satoshi's identity, and it's possible that the techniques in our paper can help. The big caveat, of course, is access to a corpus that includes Satoshi's code labeled with their true identity. [1] http://randomwalker.info/bitcoin/ http://randomwalker.info/bitcoin/

carussell 9y ago
In response to your previous comment, my impression is that this may have come up due to a recent Medium article that was killed on HN.[1] In response to your last remarks, the gist of the claim in the Medium article is that state agencies already know Satoshi's identity, and the method used was stylometric analysis of his prose (not code) cross-referenced with personal communications that NSA is purported to have access to. That's the claim, at least. 1. http://hn.0x2237.club/post/15116222 http://hn.0x2237.club/post/15116222
- hdhzy 9y ago
  I've read the article and although entertaining it doesn't contain any substantial information nor sources. So all in all it was an interesting anecdote. By the way the hacker news transparency looks really cool!
hdhzy 9y ago
> Satoshi clearly wished to maintain their pseudonymity, and I'd rather respect that. Actually that was just a joke. I don't need their identity but sometimes I wish there was a way of discussing some design decisions that went into Bitcoin (I did a little bit of technical analysis of Bitcoin and was involved in electronic crypto-based asset projects before Bitcoin was conceived). Unfortunately that would make it harder for Satoshi or stay anonymous.
SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
Tangent, but can your method be extended to indicate traits of a coder? Eg, based on this sample, the coder is like American, with experience at X corps, went to school at Y, etc.
- rawnlq 9y ago
  Even more tangent, this reminds me of a manga where there was a character who could guess your sexual personality based on your code (read right to left): http://imgur.com/a/FJPMS http://imgur.com/a/FJPMS
  - SerLava 9y ago
    Porn intros keep getting weirder.
- michaelmior 9y ago
  Not the author, but I don't see why not. I'm sure you could apply some machine learning techniques that combine the stylometric features extracted with demographic information.
AlyssaRowan 9y ago
Thank you for respecting that. I believe you understand. I have to say I'm completely unsurprised at your follow-up result - I've always held that view myself. Code style isn't just about variable names and brace placement, it's also about the abstract design and how you choose to reduce the problem you want to solve to the method that you want to solve it with - and the choices made in that process carry through all the way to the object code, data structures, file formats and beyond. That stylometry may be possible to some degree from object code follows naturally from that viewpoint. A little romantic as that might be, I've always felt that reverse-engineering can sometimes seem like, via the medium of what they've created, being a few steps removed from reading someone else's thoughts.
theWatcher37 9y ago
Here's a twist: By making what you made, you've made it possible for LEA to categorize and fingerprint malware/open source anonymous software etc etc. This will go unnoticed for many years, until the first big player gets busted by it (publically, because many more were busted before in secret). Once that happens, it will become the standard practice to fuzz your source code with random methods to obscure the author. In a sense, someone will have to make something that turns "regular" code into unreadable gibberish before compiling... because of what you wrote
- thehardsphere 9y ago
  You're far too accusatory toward the author here. Various LEA and other parties not associated with law enforcement have vested interests in pursuing this technology anyway. If it was possible, one of them was going to find it. It's very possible that similar discoveries were already made but kept secret. At least now the rest of the world knows this is possible and can mount a defense if they feel it is necessary.

carussell 9y ago

In response to your previous comment, my impression is that this may have come up due to a recent Medium article that was killed on HN.[1] In response to your last remarks, the gist of the claim in the Medium article is that state agencies already know Satoshi's identity, and the method used was stylometric analysis of his prose (not code) cross-referenced with personal communications that NSA is purported to have access to. That's the claim, at least. 1. http://hn.0x2237.club/post/15116222 http://hn.0x2237.club/post/15116222

hdhzy 9y ago
I've read the article and although entertaining it doesn't contain any substantial information nor sources. So all in all it was an interesting anecdote. By the way the hacker news transparency looks really cool!

hdhzy 9y ago

> Satoshi clearly wished to maintain their pseudonymity, and I'd rather respect that. Actually that was just a joke. I don't need their identity but sometimes I wish there was a way of discussing some design decisions that went into Bitcoin (I did a little bit of technical analysis of Bitcoin and was involved in electronic crypto-based asset projects before Bitcoin was conceived). Unfortunately that would make it harder for Satoshi or stay anonymous.

SomeStupidPoint 9y ago

Tangent, but can your method be extended to indicate traits of a coder? Eg, based on this sample, the coder is like American, with experience at X corps, went to school at Y, etc.

rawnlq 9y ago
Even more tangent, this reminds me of a manga where there was a character who could guess your sexual personality based on your code (read right to left): http://imgur.com/a/FJPMS http://imgur.com/a/FJPMS
- SerLava 9y ago
  Porn intros keep getting weirder.
michaelmior 9y ago
Not the author, but I don't see why not. I'm sure you could apply some machine learning techniques that combine the stylometric features extracted with demographic information.

AlyssaRowan 9y ago

Thank you for respecting that. I believe you understand. I have to say I'm completely unsurprised at your follow-up result - I've always held that view myself. Code style isn't just about variable names and brace placement, it's also about the abstract design and how you choose to reduce the problem you want to solve to the method that you want to solve it with - and the choices made in that process carry through all the way to the object code, data structures, file formats and beyond. That stylometry may be possible to some degree from object code follows naturally from that viewpoint. A little romantic as that might be, I've always felt that reverse-engineering can sometimes seem like, via the medium of what they've created, being a few steps removed from reading someone else's thoughts.

theWatcher37 9y ago

Here's a twist: By making what you made, you've made it possible for LEA to categorize and fingerprint malware/open source anonymous software etc etc. This will go unnoticed for many years, until the first big player gets busted by it (publically, because many more were busted before in secret). Once that happens, it will become the standard practice to fuzz your source code with random methods to obscure the author. In a sense, someone will have to make something that turns "regular" code into unreadable gibberish before compiling... because of what you wrote

thehardsphere 9y ago
You're far too accusatory toward the author here. Various LEA and other parties not associated with law enforcement have vested interests in pursuing this technology anyway. If it was possible, one of them was going to find it. It's very possible that similar discoveries were already made but kept secret. At least now the rest of the world knows this is possible and can mount a defense if they feel it is necessary.