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>Furthermore, Satoshi Nakamoto has a known PGP public key, therefore it is cryptographically possible for someone to verify themselves to be Satoshi Nakamoto.
by upofadown 6y ago
>Furthermore, Satoshi Nakamoto has a known PGP public key, therefore it is cryptographically possible for someone to verify themselves to be Satoshi Nakamoto.
I find cryptographic signatures fascinating in that they didn't exist 50 years ago. They are a completely new discovery. The long term implications are not yet clear.
They are fundamentally different from the paper and ink signatures they are named after in that they can give an entirely anonymous person a consistent voice over a long period of time. This is a great example of that.
- IncRnd 6y ago> They are fundamentally different from the paper and ink signatures they are named after in that they can give an entirely anonymous person a consistent voice over a long period of time. The fundamental difference is the medium not the properties. People can sign papers with false signatures and be erroneously identified as the actual party. That is why there are notaries, to authenticate the identity of the signer, subject to trust in third party documentation. For example, people steal houses by signing false quit-claim deeds. Signatures on paper do not have any positives properties over cryptographic signatures.
- aaron695 6y ago> I find cryptographic signatures fascinating in that they didn't exist 50 years ago. Very new, I think you could even say almost all of computer science pre-dates them.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 6y agoIn 1655 an astronomer discovered Saturn's moon Titan. He wasn't sure of his observation but wanted to preserve his priority. So he scrambled text of his discovery in an order only he knew (a private key) and published the resulting gibberish. In this way he made it possible to verify himself later as an author of the discovery. Maybe not a very strong encryption by today's standards, but good enough for the time.