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Craig Wright wins ‘only nominal damages’ of £1 in Bitcoin libel case

22 points by philk10 4y ago

cmeacham98 4y ago
Why is this even a debate? Aren't there wallets known to belong to Satoshi Nakamoto - and thus the control of these wallets would be a near 100% effective way to test if someone is him/her?
- misnome 4y ago
  “I lost the keys, but trust me I’m him” Although _faking_ access to the keys should probably be automatically disqualifying.
  - mrkramer 4y ago
    Imagine you buy a car and you don't sign ownership papers. I steal the key of your car and I lock the car. Now I can demand "Prove me that the car is your by unlocking the car". How will you prove it? Certainly not by unlocking the car but by providing some circumstantial evidence in the absence of direct evidence.
    - cmeacham98 4y ago
      The problem with this analogy is that unlike a physical car with physical keys, someone stealing the keys doesn't deprive Wright of them. There is no way to "lock the car". Wright, assuming he has access to the keys, could sign a message proving that fact - no matter how many other people also have access to the keys. It's more like Wright is saying "someone copied my car key, and then after that, I also lost it", which is a lot less believable. Especially when Wright has previously provided intentionally fake proof that he controlled these keys.
      - mrkramer 4y ago
        I meant stolen/lost. Ofc physical and digital keys are not the same but Satoshi's wallet is probably multisig wallet meaning in order to move bitcoins multiple keys need to be signed and my assumption is Satoshi does not have access to all the keys required for moving his coins. But honestly I think there will never be direct evidence of somebody being Satoshi or in another words circumstantial evidence needs to be presented. Craig said he will share his bank statement of him buying bitcoin.org domain but I'm still waiting for it. After all Craig seems like a perfect candidate for Satoshi; Craig uses British English like Satoshi used because Craig is an Australian, he is fluent in C and C++(Bitcoin was written in C++ and math code inside Bitcoin whitepaper was written in C), he used to teach C++ programming in an Australian university(all C++ programmers said to me that Bitcoin's codebase is amateur like it was written by some academic who never wrote code for practical use) this fits Craig and his professor like demeanour . And last but not least Craig spent his professional career researching computer security and computer networks again skills which were required in order for someone to design and derive Bitcoin.
        cmeacham98 4y ago
        Multi-sig wallets weren't invented until 3-4 years after the initial release of bitcoin (I can't pin down an exact date, but I believe it was some time in 2012). Craig claims (or at least, has previously claimed) that he controls an address that is well-known to belong to Satoshi[0]. Turns out, the proof he provided is fake[1]. In my opinion, when you say "I have hard proof, here it is" and it turns out that proof is faked we can throw all the circumstantial evidence out the window. As you seem to believe him (at least more than you doubt), I'd be interested in your thoughts on why Craig would act this way if he actually was Satoshi. 0: https://web.archive.org/web/20160502072011/http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean-paul-sartre-signing-significance/ https://web.archive.org/web/20160502072011/http://www.drcrai... 1: https://github.com/patio11/wrightverification https://github.com/patio11/wrightverification
- mrkramer 4y ago
  Imagine you live in an impenetrable house which when locked can only be accessed by a key. Now imagine you go outside the house, you lock the house and you lose the key which unlocks the house. This scenario might happen to Satoshi and there might be multiple holders and keys required to access Satoshi's wallet not only one.
  - cmeacham98 4y ago
    One of Satoshi's wallets has been recently active, proving that someone holds the keys: https://medium.com/crypto-universe/satoshi-nakamoto-wallet-with-24m-suddenly-actives-after-10-5-years-bfb128b3142a https://medium.com/crypto-universe/satoshi-nakamoto-wallet-w...
    - mrkramer 4y ago
      That was some early miner's coins not Satoshi's although Satoshi was also an early miner.
rasz 4y ago
So much WTF in this case. >“Because he [Wright] advanced a deliberately false case and put forward deliberately false evidence until days before trial, he will recover only nominal damages,” wrote Justice Chamberlain. Judge: You lied repeatedly to this court, you win. Then there is this: > The issue of Nakamoto’s identity was not covered by the judge’s ruling because McCormack had earlier abandoned a defence of truth in his case why the hell?
- cafard 4y ago
  Under English law, truth is not a defense against a complaint of libel. This is why over the years a lot of offended parties have chosen to sue in England rather than the US. (In case it's not clear from this, I don't know the rules of libel in the rest of the UK; but it seems to me that the venue shoppers have ended up in London.)

22 points by philk10 4y ago

Why is this even a debate? Aren't there wallets known to belong to Satoshi Nakamoto - and thus the control of these wallets would be a near 100% effective way to test if someone is him/her?

misnome 4y ago
“I lost the keys, but trust me I’m him” Although _faking_ access to the keys should probably be automatically disqualifying.
- mrkramer 4y ago
  Imagine you buy a car and you don't sign ownership papers. I steal the key of your car and I lock the car. Now I can demand "Prove me that the car is your by unlocking the car". How will you prove it? Certainly not by unlocking the car but by providing some circumstantial evidence in the absence of direct evidence.
  - cmeacham98 4y ago
    The problem with this analogy is that unlike a physical car with physical keys, someone stealing the keys doesn't deprive Wright of them. There is no way to "lock the car". Wright, assuming he has access to the keys, could sign a message proving that fact - no matter how many other people also have access to the keys. It's more like Wright is saying "someone copied my car key, and then after that, I also lost it", which is a lot less believable. Especially when Wright has previously provided intentionally fake proof that he controlled these keys.
    - mrkramer 4y ago
      I meant stolen/lost. Ofc physical and digital keys are not the same but Satoshi's wallet is probably multisig wallet meaning in order to move bitcoins multiple keys need to be signed and my assumption is Satoshi does not have access to all the keys required for moving his coins. But honestly I think there will never be direct evidence of somebody being Satoshi or in another words circumstantial evidence needs to be presented. Craig said he will share his bank statement of him buying bitcoin.org domain but I'm still waiting for it. After all Craig seems like a perfect candidate for Satoshi; Craig uses British English like Satoshi used because Craig is an Australian, he is fluent in C and C++(Bitcoin was written in C++ and math code inside Bitcoin whitepaper was written in C), he used to teach C++ programming in an Australian university(all C++ programmers said to me that Bitcoin's codebase is amateur like it was written by some academic who never wrote code for practical use) this fits Craig and his professor like demeanour . And last but not least Craig spent his professional career researching computer security and computer networks again skills which were required in order for someone to design and derive Bitcoin.
      - cmeacham98 4y ago
        Multi-sig wallets weren't invented until 3-4 years after the initial release of bitcoin (I can't pin down an exact date, but I believe it was some time in 2012). Craig claims (or at least, has previously claimed) that he controls an address that is well-known to belong to Satoshi[0]. Turns out, the proof he provided is fake[1]. In my opinion, when you say "I have hard proof, here it is" and it turns out that proof is faked we can throw all the circumstantial evidence out the window. As you seem to believe him (at least more than you doubt), I'd be interested in your thoughts on why Craig would act this way if he actually was Satoshi. 0: https://web.archive.org/web/20160502072011/http://www.drcraigwright.net/jean-paul-sartre-signing-significance/ https://web.archive.org/web/20160502072011/http://www.drcrai... 1: https://github.com/patio11/wrightverification https://github.com/patio11/wrightverification
mrkramer 4y ago
Imagine you live in an impenetrable house which when locked can only be accessed by a key. Now imagine you go outside the house, you lock the house and you lose the key which unlocks the house. This scenario might happen to Satoshi and there might be multiple holders and keys required to access Satoshi's wallet not only one.
- cmeacham98 4y ago
  One of Satoshi's wallets has been recently active, proving that someone holds the keys: https://medium.com/crypto-universe/satoshi-nakamoto-wallet-with-24m-suddenly-actives-after-10-5-years-bfb128b3142a https://medium.com/crypto-universe/satoshi-nakamoto-wallet-w...
  - mrkramer 4y ago
    That was some early miner's coins not Satoshi's although Satoshi was also an early miner.

rasz 4y ago

So much WTF in this case. >“Because he [Wright] advanced a deliberately false case and put forward deliberately false evidence until days before trial, he will recover only nominal damages,” wrote Justice Chamberlain. Judge: You lied repeatedly to this court, you win. Then there is this: > The issue of Nakamoto’s identity was not covered by the judge’s ruling because McCormack had earlier abandoned a defence of truth in his case why the hell?

cafard 4y ago
Under English law, truth is not a defense against a complaint of libel. This is why over the years a lot of offended parties have chosen to sue in England rather than the US. (In case it's not clear from this, I don't know the rules of libel in the rest of the UK; but it seems to me that the venue shoppers have ended up in London.)