8 ms·

Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund is fighting for the future of open source software

59 points by anaoum 3y ago

djschnei 3y ago
Craig Wright is such a gigantic tool. Anyone that puts an ounce of weight behind a single word of his is an even bigger tool. Sue me.
- KirillPanov 3y ago
  Indeed; this whole situation is the Jerry Springer show of open source.
nadermx 3y ago
So I am confused, if I claim some one hacked me, I basically can forum shop, and state outlandish accusations, because "I got hacked"?
- smoldesu 3y ago
  Ideally you wouldn't use it as an excuse to seize millions of USD worth of assets you don't own, but that's the gist of it yes.
  - evilspammer 3y ago
    > seize millions of USD worth of assets you don't own, but that's the gist of it yes Technically true, but he's looking for $4 b-b-billion. Some thoughts about this that interest me: - Things like the Bitcoin Cash fork & DAO fork arguably set the precedent that the developers control the funds. They never should have done that because now anybody can argue "you did it for them, why not me?" And this time it's being argued in the legal domain instead of just on heated GitHub comments. Judges aren't known for understanding the details of blockchains and can probably swing either way on this, especially if you jurisdiction shop. - The "assets you don't own" part. He can't prove he had the keys, or lost the keys. But he just needs to present a compelling argument, not have an argument beyond a shadow of a doubt. The fact that the real Satoshi is unlikely to appear to defend themself makes it easier for Wright to argue Wright had the keys at some point, even if he wasn't the first or last owner. - Combining these points: If you have established you will change the blockchain through a compelling argument; and if _nobody_ presents the keys; but if you have the best compelling argument _without_ the keys, then the coins probably belong to you. - The big problems that lead to this situation were opening the Pandora's box of blockchain forks; & the tying of physical identities to wallets through KYC (which was the death of BTC.)
    - wizzwizz4 3y ago
      > Things like the Bitcoin Cash fork & DAO fork arguably set the precedent that the developers control the funds. Perhaps it made people more aware of that fact, but this was always true. Bitcoin has never been "trustless"; that's always been a mirage. (Not even the original Bitcoin whitepaper makes that claim, and it claims some pretty dubious things!)
      - midmagico 3y ago
        Pfft. Its existence solely and only persists through the mass of nodes run by people who utilize the network. The only control that developers exert is over their own actions and willingness to write code. The overall community consensus to run that code is cooperative, *not* coercive. You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. (edit) And you clearly never read the whitepaper: "What is needed is an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party." ^^ Literally trustless right there.
        wizzwizz4 3y ago
        > The overall community consensus to run that code is cooperative, *not* coercive. We don't disagree. Many people act like the consensus algorithm is somehow magically obviating the need for a consensus among humans. One must inherently trust that, if one is to use something like Bitcoin. Functionally, as long as the consensus is to install the latest version of Bitcoin Core, Bitcoin Core's maintainers control Bitcoin. The whitepaper claims that Bitcoin removes the need for a trusted third-party to transactions. If you consider mining pools to be "a party", that claim isn't strictly true: on several occasions, one mining pool has held 51% hash power (e.g. https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/184427-one-bitcoin-group-now-controls-51-of-total-mining-power-threatening-entire-currencys-safety https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/184427-one-bitcoin-group... is a notable example; before that, pools normally kept their hashing power below 30% voluntarily), so in reality, you're trusting all sufficiently-wealthy parties not to do that. However, the whitepaper doesn't make the widely-believed stronger claim about magical trustlessness.
- sowbug 3y ago
  TL;DR: yes, but if outlandishness crosses over to deceit, you risk penalties. Anyone can file a lawsuit if they pay the filing fees. If they hire a lawyer, the lawyer must uphold the ethical standards of the bar, which carry suspension/disbarment penalties. Those standards generally include a good-faith belief in the legal merits of your client's case, adherence to all laws and court procedures, speaking up when you believe a law is about to be broken, etc. The client (you) will eventually be called as a witness, and you can go to jail if you lie on the stand or otherwise present false evidence. Unfortunately, the penalties seem to happen a lot less often than the perjury. That's partly because perjury is a criminal offense, carrying a higher burden of proof than a civil claim.
  - nullc 3y ago
    Wright's been civilly found to commit perjury-- but they just hit him with a fine and he keeps going. He was hit with a criminal contempt charge two decades ago for perjury and forgery in court, sentenced to 30 days in jail but he got it reduced to community service. But even if it hadn't been-- so what? He'd probably ultimately benefit from it by spinning it into a story about that time when he went to jail in for standing up for his beliefs in the face of a corrupt judge or whatever. The main consequence of perjury in civil court is that it tends to cause you to lose. But when you're bringing cases with no serious prospect of success for collateral purposes... it doesn't really matter if you lose, and if lying is the only way you might win... The other consequences seem calibrated for otherwise upstanding people that actually care about the consequences of their actions, not for grifters using the courts as a weapon.
    - hgsgm 3y ago
      Even worse, he wins more than he pays for his perjury, due to Britain's criminal-protecting libel laws.
- trompetenaccoun 3y ago
  Basically yes in this case, the guy has made a career out of our broken legal system.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
thesausageking 3y ago
Craig Wright, the guy who brought this lawsuit, has been suing people left and right for years. He lost a high profile case last year against a podcaster who called him a fraud. The judge ruled against Wright and found that he had "advanced a deliberately false case and put forward deliberately false evidence until days before trial".
- nullc 3y ago
  But here is what winning means for his target: In addition to years of his life tied up in this, "Craig Wright has just submitted a bill of costs for £3.379m for his costs of my dropped defences and a two day hearing in February 2021. Defences I dropped due to excess cost My whole budge to trial was £1.3m." ( https://twitter.com/PeterMcCormack/status/1652307904173580291 https://twitter.com/PeterMcCormack/status/165230790417358029... ) Obviously he's fighting the costs, which are due to earlier phases of the proceedings where McCormack tried to get the case summarily dismissed and was unsuccessful, resulting in Mr. Wright being awarded costs.
- barnbuilder 3y ago
  > He lost Sadly this is not true. Wright was ruled to have won the case but had the damage award reduced to only 1 pound.[1] (Wright is being bankrolled by billionaire Calvin Ayre. They are not worried about the money here.) How someone can win a case while found to have "advanced a deliberately false case and put forward deliberately false evidence until days before trial" just goes to show how utterly deranged the British legal system is. As long as it is such, scammers like Craig Wright and Calvin Ayre will continue to torment innocent people. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/aug/01/craig-wright-wins-only-nominal-damages-of-1-in-bitcoin-libel-case https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/aug/01/craig-wri...
  - nullc 3y ago
    It's more complicated than that, as the judgement wrote: > looking at the “big picture”, Dr Wright was awarded only nominal damages, so Mr McCormack is the successful party, as were the defendants in Joseph v Spiller and FlyMeNow, ...and the court awarded McCormack his costs for the trial on an indemnity basis-- which still doesn't cover his time lost and stress due to this, but it's about as good as you can get as a defendant. EXCEPT, in the interest in finality the court declined to reverse a ruling from an earlier stage of the trial that awarded Wright his costs, and Wright has now delivered his bill of £3.379m, still attempting to deliver on his public promise[*] of ruining McCormack. So the fact that Wright "won" £1 isn't preventing a somewhat just outcome this case... because the court still rightfully regarded that as a loss for the purpose of awarding costs. The bigger issue is that the UK awards costs incrementally and so has left McCormack potentially paying Wright's inflated costs for his earlier efforts to get the deliberately false case discharged. And, of course, Wright is appealing is his "win" too. Since Wright himself isn't funding his litigation, this suit was well worth his time in chilling his critics. And it has worked too: it's been difficult to get outlets cover what he's doing, except in the form of repeating both-sideism rendition's of Wright's press releases. I had previously been told outright by a least one journalist at a big publication that they didn't want to print on his claims being falsified because they didn't want to get mired in litigation. [*] The most recent of which was also breach of a court embargo in the ruling on the case, which Wright was sent up for contempt for ... which had no effect "Faced with a 17,000-word skeleton argument advanced by Wright’s new attorneys, buttressed by 1,600 pages of legal authorities, [The court] concluded that the cost of continuing outweighed the benefits." in other words, he simply DOSed the court and the court dropped it.
rwmj 3y ago
A user on HN is one of those affected. He posted a very detailed story about his awful experience: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34685029 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34685029
- PretzelPirate 3y ago
  That's not just a HM user, that's Gregory Maxwell who was the main Bitcoin developer after Gavin Andresen left. Maxwell has is own history of drama, but I can certainly agree with him that Craig Wright sucks.
  - nullc 3y ago
    > who was the main Bitcoin developer I'm flattered, but that's not so! I was a relatively insignificant developer (e.g. 163 mostly minor commits to a project that has had >24k)-- though I've been frequently targeted in public, in part due to my own error in choosing to discuss Bitcoin with naysayers rather than just ignoring them. If you wanted to call me an formally outspoken Bitcoin philosopher, I wouldn't argue! But the post in question was on a thread about Wladimir who was, in fact, lead developer of the Bitcoin Core project for many years, and the most active developer as far back as 2011. He posted shortly after Wright won an appeal overturning our summary dismissal stating that he regretted ever participating in open source specifically because the MIT license waver of liability was not, apparently, strong enough to get an abusive lawsuit dismissed on a summary basis. (the page is now down as he's mostly dropped off the internet since).
    - alfiedotwtf 3y ago
      That was sad to read. Wladimir was a really nice person, had really interesting things to say, always warm and welcoming, and was really one of the good guys. It's poo that people like Craig Wrong get to ruin people and communities like this without recourse :(
    - trompetenaccoun 3y ago
      Do you have a link or something we can share for awareness and to get you and others support? There are probably many new users of Bitcoin who don't know about Faketoshi. It's utter insanity that such lawsuits are possible, the Bitcoin community must rally to support you guys.
cyanydeez 3y ago
Is this like when pedophiles claim they're part of the LGBTQ+ community?
- nullc 3y ago
  Could you elaborate on your position?
  - cyanydeez 3y ago
    Bitcoin, "the pedophiles" want to be seen through the lens of open source "the LGBTQ+" community. They may tangentially share the same software/sexual space, but their intentions are completely different.
merrycherry 3y ago
Nowhere in that article does it mention Dorsey has a patent which cites one of Wright's own patents here: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/applications/16078605 https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/applications/16078605 Or, that Dorsey has initiated litigation against Wright to steal his patent portfolio here: https://www.opencrypto.org/ https://www.opencrypto.org/ Dorsey is a sociopath.

59 points by anaoum 3y ago

Craig Wright is such a gigantic tool. Anyone that puts an ounce of weight behind a single word of his is an even bigger tool. Sue me.

KirillPanov 3y ago
Indeed; this whole situation is the Jerry Springer show of open source.

nadermx 3y ago

So I am confused, if I claim some one hacked me, I basically can forum shop, and state outlandish accusations, because "I got hacked"?

smoldesu 3y ago
Ideally you wouldn't use it as an excuse to seize millions of USD worth of assets you don't own, but that's the gist of it yes.
- evilspammer 3y ago
  > seize millions of USD worth of assets you don't own, but that's the gist of it yes Technically true, but he's looking for $4 b-b-billion. Some thoughts about this that interest me: - Things like the Bitcoin Cash fork & DAO fork arguably set the precedent that the developers control the funds. They never should have done that because now anybody can argue "you did it for them, why not me?" And this time it's being argued in the legal domain instead of just on heated GitHub comments. Judges aren't known for understanding the details of blockchains and can probably swing either way on this, especially if you jurisdiction shop. - The "assets you don't own" part. He can't prove he had the keys, or lost the keys. But he just needs to present a compelling argument, not have an argument beyond a shadow of a doubt. The fact that the real Satoshi is unlikely to appear to defend themself makes it easier for Wright to argue Wright had the keys at some point, even if he wasn't the first or last owner. - Combining these points: If you have established you will change the blockchain through a compelling argument; and if _nobody_ presents the keys; but if you have the best compelling argument _without_ the keys, then the coins probably belong to you. - The big problems that lead to this situation were opening the Pandora's box of blockchain forks; & the tying of physical identities to wallets through KYC (which was the death of BTC.)
  - wizzwizz4 3y ago
    > Things like the Bitcoin Cash fork & DAO fork arguably set the precedent that the developers control the funds. Perhaps it made people more aware of that fact, but this was always true. Bitcoin has never been "trustless"; that's always been a mirage. (Not even the original Bitcoin whitepaper makes that claim, and it claims some pretty dubious things!)
    - midmagico 3y ago
      Pfft. Its existence solely and only persists through the mass of nodes run by people who utilize the network. The only control that developers exert is over their own actions and willingness to write code. The overall community consensus to run that code is cooperative, *not* coercive. You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. (edit) And you clearly never read the whitepaper: "What is needed is an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party." ^^ Literally trustless right there.
      - wizzwizz4 3y ago
        > The overall community consensus to run that code is cooperative, *not* coercive. We don't disagree. Many people act like the consensus algorithm is somehow magically obviating the need for a consensus among humans. One must inherently trust that, if one is to use something like Bitcoin. Functionally, as long as the consensus is to install the latest version of Bitcoin Core, Bitcoin Core's maintainers control Bitcoin. The whitepaper claims that Bitcoin removes the need for a trusted third-party to transactions. If you consider mining pools to be "a party", that claim isn't strictly true: on several occasions, one mining pool has held 51% hash power (e.g. https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/184427-one-bitcoin-group-now-controls-51-of-total-mining-power-threatening-entire-currencys-safety https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/184427-one-bitcoin-group... is a notable example; before that, pools normally kept their hashing power below 30% voluntarily), so in reality, you're trusting all sufficiently-wealthy parties not to do that. However, the whitepaper doesn't make the widely-believed stronger claim about magical trustlessness.
sowbug 3y ago
TL;DR: yes, but if outlandishness crosses over to deceit, you risk penalties. Anyone can file a lawsuit if they pay the filing fees. If they hire a lawyer, the lawyer must uphold the ethical standards of the bar, which carry suspension/disbarment penalties. Those standards generally include a good-faith belief in the legal merits of your client's case, adherence to all laws and court procedures, speaking up when you believe a law is about to be broken, etc. The client (you) will eventually be called as a witness, and you can go to jail if you lie on the stand or otherwise present false evidence. Unfortunately, the penalties seem to happen a lot less often than the perjury. That's partly because perjury is a criminal offense, carrying a higher burden of proof than a civil claim.
- nullc 3y ago
  Wright's been civilly found to commit perjury-- but they just hit him with a fine and he keeps going. He was hit with a criminal contempt charge two decades ago for perjury and forgery in court, sentenced to 30 days in jail but he got it reduced to community service. But even if it hadn't been-- so what? He'd probably ultimately benefit from it by spinning it into a story about that time when he went to jail in for standing up for his beliefs in the face of a corrupt judge or whatever. The main consequence of perjury in civil court is that it tends to cause you to lose. But when you're bringing cases with no serious prospect of success for collateral purposes... it doesn't really matter if you lose, and if lying is the only way you might win... The other consequences seem calibrated for otherwise upstanding people that actually care about the consequences of their actions, not for grifters using the courts as a weapon.
  - hgsgm 3y ago
    Even worse, he wins more than he pays for his perjury, due to Britain's criminal-protecting libel laws.
trompetenaccoun 3y ago
Basically yes in this case, the guy has made a career out of our broken legal system.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

thesausageking 3y ago

Craig Wright, the guy who brought this lawsuit, has been suing people left and right for years. He lost a high profile case last year against a podcaster who called him a fraud. The judge ruled against Wright and found that he had "advanced a deliberately false case and put forward deliberately false evidence until days before trial".

nullc 3y ago
But here is what winning means for his target: In addition to years of his life tied up in this, "Craig Wright has just submitted a bill of costs for £3.379m for his costs of my dropped defences and a two day hearing in February 2021. Defences I dropped due to excess cost My whole budge to trial was £1.3m." ( https://twitter.com/PeterMcCormack/status/1652307904173580291 https://twitter.com/PeterMcCormack/status/165230790417358029... ) Obviously he's fighting the costs, which are due to earlier phases of the proceedings where McCormack tried to get the case summarily dismissed and was unsuccessful, resulting in Mr. Wright being awarded costs.
barnbuilder 3y ago
> He lost Sadly this is not true. Wright was ruled to have won the case but had the damage award reduced to only 1 pound.[1] (Wright is being bankrolled by billionaire Calvin Ayre. They are not worried about the money here.) How someone can win a case while found to have "advanced a deliberately false case and put forward deliberately false evidence until days before trial" just goes to show how utterly deranged the British legal system is. As long as it is such, scammers like Craig Wright and Calvin Ayre will continue to torment innocent people. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/aug/01/craig-wright-wins-only-nominal-damages-of-1-in-bitcoin-libel-case https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/aug/01/craig-wri...
- nullc 3y ago
  It's more complicated than that, as the judgement wrote: > looking at the “big picture”, Dr Wright was awarded only nominal damages, so Mr McCormack is the successful party, as were the defendants in Joseph v Spiller and FlyMeNow, ...and the court awarded McCormack his costs for the trial on an indemnity basis-- which still doesn't cover his time lost and stress due to this, but it's about as good as you can get as a defendant. EXCEPT, in the interest in finality the court declined to reverse a ruling from an earlier stage of the trial that awarded Wright his costs, and Wright has now delivered his bill of £3.379m, still attempting to deliver on his public promise[*] of ruining McCormack. So the fact that Wright "won" £1 isn't preventing a somewhat just outcome this case... because the court still rightfully regarded that as a loss for the purpose of awarding costs. The bigger issue is that the UK awards costs incrementally and so has left McCormack potentially paying Wright's inflated costs for his earlier efforts to get the deliberately false case discharged. And, of course, Wright is appealing is his "win" too. Since Wright himself isn't funding his litigation, this suit was well worth his time in chilling his critics. And it has worked too: it's been difficult to get outlets cover what he's doing, except in the form of repeating both-sideism rendition's of Wright's press releases. I had previously been told outright by a least one journalist at a big publication that they didn't want to print on his claims being falsified because they didn't want to get mired in litigation. [*] The most recent of which was also breach of a court embargo in the ruling on the case, which Wright was sent up for contempt for ... which had no effect "Faced with a 17,000-word skeleton argument advanced by Wright’s new attorneys, buttressed by 1,600 pages of legal authorities, [The court] concluded that the cost of continuing outweighed the benefits." in other words, he simply DOSed the court and the court dropped it.

rwmj 3y ago

A user on HN is one of those affected. He posted a very detailed story about his awful experience: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34685029 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34685029

PretzelPirate 3y ago
That's not just a HM user, that's Gregory Maxwell who was the main Bitcoin developer after Gavin Andresen left. Maxwell has is own history of drama, but I can certainly agree with him that Craig Wright sucks.
- nullc 3y ago
  > who was the main Bitcoin developer I'm flattered, but that's not so! I was a relatively insignificant developer (e.g. 163 mostly minor commits to a project that has had >24k)-- though I've been frequently targeted in public, in part due to my own error in choosing to discuss Bitcoin with naysayers rather than just ignoring them. If you wanted to call me an formally outspoken Bitcoin philosopher, I wouldn't argue! But the post in question was on a thread about Wladimir who was, in fact, lead developer of the Bitcoin Core project for many years, and the most active developer as far back as 2011. He posted shortly after Wright won an appeal overturning our summary dismissal stating that he regretted ever participating in open source specifically because the MIT license waver of liability was not, apparently, strong enough to get an abusive lawsuit dismissed on a summary basis. (the page is now down as he's mostly dropped off the internet since).
  - alfiedotwtf 3y ago
    That was sad to read. Wladimir was a really nice person, had really interesting things to say, always warm and welcoming, and was really one of the good guys. It's poo that people like Craig Wrong get to ruin people and communities like this without recourse :(
  - trompetenaccoun 3y ago
    Do you have a link or something we can share for awareness and to get you and others support? There are probably many new users of Bitcoin who don't know about Faketoshi. It's utter insanity that such lawsuits are possible, the Bitcoin community must rally to support you guys.

cyanydeez 3y ago

Is this like when pedophiles claim they're part of the LGBTQ+ community?

nullc 3y ago
Could you elaborate on your position?
- cyanydeez 3y ago
  Bitcoin, "the pedophiles" want to be seen through the lens of open source "the LGBTQ+" community. They may tangentially share the same software/sexual space, but their intentions are completely different.

merrycherry 3y ago

Nowhere in that article does it mention Dorsey has a patent which cites one of Wright's own patents here: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/applications/16078605 https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/applications/16078605 Or, that Dorsey has initiated litigation against Wright to steal his patent portfolio here: https://www.opencrypto.org/ https://www.opencrypto.org/ Dorsey is a sociopath.