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I know who 'Satoshi Nakamoto' is, says Ted Nelson
- wallflower 13y agoMore on Shinichi Mochizuki and the ABC conjecture http://projectwordsworth.com/the-paradox-of-the-proof http://projectwordsworth.com/the-paradox-of-the-proof
- kruhft 13y agoFunny how after the hype around the ABC proof that now somebody thinks he's Satoshi. I'd be a bit more convinced of this 'unmasking' if Shinichi hadn't been all over the news last week.
- elux 13y agoUtterly flawed reasoning. See: "Prosecutor's fallacy" http://www.conceptstew.co.uk/PAGES/prosecutors_fallacy.html http://www.conceptstew.co.uk/PAGES/prosecutors_fallacy.html
- state 13y agoI find it extremely hard to believe that bitcoin is attributable to a single person.
- Hermel 13y agoI find a single person standing on the shoulders of giants quite plausible. A single talented person can achieve much more than most committees.
- 27182818284 13y ago"committees" is a pretty loaded term, right? I mean replace "committees" with a 2-4-member team and you have Apple, Facebook, Google, etc. Personally I always thought it was a rogue Post-doc until reading PG's post about it. PG convinced me a government was, indeed, involved. For me now it is a question of "which gov?" and "why that gov?"
- wmf 13y agoThis reminds me of some of the theories about who wrote Shakespeare, particularly the "Oxfordian" theory.
- clarkm 13y agoThis is almost certainly wrong. If you spend any time at all reading about history of Bitcoin and other related currencies, it's clear that Satoshi was a cypherpunk. And at least an active lurker, if not a well-known participant, in the cypherpunks mailing list during the 1990s and early 2000s. Just look at the sources in the bitcoin paper. Satoshi cites lots of cypherpunks, and not many mainstream academics. The code borrows time-stamping ideas from Usenet and takes inspiration from command-and-control architectures of IRC botnets. The pieces of the puzzle are: - (1997) Adam Back's hashcash proof of work system - (1998) Wei Dai's b-money - (1998-2005) Nick Szabo's writings about git gold - (2004) Hal Finney's reusable proof of work (RPOW) Satoshi brought these ideas -- cypherpunk ideas -- together to make Bitcoin, not the ideas about improving Chaumian blind signatures and anonymous e-cash that were being discussed in the academic crypto literature of the time. Remember, cypherpunks (and others inspired by Tim May's crypto-anarchy) have a long history of communicating anonymously. Anonymous remailers and pseudonyms were expected on the list, so it's not unusual to see Satoshi Nakamoto come out of this tradition. There are probably people that know who the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, but they're not going to tell. They're cypherpunks, after all. And if Satoshi stays anonymous, it just means that everything is going exactly as planned.
- kanzure 13y agoHere are some emails and headers that you might be interested in: http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/irc/bitcoin-satoshi/ http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/irc/bitcoin-satoshi/ phrases: http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/irc/bitcoin-satoshi/phrases.txt http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/irc/bitcoin-satoshi/phrases.txt He might be one of these people: http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/irc/bitcoin-satoshi/p2p-research-members.txt http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/irc/bitcoin-satoshi/p2p-research-mem... Here are some forum posts timestamps: http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/irc/bitcoin-satoshi/datetimes.yaml http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/irc/bitcoin-satoshi/datetimes.yaml I also feel it is necessary to point out that it is completely possible to spoof forum posts to match his writing style and C++ idioms. So there might be someone posing as a "second satoshi" waiting to be discovered by phrase analysis. This is one of the vulnerabilities of his pseudonym. Happy hacking.
- clicks 13y ago
- fearlessleader 13y agoI can't seem to find any indication that Shinichi Mochizuki has done any published programming, and then to suddenly write very good crypto software in C (by himself, who does that) seem implausible. Mathematics Genius != Crypto Programming Genius.
- ianstallings 13y agoSnitches get stitches Ted.
- ronnier 13y agoIf I had to bet on this, I'd say Satoshi isn't Japanese.
- hasenj 13y agoI hardly know anything about the scene but does he write in Japanese at all? (such as participating in a Japanese crypto mailing list?).
- Natsu 13y agoWell, the English is certainly native level and they appear to make none of the common mistakes second language learners do, like forgetting or misusing 'the', but that doesn't mean Satoshi isn't ethnically Japanese. Frankly, for all we know, Satoshi could be a woman. People raised in the Japanese culture express themselves very differently, though, and I'm not seeing that in this writing. This tends to survive, even when they're highly skilled in English, because they're not saying anything incorrectly, just differently. For example, one of my friends always refers to Earth as "our Earth" instead of "the Earth" (I rather like that one, personally).
- RockyMcNuts 13y agoBitcoin is engineering, not math. Isn't the crypto all based on 70s and 80s math? Why would a pure mathematician get involved? And Bitcoin took evangelizing, not just the work of a hermit. Methinks Ted Nelson is pulling someone's chain. Maybe he can tell us the identity of The Joker, or Fuzzy Dunlop from The Wire.
- clicks 13y ago> And Bitcoin took evangelizing, not just the work of a hermit. I don't think it took evangelizing. Did Linux take evangelizing for it to get big? Bitcoin was something that, once properly implemented, was bound to get a lot of attention from cypherpunks. The big feat. here is actually coding it up and having it work without too many issues. As for it getting big this year (with the value of BC going really high a month back), it was just one more way to get 'rich', so people jumped on it. It has an intrinsically viral nature.
- RockyMcNuts 13y agodepends on your definition of evangelizing... search for Satoshi Nakamoto's voluminous posting history ... just putting software in a forum where people can see it, discussing it at length and getting people to participate and contribute is different from dumping a proof and declining to explain it. for some definition, Linus Torvalds has awesome collaboration/evangelizing skills. a lot of otherwise great engineers can't be bothered to communicate and get people to adopt/contribute, sometimes they think evangelizing is a dirty word.
- dllthomas 13y agoHas anyone done (publicly) any statistical textual comparison between Satoshi's writings and those of any of the plausible candidates?
- dmix 13y agoSo far someone already conducted some language analysis to determine his nationality and it's either British or Japanese. Possibly a brit in Japan.
- betterunix 13y agoUtter nonsense; no mathematician would have created Bitcoin. Mathematicians criticize cryptographers for not being rigorous enough in their proofs. Bitcoin does not even have a formal security definition, let alone any kind of proof. Anyone who is looking at professional cryptographers or accomplished researchers is looking in the wrong place. Bitcoin is the work of amateurs and enthusiasts, the sort of people who flood sci.crypt with claims about new cryptosystems and ignore the experts who still take the time to post there. It only caught on because it appeals to libertarians and anarchists, and eventually was promoted enough that mainstream media outlets were afraid that they would be left behind on reporting "the next big thing."
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- bachback 13y agoUh, oh, outch - "experts".... this is so wrong in so many ways. But I'm sure the media will get it right.
- terolacu 13y agoActually it appeals to anybody who doesn't want to see how his savings lose value every day, or are simply stolen by his own government. It also appeals to anybody who doesn't want to pay ridiculous fees for international wires, if the government allows it at all.
- dsdfoajsldkf 13y agoYou don't sound like a libertarian/anarchist at all! /rolleyes
- terolacu 13y agoCalling me names won't change anything, my argument still stands.
- reedlaw 13y agoA pretty harsh appraisal of a system that is already trusted with accounting for over a billion dollars worth of digital assets. Can you give some examples of other cryptographic systems of comparable complexity being used at scale for years without major incident? Message encryption, TLS, and Secure Shell are generally trusted as being secure, but all pale in comparison to the complexity of bitcoin in terms of what they attempt to achieve. Yes, bitcoin is vulnerable to a 51% network attack, but I believe there is a social engineering-type security built into the protocol. That is, early adopters are incentivized by easy block rewards and currency appreciation potential. But they also take the greater risk of 51% network attack. As bitcoin takes off, mining becomes more decentralized and less vulnerable to 51% attack. Just last week we saw this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5696596 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5696596 (Bitcoin Network Speed 8 Times Faster than Top 500 Supercomputers Combined)
- jckt 13y agoWhat's HN's opinions on Nelson himself? Barring this article, I've mostly read about his ideas about Xanadu, etc, and while they're not bad per se, they seem rather unfocused and on the whole rather vague -- almost like, engineering/technology in a purely essay tradition. Can anyone point me to his best work? I hear a lot about him but never found much to justify his repute.
- jleader 13y agoI'm hardly representative of "HN's opinions", but describing Nelson's ideas as "unfocused" and "vague" is kind of like the student who complained about Shakespeare's works being "derivative and full of cliches". Sadly, Xanadu never became the success that Nelson forsaw, but "Computer Lib/Dream Machines" was full of all sorts of incredible new ideas, some Nelson's, some from others that he just collected in one accessible place. Keep in mind that the book was first published in 1974, two years before Jobs & Wozniak formed Apple Computer to sell the Apple I, and seven years before the first IBM PC.
- serf 13y agoThis may help you to understand his way of thinking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcqIlDhkSdo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcqIlDhkSdo He only became a computer scientist incidentally due to no one being capable of listening to the ideas of a filmmaker/philosopher and attributing technical fortitude to them. Like the previous poster, I recommend Computer Lib/Dream Machines
- darkhorn 13y agoThe creator of Bitcoin is Neal J. King http://www.fastcompany.com/1785445/bitcoin-crypto-currency-mystery-reopened http://www.fastcompany.com/1785445/bitcoin-crypto-currency-m... https://www.facebook.com/neal.j.king https://www.facebook.com/neal.j.king
- clarkm 13y agoThis is also almost certainly wrong. Those patent applications don't really have anything to do with Bitcoin. But I guess if you're a journalist, anything crypto related looks like it has to do with Bitcoin. And if I remember correctly, the bitcoin.org domain was registered by Satoshi using anonymousspeech.com, so that's also a clue.
- darkhorn 13y ago>What are the odds that a phrase in Nakamoto's Bitcoin paper would be replicated in a patent application filed the same year? Further, what are the odds the domain name for Bitcoin would have been registered 72 hours after the patent application was filed?
- bobbydavid 13y agosince it happened... 100%? seriously though, it's a coincidence that could easily be explained in other ways. for instance, many people in niche fields tend to use the same phrases and discover things at the same time. were Alexander Bell and Elisha Gray the same person? I'd call it interesting evidence, but not a smoking gun.
- darkhorn 13y agoThere is more than one coinsidance. I suggest you to read the article. For example he works on cryptogrphy but his patent-friends work on nodes. I think that the real reason he is hiding himself is because he is using his friends' patents (the nodes) without permission in bitcoin.
- 13y ago
- ethanaustinite 13y agoHas anyone just asked Shinichi Mochizuki if he had anything to do with bitcoin? I assume he would be honest and deny it if he had no involvement. (but still would be cool to get this amazing guy's opinion about bitcoin tech) If he was involved with bitcoin, I doubt he would lie about it. Instead he would simply not respond, and thus confirming he really might be "Satoshi".
- valgaze 13y agoTed Nelson: "EVERYBODY thinks they can design great interfaces and almost no one can (...)" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdnGPQaICjk&t=7m34s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdnGPQaICjk&t=7m34s
- ics 13y agoThis dead post on HN made the same claim: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5692179 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5692179 Was there a date on Nelson's? I don't really buy it as being correct, but hey.
- lucb1e 13y agoThere is a date. See his youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emDJTGTrEm0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emDJTGTrEm0
- teeja 13y agoTed's impression of a Sherlock, Watson conversation alone is worth the price of admission.
- inselkampf 13y agoHow would you correctly pronounce 'Satoshi Nakamoto'?
- Natsu 13y agoSah-toh-she Nah-kah-moh-toh. Japanese is rather easy to pronounce once you learn which vowels to use and a few small tricks. The 'long' vowels are really just two separate syllables that get blurred together a little when adjacent. For example, 'ai' == ahh + eee blurred together and sounds like the word eye.
- lucb1e 13y agoThe video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emDJTGTrEm0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emDJTGTrEm0 If he had wanted to speak to the man directly, he could have cryptographically done so. Tell the world that you know who he is, but not reveal the name, then publish a cryptographic hash of his name. That probably catches the real guy's attention (regardless of whether Ted got it right or not).
- wellboy 13y agoOk his 3 identification features are, he is a very smart professor, he doesn't rely on peer review and he works very hard. There are probably 10000 people who fit this profile and the profile of the bitcoin creator even better. This is dumb
- jckt 13y agoAlso, he's Japanese and Nelson thinks Nakamoto is actually Japanese because everyone who says he isn't Japanese is falling for committing "ethnocentric cluckery". Dumb indeed.
- denzil_correa 13y agoNelson apparently has said that if Mochizuki denies being Satoshi he will donate to charity of his choice [0]. Nelson tells Quartz that he is offering to donate to charity if Mochizuki denies being Satoshi Nakamoto. "If that person denies being Satoshi, I will humbly give one bitcoin (at this instant worth about $123) to any charity he selects. If he is Satoshi and denies it, at least he will feel guilty. (One month time limit on denial-- bitcoins are going UP.) [0] http://qz.com/86255/the-mysterious-creator-of-bitcoin-could-be-japanese-mathematician-shinichi-mochizuki-says-the-inventor-of-hypertext/ http://qz.com/86255/the-mysterious-creator-of-bitcoin-could-...
- hkmurakami 13y ago$123 seems way too small a sum for this to be of any consequence for either party
- denzil_correa 13y agoThere's a reason he chose to dedicate a bitcoin and not 123 USD despite being its current price value.
- lifeformed 13y agoIsn't it a little dangerous throwing around claims like this? If everyone believed that I had a secret stash of a hundred million dollars, I would be slightly worried for my safety.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- jgrahamc 13y agoNope. It's still definitely me. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5692317 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5692317
- alfiejohn_ 13y agoBad Luck Brian: Finally reveals the true identify of Satoshi Nakamoto, Nobody believes him.
- mindcrash 13y agoReminds me of this blog post by a rather 'unknown' blog poster called Ashwin Dixit, which was posted to HN weeks ago claiming that Satoshi Nakamoto actually is Shinichi Mochizuki http://ownlifeful.blogspot.com/2013/05/bitcoin-creator-satoshi-nakamoto.html http://ownlifeful.blogspot.com/2013/05/bitcoin-creator-satos... (and after lurking in the shadows of HN for, uhm, eons, this , hopefully informative, comment on HN is my first step out of the shadows. Hi guys :) )
- maxk42 13y agoI would like to remind people: If you know who Satoshi is, for crying out loud keep it to yourself! If this man's identity is revealed, it will be a likely death sentence.
- tzs 13y ago> Mochizuki doesn't use the conventional scientific peer review process. Rather, his habit is to publish, and leave it to other mathematicians to sort their way through his reasoning Wrong: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_vis=1&q=Shinichi+Mochizuki&hl=en&as_sdt=1,48 http://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_vis=1&q=Shinichi+Mo... I see a lot of papers there in ordinary peer-reviewed journals.
- reeses 13y agoThis is painfully embarrassing. I love Ted Nelson but it's much, much easier to find out who 'Satoshi' is than those tortured comparisons.
- dsrguru 13y agoThe following seems a lot more likely. From Wikipedia: Fast Company's investigation brought up circumstantial evidence that indicated a link between an encryption patent application filed by Neal King, Vladimir Oksman and Charles Bry on 15 August 2008, and the bitcoin.org domain name which was registered 72 hours later. The patent application (#20100042841) contained networking and encryption technologies similar to Bitcoin's. After textual analysis, the phrase "...computationally impractical to reverse" was found in both the patent application and bitcoin's whitepaper. All three inventors explicitly denied being Satoshi Nakamoto. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto#Identity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto#Identity
- bitwize 13y agoThe last time I read a story about reclusive Japanese mathematicians putting out government-confounding cryptosystems -- it was the terrible Dan Brown novel Digital Fortress. Reality is getting Hollyweirder by the minute...
- habitue 13y agoWell see, that's just it. This harebrained theory is way too hollywood, and light on evidence. In reality, a mathematician doesn't make significant contributions to two different completely separate fields that both get widespread media attention within the span of a few years.