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There's absolutely nothing to suggest that any state actor created Bitcoin.

• 3pt14159 13y ago
  Actually there is quite a bit to suggest that a state actor created bitcoin. Satoshi is probably three people and the CIA and NSA don't really screw around when it comes to this type of thing. Even if they didn't create it, they had the man/computer power to control large chunks of bitcoin.
  • gwern 13y ago
    > Actually there is quite a bit to suggest that a state actor created bitcoin. Not really. Most of the arguments are based on false premises, like the claim that the codebase is of high quality or has never had serious breaks. I've looked pretty deeply into Satoshi, and nothing makes me think it's not exactly what it looks like: one guy.
    • nwh 13y ago
      Every claim like this that says the code base is high quality has me rolling with laughter. The core developers at still trying to fix some of the crazy oversights that Satoshi left in the core code.
      • GeneralMayhem 13y ago
        And even if it were, in what world does high-quality code imply state actor?
        • fragmede 13y ago
          The part of the world where professionals who are able to write high-quality code are well paid for quality work.
          • GeneralMayhem 13y ago
            Sure, but why does that mean government money? There are tons of very, very good programmers outside of the intelligence-industrial complex. "It's good, therefore the CIA made it" is unbelievably terrible logic.
            • gwern 13y ago
              "It's bad, therefore the CIA probably didn't make it" is fine logic; therefore the reverse also works fine - probabilisticly. If P(CIA|good) > P(CIA), then P(CIA|~good) < P(CIA).
              • GeneralMayhem 13y ago
                Logically sound but significantly negligible. I'd say P(CIA|~good) is very small, but P(CIA) is also quite small. P(CIA|good) >= 50% iff the CIA produces at least 50% of the good security-related code in the world. I don't see it.
    • fragsworth 13y ago
      I don't know. I would worry about the fact that SHA256 was chosen for the hashing algorithm. There's good reason to believe that the NSA has attempted to develop hardware that can perform incredible quantities of SHA256 hashes, because it is also used as the standard for most encryption online. They might not have powerful enough machines to actually brute-force normal Internet encryption standards, but they are probably still attempting to develop them, and it shouldn't be surprising if they now have a SHA256 hashing network that can blow the entire world's bitcoin mining operations out of the water. Alternatively, some other entity may have attempted to build a hashing network to crack online encryption, and they developed bitcoin as another way to try to use their network. Conspiracy theories, yeah I know, but come on. Is it not at least plausible?
      • fragmede 13y ago
        Depends on whether or not you believe the NSA has its own fab.
        • gwern 13y ago
          The NSA does have its own fab and partners with commercial fabs, but its fab is small and apparently out of date, and so it seems to be primarily for producing legacy hardware. I looked this up once for reasons that had nothing to do with Bitcoin: http://www.gwern.net/Slowing%20Moore%27s%20Law#fn24 http://www.gwern.net/Slowing%20Moore%27s%20Law#fn24