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Mistakes which included publicly posting an email address with his full legal name on a bitcoin forum while using that same nickname to post on a drug forum, al

by AJ007 13y ago

Mistakes which included publicly posting an email address with his full legal name on a bitcoin forum while using that same nickname to post on a drug forum, all in the same time period. Additionally he baited and trolled the mainstream press. The US government & US prosecutors do not react well to criminals who attempt to repeatedly publicly humiliate their failure to catch them. My honest opinion was this guy was a fucking idiot.

joosters 13y ago
Idiot or not, his identity took some time to be discovered. People are oh-so-wise after the fact about DPR's dumb mistakes but can't tell the difference between their perceived brilliance and hindsight. Successfully hiding your identity is an all-or-nothing measure; either you are outed, or you stay anonymous. So the only remaining way to gauge how well someone hid before the final reveal is to look at how long it took people to find them and how much effort likely went in to finding them. DPR ran Silk Road for some time before being discovered. In that time, countless law agencies sought him, he was a massive target for online fraud, blackmail, vigilanteism or even simple crime. Just imagine if you tracked him down; a quick break-in and some force and you could escape with a laptop worth tens/hundreds of millions of dollars, none of which would be reported to the police!
- yohanatan 13y ago
  What makes you think that the authorities had no motivation to leave him in play for a while before busting him?
  - joosters 13y ago
    Nothing at all. But they certainly weren't able to hold back the other potential discoverers of his identity that I listed.
    - yohanatan 13y ago
      And he dealt with those other threats by attempting to issue hits on them.
- andrewflnr 13y ago
  Isn't there a huge component of luck in staying anonymous? A needle can remain in a haystack for a long time without requiring any skill, either of it's own or of someone who hid or accidentally dropped it there. If time spent anonymous is "only remaining way to gauge how well someone hid", it's a pretty crummy one. I think it makes sense to take into account the kind of mistakes that brought someone out. By the same token, we might just not have found Satoshi's stupid mistakes yet. Still, I think dobbsbob's point stands at least as weak evidence of Satoshi and DPR being different people.

by AJ007 13y ago

joosters 13y ago

Idiot or not, his identity took some time to be discovered. People are oh-so-wise after the fact about DPR's dumb mistakes but can't tell the difference between their perceived brilliance and hindsight. Successfully hiding your identity is an all-or-nothing measure; either you are outed, or you stay anonymous. So the only remaining way to gauge how well someone hid before the final reveal is to look at how long it took people to find them and how much effort likely went in to finding them. DPR ran Silk Road for some time before being discovered. In that time, countless law agencies sought him, he was a massive target for online fraud, blackmail, vigilanteism or even simple crime. Just imagine if you tracked him down; a quick break-in and some force and you could escape with a laptop worth tens/hundreds of millions of dollars, none of which would be reported to the police!

yohanatan 13y ago
What makes you think that the authorities had no motivation to leave him in play for a while before busting him?
- joosters 13y ago
  Nothing at all. But they certainly weren't able to hold back the other potential discoverers of his identity that I listed.
  - yohanatan 13y ago
    And he dealt with those other threats by attempting to issue hits on them.
andrewflnr 13y ago
Isn't there a huge component of luck in staying anonymous? A needle can remain in a haystack for a long time without requiring any skill, either of it's own or of someone who hid or accidentally dropped it there. If time spent anonymous is "only remaining way to gauge how well someone hid", it's a pretty crummy one. I think it makes sense to take into account the kind of mistakes that brought someone out. By the same token, we might just not have found Satoshi's stupid mistakes yet. Still, I think dobbsbob's point stands at least as weak evidence of Satoshi and DPR being different people.