27 ms·

The Face Behind Bitcoin?

• gnoway 13y ago
  I would be worried if I was the reporter. If anything happens to Satoshi, I suspect there are a moderate to high number of people who will make this reporter's life miserable as retribution. I'm thinking of all the bs that Krebs has to put up with. Seriously irresponsible reporting. Not brave, not necessary, not helpful, not interesting, just stupid.
• verroq 13y ago
  HN can't decry censorship and keep flagging this article because it includes Satoshi's dox.
  • maxerickson 13y ago
    Well, there are multiple people here, so differing views aren't really inconsistent. But it's also possible to believe that certain government powers should be very limited while at the same time believing that individuals should strive not to be assholes to each other. Information wants a banana.
  • danielweber 13y ago
    First: This is a private board, we are guests here. Even boards dedicated to discussing free speech regularly regulate the speech on their board because they need to keep peace. It's a big Internet, and you can make your own space. Second: I don't know how the people who run HN have ever claimed to be special free-speech proponents. They probably think, like most Americans can be shamed into thinking, that the government shouldn't punish you for speech, but aside from that I'm not aware of them, say, calling out other message boards for regulating their content as "censorship." Third: Unfortunately, once a general-purpose journalism piece lists your information, that's usually where claims of "doxxing" end.
  • awakeasleep 13y ago
    Flagged as a troll, if you're genuinely suggesting what you write, consider that we can desire dissemination of public information or of government & corporate actions without believing individuals have no right to privacy.
  • mikeash 13y ago
    Why not? There is absolutely nothing inconsistent about simultaneously believing "people should not do X" and "the government should not prevent people from doing X".
  • eli 13y ago
    I don't think you know what censorship means.
  • da_maire 13y ago
    HN may be user-driven, but it's heavily moderated, privately run and those operating it have a long established policy of banning and deleting content (or sometimes entire sources, e.g all of Gawker Media) at will for any reason they see fit. Same applies to discussion and the 'ghosting' of specific users with poor reputations. There's no guidelines for what's 'allowed' and 'disallowed' (at least none they've committed to) so bans are completely arbitrary and usually carried out with no official explanation or notification. This is actually standard operating procedure for any moderated discussion board and HN's particularly aggressive stance has contributed to it's success - higher quality content, higher quality discussion. Slashdot operated under similar rules and enjoyed success for at least a full decade despite the same complaints of 'censorship' coming up constantly. Slashdot eventually fell apart for unrelated reasons (shrinking/aging audience, failed attempts at modernization) but it's still a proven model with plenty of precedence. If you're concerned that you're being intentionally kept from reading about something, get your technology-related news from multiple sources. There's plenty of sites with looser guidelines to choose from. One thing that annoys me about HN though is that I read it primarily through Feedly, and content often gets pushed to HN's feed prior to deletion, so I end up with a lot of annoying dead links to HN in Feedly.
• shawabawa3 13y ago
  Not sure why this keeps getting deleted. Newsweek have already made it public, no point trying to protect his identity now
  • deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  • maxerickson 13y ago
    One poster chose to delete his (I saw his comment to this effect). I imagine users flagged the second one dead.
    • deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
• easytiger 13y ago
  Can we ban paywalled articles?
  • henryaj 13y ago
    Open it in private browsing/Incognito mode and you'll be fine.
    • sp332 13y ago
      Private browsing didn't work for me. Just a blank page for 5 seconds, then a full-page ad and no article.
      • Bentis2k 13y ago
        Setting the user agent to Googlebot [1] worked for me, images and all. [1] Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html http://www.google.com/bot.html)
  • nkuttler 13y ago
    Fwiw, I don't get a paywall. Might be one of my ad blocking things.
  • deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  • sp332 13y ago
    That would be fine with me! http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?strip=1&q=cache:http%3A%2F%2Fmag.newsweek.com%2F2014%2F03%2F14%2Fbitcoin-satoshi-nakamoto.html http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?strip=1&q=cache...
    • blumkvist 13y ago
      So, we don't want advertising and we don't want subscriptions. It seems like we don't know what we want.
• dTal 13y ago
  Wait, it was just a single smart dude whose actual real name is Satoshi Nakamoto, and here we've been theorizing shadowy pseudonymous cabals of libertarian cryptographers? I feel very silly.
  • jessaustin 13y ago
    I always assumed it was a real dude, since only a certain type of westerner would use a Japanese pseudonym, and that type of westerner would have chosen "Kenichi Kusanagi" or something similarly ridiculous. [To be clear, I had also assumed that a Japanese crypto person who wanted privacy would have used a western pseudonym.] But yeah, it almost seems like the crypto community didn't really want to dox Nakamoto, even if many of them could have.
• mcphilip 13y ago
  Apparently the author of this newsweek piece will be on CNBC sometime this morning: https://twitter.com/SquawkCNBC/status/441544016421978112 https://twitter.com/SquawkCNBC/status/441544016421978112
  • greyskull 13y ago
    I feel really bad for Mr. Nakamoto. He would have likely been found out at some point, but this is the worst way for it to happen. Now everyone knows. If he was put off by just one journalist visit, I imagine he'll consider relocating now.
    • danielweber 13y ago
      Was he "put off"? He seems to have consented to the interview, and to have posed for a picture. Having interacted enough with bad members of the media [NB: there are also good ones], I'm not so naive as to think that there's no way they could have persuaded him to do it with lies or bullshit or empty threats, but without evidence for that he could have just said "I don't want to talk to you" and left it at that. EDIT: I've re-read and might be changing my position. He didn't actually consent to any in-person interview. It was very very clear he didn't want to talk in person. So where did the picture come from?
      • jnbiche 13y ago
        Why do you think that's a picture he posed for? She probably got it from one of the family members she spoke to.
        • danielweber 13y ago
          I am now unsure of that and backing away from that position. Is there a print-version of this article? That would show the photo credit in the margin. Too bad photo credits don't seem to be the custom on the web.
          • 13y ago
• Blahah 13y ago
  The author of the piece can be reached in these ways: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1zpmo8/the_face_behind_bitcoin_satoshi_nakamoto_is/cfvsa91 http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1zpmo8/the_face_beh... If you think this article is a dangerous invasion of privacy, tell her and her employers (Newsweek).
  • noir_lord 13y ago
    Forget Dangerous... it's down right irresponsible They list the guys entire family including kids and where they work etc. Beside that the article has very little content other than "he's a little bit weird" an observation that is not exactly original, it's almost a stereotype that really smart people are often a "little bit weird" .
    • Blahah 13y ago
      That's exactly my point. It's dangerous because she's made his address, car registration and all his family's details public. I'm saying we should raise it with the people responsible if we think it's a problem. edit: now you've edited for clarity, it's clear we're saying the same thing.
      • noir_lord 13y ago
        Yeah sorry about that, original wording looked like I was questioning your comment where I intended to whole-heartedly agree with it. They just put a 400 million dollar bounty on this guy and his entire family for no apparent reason.
    • wernerb 13y ago
      This poor guy. Does the US have no legislation in regard to protection privacy?
      • danielweber 13y ago
        For better or worse, you can say almost anything you want, especially if you are a professional journalist. "Doxing" is just an Internet term for extremely offensive behavior, but it's not illegal.
• repatDE 13y ago
  http://www.file-upload.net/download-8686500/satoshi.pdf.html http://www.file-upload.net/download-8686500/satoshi.pdf.html stupid paywall.
• bachback 13y ago
  worst reporting I've seen. it implies this person has admitted working on bitcoin. actually that's not even true, if you read the words. why on earth all this work, just to chose a real name? this does not make any sense. as if SN could not haven chosen a name to deflect his identity.
  • cpwright 13y ago
    This quote tells you how sloppy the journalism is: "Even so, Bitcoin is vulnerable to massive theft, fraud and scandal, which has seen the price of Bitcoins whipsaw from more than $1,200 each last year to as little as $130 in late February." The MtGox price in February was meaningless, a more accurate representation would have been $1,200 to somewhere around $500 that reputable exchanges were selling for (I don't know the actual price, just enough to know that his figures are misleading).
    • edraferi 13y ago
      The Mt Gox price divergence actually makes her point stronger. she's highlighting the volatility, and the failure of a major exchange is pretty volatile.
    • Mtinie 13y ago
      The ~$130 price was on BTC-e. It was very short-lived, and was caused by a very large dump of coins that were bought up by a bunch of bots, which met all the standing buy orders from ~$680 down to (if I remember right) $102. The price immediately rebounded to the mid-$400's, once that order was consumed.
    • deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    • furyofantares 13y ago
      I believe it is intentionally misleading, not sloppy.
• nwh 13y ago
  Being labeled Satoshi regardless of truth is pretty much going to get you robbed, kidnapped or killed. This dude lives in this town and has $400M of untraceable currency? The article gives his name, face, address and relatives. You can be sure as hell that somebody will do something stupid to try and get to it. I wouldn't wish this label upon anybody, it's exactly why the community tries to avoid speculating about it. It's extremely irresponsible of the newspaper to publish this — truth or otherwise — especially in such vivid detail. ⁢ Article sans paywall — http://archive.is/wbw97 http://archive.is/wbw97 Gavin seems to acknowledge the article — https://twitter.com/gavinandresen/status/441547758827474946 https://twitter.com/gavinandresen/status/441547758827474946
  • ig1 13y ago
    As I pointed out in the now dead earlier thread that while there's obviously privacy issues and Newsweek should have written the article without so many personal details there is clearly a public interest angle here. If the article is accurate the bitcoin founder has a background working as a software engineer on classified US government projects, which makes it a public interest issue due to pre-existing concerns that a government could have designed bitcoin to have secret vulnerabilities/backdoors.
    • Semaphor 13y ago
      Sure, I don't think many people would complain if they had written an article like that. The problem is the article this tabloid decided to publish.
    • eloff 13y ago
      The government now wants to backdoor bitcoin? I think you need a reality check.
      • ig1 13y ago
        The pre-existing concern wasn't that the government wanted to backdoor the crypto (as they have done with BSAFE, etc.) rather that Bitcoin might have been invented by a government for their own reasons. Obviously you can argue how likely that would be, but it's been widely discussed in the bitcoin community in the past and has been an issue of concern given there are "arbitrary" cryptographic decisions in the bitcoin algorithm design without clear reasoning.
• cyanbane 13y ago
  I am not a big fan of the way the article was written, but I can definitely see how some may decry it as being news worthy. I think the author should be ashamed for posting a picture of this man's house. No need for that and it doesn't add to the story after the description.
  • junto 13y ago
    I think I can see the thieves lining up to break in to his house to steal his bitcoins already. Whether he is the Nakamoto behind Bitcoin or not, I think Newsweek have basically made him a target. Let's put this another way. I see him as a potential target worth $400 million, and I'm not even inclined to partake in breaking and entering. So, what about the uncrupulous people who don't know much about bitcoin. Oh yeah, let's steal the guys computer. It is worth $400 million dollars. Newsweek just lined this poor guy up as a target for every crook in LA. I feel really sorry for the guy.
• brunoqc 13y ago
  It's weird that some police officers would know who Satoshi Nakamoto is.
  • tonyhb 13y ago
    Not really – the Kentucky police chief is paid in bitcoin: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57614544-93/kentucky-police-chief-to-be-paid-in-bitcoin/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57614544-93/kentucky-police... People don't have to be working in the tech scene to be interested.
    • cbr 13y ago
      a Kentucky police chief
      • tonyhb 13y ago
        Ah thanks. Not entirely sure of the police hierarchy in America.
        • cbr 13y ago
          For getting an idea of the impact: this is one person in a small town, not something at the level of a state. It's news because it's rare.
    • deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  • sounds 13y ago
    Ironically, the officers didn't know it was _Satoshi_ _Nakamoto_ until she said so. They're just helping the guy remove a trespasser, which is well within their line of duty. Oh, and the homeowner who called them is named "Satoshi Nakamoto." What do you want to bet they don't really know/care who that is? Especially if he is cleared for classified work, he will know exactly who to call to get some law enforcement backup. Seriously, don't try to break into a guy's house who is employed by the U.S. Government and has access to that kind of stuff. (I know she didn't break in, but she's definitely invading.)
• bachback 13y ago
  Can this be real? a guy calls the cops, but admits he was involved? "Tacitly acknowledging his role in the Bitcoin project, he looks down, staring at the pavement and categorically refuses to answer questions." "I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it," he says, dismissing all further queries with a swat of his left hand. "It's been turned over to other people. They are in charge of it now. I no longer have any connection."
  • topynate 13y ago
    It sounds like he's 'on the spectrum' - very strong commitment to the literal truth goes with the territory. As does desire for privacy, tendency to work alone obsessively on unusual projects, lack of interest in money (or in being rich, rather)...
    • rthomas6 13y ago
      That's an interesting observation and now that you pointed it out, I think I agree with you. However, I think that more than autistic people lack interest in "being rich". If I had $400m, I'd buy a house and pay off our car. The remaining $399.5m would be invested. I'd take out $40-50k per year for spending. Extravagant lifestyles are overrated, I think.
      • Yorn 13y ago
        Speaking as a sometimes paranoid libertarian with a reasonable amount of Bitcoin, myself, I can say the two things preventing me from cashing out of any portion of it is the likelihood I would be identified and the fact that any sales of it I have to pay taxes on. I purchased a house this year that I could have afforded several times over in Bitcoin, but instead took out a loan just like anyone else.
        • anigbrowl 13y ago
          I don't understand this. the amount you'd pay in capital gains is probably less than what you're going to pay out in interest, notwithstanding the mortgage interest deduction to your taxes (in which the government subsidizes you at the expense of other taxpayers). I mean, perhaps you ran the numbers and it works out better financially, but I get the impression from your post that you don't want to pay any taxes on it on principle, which seems economically irrational.
• jxf 13y ago
  So Newsweek outed a guy who allegedly owns half a billion dollars in pseudo-untraceable, digital cash? I hope they're also going to chip in for a permanent security detail... More seriously, I think they could have done a better job reporting on the identity without giving so much away: * A picture of his house is posted, identical to the one in Google Street View * The license plate is relatively clear in the high-resolution image * His exact address has more or less already been discovered using only the information in the article * Full names of family members were used It's a legitimate story -- understanding Nakomoto's motivations for creating Bitcoin as discovered from his past is a worthwhile topic. (For example, would your feelings about cryptocurrency change if it turned out Nakomoto was a high-level NSA operative?) But, again, it could have been reported in a way that didn't compromise his identity so thoroughly.
  • Tyrannosaurs 13y ago
    I agree with you, but would temper it very slightly by saying that a man with a $400m fortune has some options here. That doesn't make it right and his wealth doesn't make him free game but it does mean that he's not completely been hung out to dry.
    • unreal37 13y ago
      What if he doesn't have a $400m fortune? What if it never existed or he's destroyed the private keys? There's no proof here he has "money".
    • ewoodrich 13y ago
      Using any of his Bitcoin would attract far more attention than any dubiously sourced article though, and could risk proving both that he is Satoshi and still has access to an enormous amount of money. (For all we know right now he could have lost/destroyed all of his private keys).
    • fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
      They haven't presented any evidence. The Satoshi they found sounds like a plausible Satoshi but is it really him? If he is the real Satoshi he may have lost or discarded his private keys. Some snarky comment about how this is why bloggers aren't journalists because a "real" news organization has ethics or something.
• continuations 13y ago
  Does the concept of privacy mean anything to Newsweek?
  • r4pha 13y ago
    As much as I don't like this - at the very least - ridiculously unethical article, I'm pretty sure a lot of papers would be dying to publish this piece.
    • bruceb 13y ago
      How is it unethical? The guy created a currency that is used around the world and is a mystery.
      • r4pha 13y ago
        It's just my personal opinion. If someone is clearly trying to remain undisturbed, I find it very disrespectful to distribute pictures of their face and home without their consent.
  • uptown 13y ago
    I see it as good investigative journalism. You don't think the single person that potentially originated a new form of global currency that's dominating headlines, and receiving the attention of world leaders is newsworthy? I'm a firm believer in privacy - but when something one has put into the world stands to have a massively disruptive force, it's worth exploring who that person is, and what their motivations are.
    • dagw 13y ago
      And they could have done all of that without revealing his identity.
      • girvo 13y ago
        His identity was revealed the moment he put his actual full name to the paper though :/ I would has sympathy if he actually did use a pseudonym, but assuming this is true then what did he really expect would happen?
• dionyziz 13y ago
  Bullshit.
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• blakesterz 13y ago
  "What?" The police officer balks. "This is the guy who created Bitcoin? It looks like he's living a pretty humble life." That quote smells totally fake to me. There's just no way some random office would know what Bitcoin is, and even if he did, that's not something a police officer would say. I don't know what that says about the rest of the article, but that quote doesn't read very factual to me.
  • dagw 13y ago
    Bitcoin is all over mainstream media. Its ups and downs are covered in the finance section of even the most old school and conservative of newspapers. Hell my father-in-law knows what bitcoin is, and he is about as far behind on the technology curve as you can get.
    • carrja99 13y ago
      This. My mother can barely use her computer and yet she knows what bitcoin is too. My parents even brought it up in conversation the last time they visited.
  • watty 13y ago
    Why couldn't a random officer know what Bitcoin is? My father heard of it and knows nothing about technology. It's no longer a secretive online currency, it's everywhere.
    • xsace 13y ago
      yeah but it doesn't mean everyone know the name of Satoshi
    • joncrocks 13y ago
      If you read the article, it suggests that the police officer is told that the person is Satoshi Nakamoto and the officer exclaims: "What?" The police officer balks. "This is the guy who created Bitcoin?" I can accept that the man on the street would have heard about bitcoin, but to know the name of the person who did the original work on the currency? That just seems a bit unlikely.
• emin-gun-sirer 13y ago
  No culture deserves to have its creation myths exposed or destroyed. Ironically, Newsweek's behavior makes a strong case for anonymous communication and payment systems.
• stefanve 13y ago
  So Newsweek hires paparazzo's now? The need to disclose everything about the guy and call several family members etc is really wrong. Which I could undo my click...., no need to invade his privacy so much, "fun to know because interesting" is not a good enough reason to write the article...
  • bruceb 13y ago
    Call his family, that is what reporters do to confirm a story. The man created a currency that is used world wide, is talked about every day on HN. Can you imagine if facebook was created and we didn't know who did it?
    • marvy 13y ago
      Sure, why not?
  • Raphael 13y ago
    The plural of 'paparazzo' is 'paparazzi'.
• confluence 13y ago
  There's one thing that doesn't add up: why would such a privacy conscious man use his real name on a project he thought might be illegal? If he was so serious about his privacy, he would not have used his real name in public.
  • sounds 13y ago
    My guess is that Satoshi doesn't think Bitcoin is illegal per se. You don't have to have something to hide to want privacy.
    • fab13n 13y ago
      The main issue for him today isn't legality; it's being a prime target for extortion, from entities other than governments.
      • frogpelt 13y ago
        He's probably not completely safe from governments either.
        • mpyne 13y ago
          Well if it was this easy to track him down then I somehow suspect that the U.S. gov't, at least, was not actually trying to do it.
          • frogpelt 13y ago
            They don't usually write articles about the people that they find.
            • mpyne 13y ago
              No, the media usually writes the articles. Just ask DPR.
  • 13y ago
• maxk42 13y ago
  You just killed a man you dumb shit.
  • bruceb 13y ago
    How did they kill him? He will be fine.
    • pg_is_a_butt 13y ago
      he will certainly die, idiot.
    • dlsx 13y ago
      I doubt this guy will be "fine" his address, name, and license plate with numbers displayed were posted by this stupid bitch. Oh, and the fact he has thousands of bitcoins.
• gexla 13y ago
  Now that the article outed him, maybe he will spend some of his Bitcoin on a fortress, security and drones (coded himself of course) to patrol his house.
• jbondeson 13y ago
  I'm torn about the article. On one hand this seems like a horrid breach of privacy and a terribly dangerous thing to do. On the other, even if they just said he lives in his family home in California, people were going to find out all this information. Half of me thinks it's better everyone knows they were doxed all at once.
  • GuiA 13y ago
    > On the other, even if they just said he lives in his family home in California, people were going to find out all this information. How is the argument "X was going to happen anyway so it's fine if it happens now" ever right?
    • jbondeson 13y ago
      If the objection is privacy it's not right. However if it's safety, it's better to know up front than to think you're anonymous.
• r4pha 13y ago
  I thought that bitcoin as a whole would be badly shaken at the second Satoshi touched his coins. What if, now that he allegedly has a face, he could have allegedly legitimate needs to spend his coins on? * takes off tinfoil hat
• lucb1e 13y ago
  > "He was the kind of person who, if you made an honest mistake, he might call you an idiot and never speak to you again," Andresen says. "Back then, it was not clear that creating Bitcoin might be a legal thing to do. He went to great lengths to protect his anonymity." Except that he used his full, real name. That is what seems so odd to me. If it really is him though, I'm very much afraid this article just destroyed his life...
• 4dl0v3-p34c3 13y ago
  Isn't this entire article illegal? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personally_identifiable_information#United_States_of_America http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personally_identifiable_informa... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_privacy_law#California_Right_to_Know_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_privacy_law#Califor... Whatever. Satoshi-san can sue if he likes. The damage done in the article alone is devastating for even persecution charges.
  • stan_rogers 13y ago
    No. Those laws only make it illegal to release information, or insufficiently protect it, in a legal relationship of trust and guardianship (and to gather such information by pretending to be party to such a relationship). No such relationship exists here, and unless a SSN (or equivalent protected identifier) was released, it's merely ethically questionable, not illegal.
    • ufmace 13y ago
      Even if it was, lawsuits are entirely public, and filing and litigating one would result in exponentially more publicity than this article has already given him.
• argumentum 13y ago
  Quite an odd article for such an important (if true) expose. The only reason I think its possibly true is Gavin's vague tweet. 50% of the article deals with material about bitcoin that is redundant to anyone whose been following it for more than a day (like most here). 45% deals with "Dorian S. Nakamoto"'s family, personal background and that he's a libertarian oddball, with a penchant for math (but no other significant accomplishment within it or CS) who (other than possible being the Satoshi) has led a fairly normal, middle class southern california lifestyle. The remaining 5% or so details a brief encounter with the man, in which he neither confirms or denies it. I'm skeptical.
  • flaxin 13y ago
    same here
  • dTal 13y ago
    To be honest I agree with you that there quite a few red flags about this article. However, short of Newsweek outright making everything up, isn't the lack of a denial in this instance tantamount to an admission? I mean, if it were me, and I valued my privacy that much, I would a) have used an actual pseudonym, b) responded to questions about Bitcoin with "bit-what-now"?
    • michaelt 13y ago
      isn't the lack of a denial in this instance tantamount to an admission? I mean, if it were me, [...] responded to questions about Bitcoin with "bit-what-now"? If all his friends and family know he shares his name with the creator of bitcoin, he might have already heard all the jokes and think "not this shit again" as well as not being able to credibly deny knowing about it. There's a british general who goes by Mike Jackson when his real name is Michael Jackson [1]. If someone asked him to moonwalk I'd expect the resigned frustration of someone who has heard that lame joke a thousand times before - rather than him denying having heard of the pop singer of the same name. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Jackson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Jackson
      • 13y ago
• mikeg8 13y ago
  If you want to email the Newsweek editor and let them know your disapproval, the address is letters@newsweek.com.
  • bruceb 13y ago
    They don't care. This is the story of the day and week.
• hnha 13y ago
  There would be an easy way to protect his well-being: Crash Bitcoin so that it is worthless.
  • sandis 13y ago
    Except then someone who has invested a fortune in Bitcoin might go nuts and take it out on him
• jmnicolas 13y ago
  From the article : "He is the only person I have ever known to show up for a job interview and tell the interviewer he's an idiot - and then prove it." Priceless.
• bane 13y ago
  Topic other than discussing the irresponsibility of "outing" a guy using the clever tricks of using his name and public records look ups. > A libertarian, Nakamoto encouraged his daughter to be independent, start her own business and "not be under the government's thumb," she says. "He was very wary of the government, taxes and people in charge." > What you don't know about him is that he's worked on classified stuff. His life was a complete blank for a while. You're not going to be able to get to him. Growing up and living in the D.C. area, I'm constantly surprised at the paradox of the deeply conservative anti-federal government types who work for the government - directly or as a fed contractor. Who'll rattle off about privacy issues before hopping on the bus to their job working on an NSA contract at a Fed contractor...that sort of thing. I've even pointed out point-blank that their salaries are paid for by the same taxes they rail against incessantly and are met with blank stares or wry grimaces before they launch into an extended soliloquy about "values" or personal responsibility or some such. I've even had folks in the military swear up and down that some military benefit program isn't a result of tax payer dollars but mysteriously appears out of some kind of pay differential sacrifice they've made instead of working in the private sector. It's rather bizarre and I guess to Nakamoto's credit, he actually did something about it in a sense. edit meta-response to the replies indicating that perhaps his close contact with the government is what motivated him to develop bitcoin, I think that's plausible. What we don't know is if he developed this philosophy before or after working with the government. I'm curious though, in the general sense about people who have a fundamentally anti-government philosophy, then take roles supporting and building up the same government they clog their facebook feeds rallying against.
  • rayiner 13y ago
    Rhetoric aside, I've met almost no libertarians of the anarchist persuasive in D.C., the kind who reject the existence of government. There are a lot of small government conservatives, though, but I think they object more to the 60% of the budget that is comprised of transfer payments and aid to states than the 5-10% of the budget is comprised of federal payroll. More generally, compartmentalization isn't hypocrisy. Everyone has the programs that they like and the ones they don't. People deeply opposed to defense spending or the drug war still justify working for e.g. the EPA.
• grej 13y ago
  I wonder if Leah McGrath Goodman would like photos of her home published and members of her family identified against her will? I wonder if she thought about that, or the man and his family's safety, before choosing to publish this information about him? Reading the description of the man and recognizing the value he placed on privacy and anonymity, I'm genuinely sad for him. I also fear for his personal safety and that of his family for the reasons others have stated.
  • smacktoward 13y ago
    > I wonder if Leah McGrath Goodman would like photos of her home published Nobody at Google Street View, which cheerfully publishes pictures of millions of peoples' homes without consent or even notification, appears to have ever wondered that.
    • bruceb 13y ago
      Homes you can drive by. Hardly that big of a deal.
    • nilkn 13y ago
      I've seen a number of homes blurred out on Google Street View.
• lucb1e 13y ago
  > "Dorian can just be paranoid," says Tokuo. "I cannot get through to him. I don't think he will answer any of these questions to his family truthfully." What the hell, if many family members are so eager to forward questions from the press to him and spill anything they know, I can totally understand Satoshi doesn't answer them truthfully. I also feel very sorry for Satoshi's position in which he doesn't seem to have anyone to talk to truthfully :/ > Of course, none of this puts to rest the biggest question of all - the one that only Satoshi Nakamoto himself can answer: What has kept him from spending his hundreds of millions of dollars of Bitcoin Isn't it obvious? It would destabilize the market and begin a huge frenzy to find out who he is, and he knows it. Now the latter is a moot point, but I can totally understand he doesn't want to backstab his brainchild. Besides, who says he didn't mine other coins early on anonymously for his own use? Wasn't the point of Bitcoin that you can't know who's who? If he did this and got some money, he totally deserved it.
  • Jach 13y ago
    The article says he lives with his mother, and since the article said nothing else about her, I suspect she may be the one person he can talk to truthfully...
• liopleurodon 13y ago
  "The punctuation in the proposal is also consistent with how Dorian S. Nakamoto writes, with double spaces after periods and other format quirks." wtf!! That's how you're supposed to write!!
  • aestra 13y ago
    No it isn't. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_spacing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_spacing Until the 20th century, publishing houses and printers in many countries used additional space between sentences. There were exceptions to this traditional spacing method—some printers used spacing between sentences that was no wider than word spacing.[6] This was French spacing—a term synonymous with single-space sentence spacing until the late 20th century.[7] With the introduction of the typewriter in the late 19th century, typists used two spaces between sentences to mimic the style used by traditional typesetters.[8] While wide sentence spacing was phased out in the printing industry in the mid-twentieth century, the practice continued on typewriters[9] and later on computers.[10] Perhaps because of this, many modern sources now incorrectly[5] claim that wide spacing was created for the typewriter.[11] Many experts now say that additional space is not required or desirable between sentences.[12] Typesetting programs such as TeX[13] can modify kerning values to adjust spaces following terminal punctuation, so there is less need to increase spacing manually between sentences[9] (provided that there is some cue to distinguish the end of a sentence from the end of an abbreviated word). From around 1950, single sentence spacing became standard in books, magazines and newspapers,[14] though the recommendation of using 1.5 spaces persisted at least to 1996.[15] Regardless, many still believe that double spacing is correct. The debate continues,[5] notably on the World Wide Web—as many people use search engines to try to find what is correct.[16] Many people prefer double sentence spacing for informal use because that was how they were taught to type.[17] There is a debate on which convention is more readable, but the few recent direct studies conducted since 2002 have produced inconclusive results.[18] Much modern literature on typography says that double spacing is not desirable,[19] but other sources indicate that it could be used on a typewriter or with a monospaced font.[20] The majority of style guides opt for a single space after terminal punctuation for final and published work, with a few permitting double spacing in draft manuscripts and for specific circumstances based on personal preference.[21] Grammar and design guides, including Web design guides, provide similar guidance.[22] http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/how-many-spaces-after-a-period http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/how-many-...
• pistle 13y ago
  Doxxing the guy is not nice. With this out of the way, maybe cryptocurrency can focus attention on leveling up protocols and systems to improve utility. When bitcoin becomes the Friendster of cryptocurrency, Satoshi won't matter, just the disruptive ideas around our proxies for value and the new tools and power that can be used in positive ways to help improve the lot for all humans. People want the confidence that they are able to securely accrue and employ the value of their efforts and wisdom to improve their standard of living. The values of the mainstream of humanity will determine the fate of this stuff. The current level of technical acumen required to handle and secure most any crypto$ is too high for them right now. It's time to level up.
• markbao 13y ago
  Honest question: it seems like Nakamoto wanted to keep his identity secret. If that's true, then why did he reveal so much information (by implying that he was part of Bitcoin) and allow a photo of him to be taken, instead of saying "I have no relation to Bitcoin"? It doesn't add up.
  • km3k 13y ago
    I don't think he allowed that photo to be taken. The reporter probably got it from a family member or friend.
• acjohnson55 13y ago
  I'll probably be slammed for this, but I actually think it's a pretty good piece. Maybe it could do without the picture of Satoshi's house, but it probably wouldn't be so hard to find the house anyway if you know you're looking for an actual "Satoshi Nakamoto in Temple City". If the dude hadn't used his real name, we'd probably still be wondering who he is. So I think the indignation is a bit misplaced. It's not at all uncommon or nefarious for news reports to be written about people who don't particularly want the coverage.
• treebridge 13y ago
  Goodman writes: "Two weeks before our meeting in Temple City, I struck up an email correspondence with Satoshi Nakamoto, mostly discussing his interest in upgrading and modifying model steam trains with computer-aided design technologies. I obtained Nakamoto's email through a company he buys model trains from." This is so sneaky and sad.
• yesplorer 13y ago
  I kept reading the article hoping to get to the point where I say "Aha!! Now I know this is the founder of Bitcoin" but the writer kept rambling with if, if and if he's actually the creator, continuously engaging in intellectual masturbation. Sigh All I have to say is; Speedy recovery, True Journalism, from whatever cancer you're suffering from.
• michaelbuddy 13y ago
  that is the most genius newsweek cover image. I'm stunned by how smart it was to create that artwork.
  • atom-morgan 13y ago
    I'm surprised nobody else has brought this up. It's almost too good. I didn't notice my first time.
• lcasela 13y ago
  This is a really irresponsible article. Imagine what this guy is going to have to live with for the rest of his life.
• nmeofthestate 13y ago
  I'm wondering how many of the commenters that are equating holding BTC with a death sentence by violent criminals would consider themselves pro-BTC.
• rl12345 13y ago
  On the bright side: if keeping his anonymity was Satoshi's main reason for not touching his BTC fortune, now he and his family will finally be able to use all that money and take benefit from it - well deservedly.
• mathattack 13y ago
  If Nakamoto ever sells his Bitcoin fortune, he would likely have to do so at a legitimate Bitcoin bank or exchange, which would not only give away his identity but alert everyone from the IRS to the FBI of his movements. I think they just did that. Amazing that he actually used his real name. This tells me that he didn't realize how far it would go when he started it.
• adamzerner 13y ago
  How hasn't anyone guessed that the math wiz named Satoshi Nakamoto is indeed Satoshi Nakamoto of Bitcoin? Also, being that he's so secretive, why on earth would he use his real name?
• wil421 13y ago
  I feel sorry for this guy. The reign of hell newsweek is about to put on him is not going to be fun. Especially since this guy is pretty ecentric and doesnt like being in the public eye. My hopes are no one tries to rob this guy or kidnap his family to get to his supposed 400m.
  • theklub 13y ago
    Could be worse, if he has a meltdown and hurts himself.
• glimmung 13y ago
  I hope nothing negative happens to the subject of this piece. I hope something thoroughly educational happens to the author of this piece. Cheesy and ill-considered.
• socialist_coder 13y ago
  0% this is actually the real Satoshi Nakamoto.
  • bruceb 13y ago
    I will bet you a bitcoin it is.
    • socialist_coder 13y ago
      good thing you didn't really bet. /lol
• donutdan4114 13y ago
  That page took about 20s to fully load. Over 300 requests... wtf...
  • kaishiro 13y ago
    Ugh, it's so awful. And the mobile kicks the asides into the middle of the fucking article.
• thekevan 13y ago
  This may not add to the discussion but I still cannot help my self and have to comment that this doxxing is disgusting and irresponsible.
• basseq 13y ago
  Is anyone else surprised that that police know that Satoshi is the creator of Bitcoin? That seems like an esoteric piece of knowledge for someone not in the tech space.
• brubaker 13y ago
  That is a weird family.
• frogpelt 13y ago
  This is Newsweek's watershed. They're laying Satoshi Nakamoto on the line to recreate their brand as a hard-hitting journalism publication. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsweek http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsweek EDIT: The relevant parts of the wiki article are at the end of the first section. 1. Newsweek merged with The Daily Beast. 2. Newsweek ceased print publication and transitioned to an all-digital format. 3. IBT Media acquired Newsweek. IBT Media plans to relaunch a print edition of Newsweek on March 7, 2014. (Guess what today is!)
  • rhizome 13y ago
    Nice catch!
• wnevets 13y ago
  bitcoin fanboys are funny.
• yoha 13y ago
  Breaking history navigation + mandatory cookies… The Wikipedia article saved me some time getting to the point: > Though Nakamato's identity was a source of speculation since the launch of Bitcoin in 2008, an article in the news magazine Newsweek by Leah McGrath Goodman, published March 6, 2014, made the case that his true identity was Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto (born 1949), a Japanese American man living in California.[8]
• atmosx 13y ago
  Cool article but says virtually nothing. We have: * A smart man, according to the article * Who worked for the government at some point in time (according to the article) * Who's name is Satoshi Nakamoto * Who values privacy (so much that he used his real name LOL) So apart from the stalking and extremely irritating privacy breach this article shows about Newsweek's[1] journalists and chosen course of action, proves or states nothing. He didn't admit anything, but seriously... Even he did, why do we care at this point? [1] I was holding NS in low regard anyway. Now it's as low as it gets in my eyes.
• sarreph 13y ago
  I'm not up-voting this because Leah Goodman has violated even the most simple of journalistic integrity that should be afforded to such a sensitive topic. Firstly, she very dubiously breached Nakamoto's trust by attempting to get through to him by talking about his passions. Then, when she didn't get the response she wanted, she posted this article that lists multiple family members' full names, most of Nakamoto's (if this is even the real Nakamoto) personal and employment history, and then has the audacity to post a photo of Nakamoto's house that is close enough to a google street view photo, enabling others to pinpoint his location. If something bad happens to Nakamoto as a result of the personal information disclosed in this report, it will be a great shame for Newsweek.
• potatoman2 13y ago
  "This man is Satoshi Nakamoto." "What?" The police officer balks. "This is the guy who created Bitcoin? It looks like he's living a pretty humble life." - I do not believe this exchange took place. The police would've had his name from his initial call to them, and a random officer from the Sheriff's department would not likely recognize that name as the creator of Bitcoin. Just saying.
  • robotcookies 13y ago
    He did change his name from Satoshi to Dorian and maybe that's what the officer had.
  • deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  • crazy1van 13y ago
    > "What?" The police officer balks. "This is the guy who created Bitcoin? It looks like he's living a pretty humble life." Wow. Bitcoin is pretty mainstream if a random police officer knows the name of the guy who invented it.
• deanclatworthy 13y ago
  So this guy was found using public records as it's his real name or used to be? I would suspect that the authorities therefore would have known about him for far longer than Newsweek.
• fiatpandas 13y ago
  Completely irresponsible to put a picture of his house in the article. I mean, she didn't even blur out his house number. It took me a single google search to find his full address with that number (matching street view). It's been taken out of the article now, but the damage has been done.
• bambax 13y ago
  > There are several Satoshi Nakamotos living in North America and beyond - both dead and alive I too would like to be living in North America when I'm dead.
  • smsm42 13y ago
    You'd like to be a zombie in North America? You know North Americans don't like zombies - just watch their constant anti-zombie propaganda, it's disgusting. And all for a bunch of folks whose only fault is a high appreciation one's brain.
• robocaptain 13y ago
  I'm confused, I am seeing all these comments about how it was wrong to out him and then a lot of stuff about governments and stuff. But isn't it just crazy that they actually found him? I thought that was a big deal? Last I checked, lots of people doubted he was even a real person.
• otikik 13y ago
  Paparazziweek.
• tomasien 13y ago
  A lot of people are calling this "doxxing" which it isn't - identifying someone based on their ACTUAL NAME and profession isn't doxxing. It may be horrible, irresponsible, dangerous, I don't know - still forming an opinion about that, but that's not doxxing as I know it or see it defined anywhere.
  • xg15 13y ago
    I actually don't care if it matches the strict definition of doxxing - it's enough that it was horrible, irresponsible and dangerous.
    • tomasien 13y ago
      Definitions matter, words matter. That is all.
• dharma1 13y ago
  For a professional journalist to sink to such a level - with zero consideration for others in order to advance their own career - never ceases to amaze me.
  • smsm42 13y ago
    Isn't that what professional journalists routinely do?
    • declan 13y ago
      Those would be journalists who are not acting professionally.
• sktrdie 13y ago
  Here's a comment left on a forum by this Dorian person: https://www.national-preservation.com/threads/preserved-barsi-light-railway-india-kitson.38359/#post-702441 https://www.national-preservation.com/threads/preserved-bars... Satoshi's punctuation style with the double-space after the dot is a distinctive feature of his writing, used in both the official Bitcoin publication and on forum posts. Looking at the HTML source of that review, you can notice this exact punctuation style.
  • gnaritas 13y ago
    Pretty much anyone who learned how to write in the age of typewriters double spaces after a period, this is not a unique trait for anyone in their mid 30's or up. Hell I still do it, it's deeply ingrained.
    • Crito 13y ago
      As far as I know, many public school typing classes still teach double-spaces. It isn't until you get to things like classes in journalism tracks at universities that the concept is dispensed with.
      • pkfrank 13y ago
        This bit of the article also confused me. Who doesn't double-space after periods? I recognize the historical origin (typewriters), but I was taught this way and I'm "only" 24.
        • dragonwriter 13y ago
          > This bit of the article also confused me. Who doesn't double-space after periods? I don't. Every style guide I've seen has recommended against it in any medium that is going to be presented in non-fixed-width type, and IME its a lot less distracting to have single-space-after-sentence-ending-punctuation in a fixed-width font than double-space-after in a proportional font, so I've pretty much abandoned the practice entirely except in very narrow circumstances (e.g., I'll usually still do it in source code comments.) I think I first started adopting this practice around 1990 (about the same time I was finishing high school.)
• cryowaffle 13y ago
  The article doesn't have the picture of his house anymore
  • cryowaffle 13y ago
    ... and now the article put the photo of the house back up. I suspect Newsweek realized that removing it implied guilt.
• vezzy-fnord 13y ago
  Very few people here seem to be discussing the fact that the article offers little real evidence that this is the Satoshi Nakamoto of Bitcoin, and that most likely they just set up an eccentric old man with an unfortunate name collision to end up getting mobbed by the public.
  • anigbrowl 13y ago
    Apart from the guy not saying 'no, I am not the inventor of Bitcoin, you have the wrong Satoshi Nakamoto.'
    • davesque 13y ago
      Assuming that he actually said that, of which the author of the article has no proof.
      • anigbrowl 13y ago
        Most journalists carry handheld audio recorders for this very purpose.
• Steko 13y ago
  Shorter HN: Would you all just think of the poor superrich for a minute? Clearly they are the ones in our society who need special protections and immunities from journalism.
  • lukifer 13y ago
    We have no strong evidence that is he is super-rich, even if it is likely. And outing his personal details would be just as wrong if he had kept none of the coins.
• grondilu 13y ago
  I knew it was his real name. I'm pretty sure I called it on bitcointalk.org (I'm grondilu there) and I was pretty much the only one who thought it was his real name.
• act9 13y ago
  Gavin Andresen: "I'm disappointed Newsweek decided to dox the Nakamoto family, and regret talking to Leah." https://twitter.com/gavinandresen/status/441547758827474946 https://twitter.com/gavinandresen/status/441547758827474946
• alasdair_ 13y ago
  "I obtained Nakamoto's email through a company he buys model trains from." In Europe, this would be completely illegal. I'd suspect that in the US this at least breaks the privacy policy of whatever site Nakamoto was using. "Two weeks before our meeting in Temple City, I struck up an email correspondence with Satoshi Nakamoto, mostly discussing his interest in upgrading and modifying model steam trains with computer-aided design technologies. " I understand that this is sometimes how journalism is "done" but the sneakiness of it all seems pretty low.
  • anigbrowl 13y ago
    A lot of journalism is just plain old social engineering.
• m_myers 13y ago
  > You have reached the limit of 5 free articles a month. I haven't read any Newsweek articles this month. And it appears I'm not going to, either. Google cache link for anyone else who gets the same message: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fmag.newsweek.com%2F2014%2F03%2F14%2Fbitcoin-satoshi-nakamoto.html&oq=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fmag.newsweek.com%2F2014%2F03%2F14%2Fbitcoin-satoshi-nakamoto.html&gs_l=hp.3..0l4.439.2188.0.2536.7.7.0.0.0.0.221.871.0j3j2.5.0....2...1c.1.37.psy-ab..2.5.845.ObjcYtgqMr0&pbx=1 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?output=search&s...
  • gms7777 13y ago
    Switching to incognito usually works too.
• 72deluxe 13y ago
  The article appears to have many "from then on he stopped responding to emails" and "he then dropped off the map" phrases in it. He might not be replying to emails? The article is cleverly written to make these perfectly ordinary (in)actions sound suspicious. People could write the same about me if I didn't reply to emails or phone calls for a while.
• dlsx 13y ago
  The article is distasteful and does not respect the privacy of Mr. Nakamoto the real or his pseudonym. I hope the author gets punched in her stupid dumb cunt for writing this shit.
• Myrmornis 13y ago
  Well it's too late to get any points for this inference now, but I'm going to claim that there was a strong clue that the author of the PDF was old: the bitcoin paper cites "An Introduction to Probability Theory and Its Applications" by William Feller. This is a classic, from the 1960s, but I don't think it's very well known among people under 40 (correct me if I'm wrong).
  • mzs 13y ago
    It's also a classic, I used it as text in a course back in '98 or so. Also it's more widely used outside of USA, personally I believe that is because it is inexpensively reprinted and because Feller was Croatian. I believe it has been translated to a number of languages including Chinese and notably Japanese.
  • mpyne 13y ago
    That's a good inference, but it was actually mentioned by the journalist who wrote this article.
  • selimthegrim 13y ago
    I'm 27 and I've certainly heard of that book - most people studying probability even for scientific applications will have encountered it. I actually recommended it to a friend about 3 years ago.
• cyphunk 13y ago
  > "For anyone who's tried to wire money overseas, you can see how much easier an international Bitcoin transaction is. It's just as easy as sending an email." -- Bitcoin's chief scientist, Gavin Andresen No actually it's only as easy as Western Union is. You either have to take a huge cut due to localbitcoin or other markups for markets that avoid the normal route of... registering at an exchange, giving them all your details which will take weeks to months, whom will then place major limits on what you can transfer (no more than a $2k-$10k) and potentially crash burn and be robbed while you wait for your FIAT. So actually it's like transferring money between two Western Union branches that are both in war zones and staffed with employees taken from the DMV.
• ChuckMcM 13y ago
  Doxing as journalism, kind of surreal. Not sure I get the point though. (I understand why irc enemies do it, but I don't get the journalistic value of 'outing' Satoshi)
  • anigbrowl 13y ago
    Oh come on, you're a smart person Chuck. You don't get the journalistic value of tracking down the person who founded a $10 billion cryptocurrency economy that is in the news on a weekly basis? Pull the other one, it's got bells on.
    • ChuckMcM 13y ago
      Oh I get the value of kind of "knowing the guy" but I don't understand the whole 'take down-esque' form the article took. It would have been perfectly reasonable to use all that data and report that Satoshi is a brilliant, if quirky, guy living in Southern California. But to go through the hunt, the leads, the follow up, identifying his kids, family, and location. It has the feel of papparazzi taking pictures of Kate Middleton's panties on a windy day.
      • anigbrowl 13y ago
        I don't disagree that it's tacky, and have a low opinion of gonzo journalism in general. However, the rise of personal reporting brands is bigger than one person or evne one publication. As for bringing the guy's identity out into the opne, I am OK with that. If (as posited elsewhere on this thread) he owns or controls some 5-10% of the bitcoin economy,t hen a good number of other people have a legitimate interest in knowing who he is and how he might leverage that. Frankly, one reason I've avoided speculating in bitcoin was precisely because of the lack of information about this; a crypto-currency set up by some International Man of Mystery has a high potential of being a pump-and-dump scheme.
• olalonde 13y ago
  Meta: this submission has 811 point and was posted only 5 hours, yet it is at #11 position. Is this the regular HN algorithm at work or is it weighted down due to its controversial nature? (I'm not trying to imply there is any conspiracy... I actually remember reading that submissions with a high vote to comment ratio are weighted down but I'm not completely sure)
  • gasull 13y ago
    Probably it has been flagged because it's full of speculation.
    • rhizome 13y ago
      It's also full of bitcoin, which has been crapping all over HN for weeks now.
• knodi 13y ago
  Why did the author out him.
• ropman76 13y ago
  The biases of this article aside, he sounds like a very interesting man. It saddens me that the way we found out who he really is was by a very gross invasion of his privacy. A sit down interview (in person or virtually)would have been much more interesting. I would have liked to have known eventually, but not like this
• raymondduke 13y ago
  Finally, the face of this super villain in his evil lair.
• hiroaki 13y ago
  References to Dorian Nakamoto on the web: Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/ATILATX3PEXZ4/ref=cm_cr_rdp_pdp/175-5058784-6633341 http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/ATILATX3PEXZ4/ref=cm_cr... Letter voting for an art rail project (search for "nakamoto"): http://media.metro.net/projects_studies/connector/images/Final_EIR/appendix_i_agency_coordination_and_public_involvement_part_20_of_23.pdf http://media.metro.net/projects_studies/connector/images/Fin... Google cache of a recent event where he was at (look for the guy in the yellow baseball cap): http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww.mylargescale.com%2Ftabid%2F56%2Faft%2F131386%2FDefault.aspx&oq=cache%3Awww.mylargescale.com%2Ftabid%2F56%2Faft%2F131386%2FDefault.aspx&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.1385j0j1&sourceid=chrome&espv=2&es_sm=91&ie=UTF-8 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww.m...
• iratedev 13y ago
  I don't get why this search was so important. Can anyone speak more on it?
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• sizzle 13y ago
  lives in SoCal and a Cal Poly alumni, respect!
• ParadisoShlee 13y ago
  This is a pretty predatory article.
• davesque 13y ago
  Poor guy. I hope he's going to be alright.
• Uhhrrr 13y ago
  "Reverse Polish notation" - was this originally Hungarian notation before some layer of "fact checking" ruined it? I have no idea how one would program using RPN.
  • dmourati 13y ago
    +1 for RPN. Ha!
• efuquen 13y ago
  I'm going to skirt the ethical questions being asked, assuming everything done to get this information was legal and such and the accuracy of it lives within the bounds of journalistic integrity (of course none of that necessarily makes it ethical, but like I said, circumventing that question for now). All that said, by the number of reactions I'm reading here I get the impression that in the Bitcoin world someone with a significant amount of wealth has to fear for their life? What is the difference between Satoshi Nakamoto and any other individual of significant wealth, i.e. Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Rupert Murdoch, etc. While I don't have any exact addresses or other information about these people on hand, I'm sure I could get it rather easily. The emphasis I keep seeing is on how he has $400 M of "pseudo-untraceable, digital cash" and assume the concern is something along the lines of it would be more difficult to extract that much from Bill Gates if you attacked/kidnapped him and get away with it vs Bitcoin, which you could theoretically extract the keys guarding the coin from the victim and quickly transfer out to other wallets without much issue. So, the gist I'm getting, is that in the world of crypto-currency if you get wealthy ... man you better watch out because people are going to be gunning for you to steal your coin by force if they ever find out where you live. Live In Fear. If this is the great future of finance you all envision, then I really wouldn't want any part of it. *Side note, I really don't believe any of the above but given some of the responses I've seen I think we need to take a step back and examine the conclusions that would result from some of the statements being made.
• est 13y ago
  aaaannnd now he is not https://twitter.com/byandreachang/status/441687863222996992 https://twitter.com/byandreachang/status/441687863222996992 https://twitter.com/byandreachang/status/441687863222996992 https://twitter.com/byandreachang/status/441687863222996992
• 2810 13y ago
  This is the best "He is the only person I have ever known to show up for a job interview and tell the interviewer he's an idiot - and then prove it."