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To be clear, I'm using "admit" for the sake of argument. He was quoted as saying "I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it..." There's no doubt h

by jere 13y ago

To be clear, I'm using "admit" for the sake of argument. He was quoted as saying "I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it..." There's no doubt he said that because he later disputed the meaning. But it seems pretty clear that he thought she was asking about his former contracts and not Bitcoin. Everyone who buys into this story thinks that the quote is the smoking gun and I just can't see how it even makes sense.

leoc 13y ago
> But it seems pretty clear that he thought she was asking about his former contracts and not Bitcoin. The full quote makes that seem much less likely: "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." If that's accurate, it's much harder to see how Dorian Nakamoto thought they were talking about his old military contracts. Which does of course leave open the question of how accurate the quote really is...
- jere 13y ago
  >If that's accurate, it's much harder to see how Dorian Nakamoto thought they were talking about his old military contracts. How so? That's how projects work. It seems like a pretty reasonable response for someone who is trying to avoid breaking a confidentiality agreement.
  - nhaehnle 13y ago
    It seems like a reasonable response to inquiries about a specific project. It is less likely as a general response to your general involvement in military contracts. Now ask yourself: Which specific projects had they been talking about, other than Bitcoin? If you can find one, I think your point becomes valid. If you can't, I have to side with the grandparent, at least on this aspect of the story. Of course, alternative explanations are possible. It's possible that there is one specific military contract project that is haunting Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto so much that that sentence came out even though the reporter had never brought it up. That does feel a bit like grasping at straws to me, though.
  - leoc 13y ago
    > That's how projects work. But that's just it. It's close to self-evident that any military contract work you did years ago would have been turned over to others (or simply terminated) since your contract ended, and especially that you would no longer be in charge; why would you want to specifically assert that just after saying that your contracts were long over? Conversely, elaborating on how your work has been turned over to others and you are no longer in charge is what you'd expect TheRealSatoshiNakamoto to say if he was confirming his role in Bitcoin but refusing to talk further about it. (But again, all of this is assuming that the quotation is accurate. If the journalist misremembered or altered it in a way that better fit her hopes or expectations—or just made it up—then obviously it's not safe to draw conclusions from it.)

by jere 13y ago

leoc 13y ago

> But it seems pretty clear that he thought she was asking about his former contracts and not Bitcoin. The full quote makes that seem much less likely: "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." If that's accurate, it's much harder to see how Dorian Nakamoto thought they were talking about his old military contracts. Which does of course leave open the question of how accurate the quote really is...

jere 13y ago
>If that's accurate, it's much harder to see how Dorian Nakamoto thought they were talking about his old military contracts. How so? That's how projects work. It seems like a pretty reasonable response for someone who is trying to avoid breaking a confidentiality agreement.
- nhaehnle 13y ago
  It seems like a reasonable response to inquiries about a specific project. It is less likely as a general response to your general involvement in military contracts. Now ask yourself: Which specific projects had they been talking about, other than Bitcoin? If you can find one, I think your point becomes valid. If you can't, I have to side with the grandparent, at least on this aspect of the story. Of course, alternative explanations are possible. It's possible that there is one specific military contract project that is haunting Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto so much that that sentence came out even though the reporter had never brought it up. That does feel a bit like grasping at straws to me, though.
- leoc 13y ago
  > That's how projects work. But that's just it. It's close to self-evident that any military contract work you did years ago would have been turned over to others (or simply terminated) since your contract ended, and especially that you would no longer be in charge; why would you want to specifically assert that just after saying that your contracts were long over? Conversely, elaborating on how your work has been turned over to others and you are no longer in charge is what you'd expect TheRealSatoshiNakamoto to say if he was confirming his role in Bitcoin but refusing to talk further about it. (But again, all of this is assuming that the quotation is accurate. If the journalist misremembered or altered it in a way that better fit her hopes or expectations—or just made it up—then obviously it's not safe to draw conclusions from it.)