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> even if the original Satoshi steps forward ... nobody will believe it's really him I beg to differ. If the real Satoshi actually wanted to identify himself,
by shutupalready 12y ago
> even if the original Satoshi steps forward ... nobody will believe it's really him
I beg to differ. If the real Satoshi actually wanted to identify himself, he'd have no trouble convincing us beyond a reasonable doubt even without his original keys.
This situation is not like trying to decide if you believe a person who says he bought the winning lottery ticket for cash but then lost it.
This situation is more like trying to decide if you believe a person who says he's a thoracic surgeon who's an expert in US Constitutional law, speaks Finnish, and can do somersaults while skiing. Ask him to explain in Finnish how to do laparoscopic Nissen fundoplication.
Just look at all the things that Satoshi has to answer correctly:
- expert level C++ programmer
- fluent English, excellent grammar
- deep knowledge of cryptography
- extensive knowledge of mathematics (maybe not a PhD, but he's no slouch)
- totally intimate with the original Bitcoin code
- familiar with all the history of Bitcoin (at least the history pre-2010)
- plausible explanations for all his actions
- etc.
We're talking about about a miniscule fraction of the world's population that could convincingly fake all of this knowledge and ability -- maybe a few hundred people at most on the entire Earth.
Suppose Bruce Schneier claimed to be Satoshi, then you could look at other things in Bruce background to rebuff it. (Example: Bruce was on a commercial airplane flying over the Atlantic when one of the Satoshi emails was sent.)
- verroq 12y ago>- expert level C++ programmer Are you implying the Bitcoin client wasn't a botched up C with classes and the team is still trying to make it not crap?
- jasonzemos 12y agoIndeed. It's clear Satoshi never worked for any C++ development firm that imprinted at least some type of coherent design pattern on him. The programming has the flavor of someone involved in a lot of open source, spare-time C.
- jacobwcarlson 12y agoThe code always struck me as a cryptographer who knew how to program rather than a developer who understood cryptography.
- ISL 12y agoSuppose Bruce Schneier kicked off an email with a cron-job in order to throw you off his trail?
- lotsofcows 12y agoWhy would Bruce Schneier do that? He can just change the headers for each recipient _after_delivery_.
- mullingitover 12y agoSchneier actually wrote bitcoin by piping /dev/random to a file of appropriate length, then decrypting it.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- otakucode 12y agoAny public writer would have most likely been discovered already. People are fairly easy to identify by their use of language if you have access to any reasonable body of their work. I presume that people have at least expended this level of effort to attempt to find him or eliminate particular candidates.
- ThrustVectoring 12y agoI'm not familiar enough with bitcoin - is there a secure way to prove that you own a certain number of bitcoins? If so, that's an easy barrier of evidence that Satoshi can overcome that others can't.
- jasonzemos 12y agoHe can certainly publish a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof =)
- dustcoin 12y agoThe owner of the private key corresponding to a bitcoin address can cryptographically sign a message proving they control the address. This functionality is built into most modern bitcoin wallets.
- cperciva 12y agototally intimate with the original Bitcoin code After this long? Probably not. I'm routinely surprised by the clever things I wrote five years ago.
- StavrosK 12y agoBetter than my getting surprised by the dumb things I wrote five years ago, I guess.
- mehwoot 12y agoAlso the fact he owns roughly half a billion dollars in bitcoins. Not many people pass that test.