Something else that stinks about all this that I haven't seen commented on:
Supposedly, Chris Wright did his ridiculous laptop dance with Gavin Andresen because he didn't want Gavin to leak the signature early.
What a load of crap. These are supposedly real cryptographers we're talking about here. If you ask a cryptographer (including, presumably, Satoshi) how they would prove their identity to someone else such that the other person couldn't leak the proof, the answer doesn't involve airplanes and fishy laptops running dubiously authentic Windows programs. The answer is deniable authentication.
In the bitcoin case, it's trivial. Satoshi's public key is g^p for some p that only Satoshi knows (using multiplicative notation) on a well-known and hopefully secure elliptic curve. You can use this key for ECDSA, but you can also use it for, drumroll please, Diffie-Hellman. Gavin picks a random scalar b and tells Craig Wright g^b. Chris replies with (g^b)^p [1]. Gavin checks that the result is the same as (g^p)^b.
This is deniable: Gavin can trivially make up the transcript of the protocol, so Gavin can't use it to prematurely convince anyone of anything. No airplanes needed.
There are plenty of other ways to do this. Pretty much any zero-knowledge proof of knowledge would work.
[1] In practice, this should be blinded to avoid cross-protocol attacks and relay attacks. Craig could send something like H("Hi Gavin, I am Craig Wright, aka Satoshi Nakamoto" || (g^b)^p). A real cryptographer could double-check me here.
If Craig Wright came to me and said he was Satoshi Nakamoto, I'd say, "Sign it with the genesis block's private key or GTFO." This is crypto, bitcoin is built on incontrovertible, mathematical proof. Why the hell would Satoshi do anything else?
If it ever comes to light that Craig Wright is trying to use this lie for some monetary advantage, he should be arrested for fraud, which is what this is.
I see two dimensions to this situation: is Wright actually Satoshi or does Wright know who the real Satoshi is, and does Satoshi want to be found.
Condition A: Wright is Satoshi and Satoshi wants to be found. In this condition, Wright's actions make no sense. Why publish an obviously fake proof? I suppose if Wright/Satoshi lost the original private keys this would make some sense, but is really unlikely.
Condition B: Wright is Satoshi and Satoshi does not want to be found. Here things actually make perfect sense. Wright/Satoshi is trying to discredit himself by publishing fake proofs. This is a sort of hiding in the open thing that might work.
Condition C: Wright is not Satoshi but knows who the real Satoshi is, and Satoshi wants to be found. In this condition, Wright is trying to prevent Satoshi from being found for some reason, and he is doing this by trying to muddle the waters and throw doubt. If the real Satoshi shows up and provides a proof, non-technical people can now say "well Wright provided proof, but that turned out to be fake. Do we trust that this is real?".
Condition D: Wright is not Satoshi but knows who the real Satoshi is, and Satoshi does not want to be found. In this case Wright is trying to somehow capitalize on being considered the real Satoshi, or is trying to protect Satoshi from being found.
Condition E: Wright is not Satoshi and does not know who the real Satoshi is, and Satoshi wants to be found. In this case Wright is trying to somehow capitalize on being considered the real Satoshi, or is trying to muddle the waters for the real Satoshi.
Condition F: Wright is not Satoshi and does not know who the real Satoshi is, and Satoshi does not want to be found. In this case Wright is trying to somehow capitalize on being considered the real Satoshi.
Unless, of course, he predicted that we would conclude that someone with such poor evidence must be attempting to hide in plain sight, and is in fact a fraud. Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.
Sounds to me like you're already familiar with ACH [0]. I was sure that there was a free online platform, but I'm not seeing one. But if there was, it would be easy to plug in what you've posted and enable a structured collaboration.
Another is that Satoshi, or the group of people behind Satoshi, are finding all these Satoshi stories very funny. So they are encouraging them (and that might be why one of the bitcoin dev got fooled/is lying)
Another theory is that Wright is Satoshi, Wright truly demoed a signature to BBC/bitcoin devs, but Wright wants to cast a doubt and make people forget that he is Satoshi so he published a fake signature.
Condition G: Wright is not Satoshi, does/does not know who the real Satoshi is, but is trying to motivate/encourage/force Satoshi (for reasons unknown) to come forward by Wright making the strongest claim (not at all bulletproof!) thus far to being Satoshi, and taking credit for Bitcoin.
Condition E/F seem most likely, but the most confounding.
Why would you want to publicly tell everyone you're worth $200MM in Bitcoin when you aren't? Aside from the bad actors that will try to wring the key out of you (politely or violently), you also have the Tax Office to deal with.
For condition D, Is it possible that the people involved (Wright, etc...) would purposely concoct this situation in order to "smoke out" the real Satoshi? Maybe they believe if they cause enough of a stir, the real Satoshi would come forward to settle the issue?
I believe B is semi-reasonable considering that Wright asserts he's revealing himself due to an extortion/blackmail threat. This could be a way of getting a non-technical extortionist off his back while not taking credit in a way that gives him authority or respect in Bitcoin's technical community. This situation is plausible, if, for example, a government knows he is Satoshi (and government surveillance programs would probably make it easy to find the real Satoshi) and is trying to make him impact Bitcoin in a way that benefits them.
Well, or could be dead or disbanded or in cryo. :( I still think Hal Finney was a reasonable candidate, despite the counter-evidence, at least as part of a group. He was one of the most remarkable people from the cypherpunks era.
As a complete outside observer entirely disconnected from Bitcoin, I had a thought that the way in which it's being done is intentional. I like the possibility that this guy actually is Nakamoto, and he did it in a very suspicious way to draw all the people out of the woodwork who will yell about it on blogs and knee-jerk revoke commit access (lol) and accuse people of things and so on, then he'll offer the incontrovertible proof everybody is after.
The entire Bitcoin community practically shit itself when this news dropped and everybody tripped over themselves to deny it's the truth. People are, at length, ascribing more difficult computer science problems such as subverting cryptography itself to this guy in an aim to conclusively say that he could not possibly have invented Bitcoin. (So he didn't do something really cryptographically cool, and your theory is that he can compromise cryptography to prove that he did something cryptographically cool. Huh.) Some of the theories involve like three MITM attacks on services and extensive planning with million-to-one odds. Some of the theories describe things that are impossible. It is absolutely hilarious to watch people rail against this for something that, let's be honest, they can't possibly know. (Including OP, who is oddly authoritative without hedging in a quite-libelous world.)
Imagine if it's true. God, that'll be awesome. If I were coming out as Satoshi Nakamoto, that's how I'd do it. Let the frothers froth to lose credibility, then checkmate them a couple days later.
Again, no stock in this, don't care, just an amusing thought. I will say, watching the community tear itself apart over the block size and now this reinforces for me that I never want to run software with a community. Ever. Bitcoin's community is terrifying in a number of ways (no disrespect, just an outside observation). Another angle on that is that if this guy actually is Satoshi Nakamoto, the Bitcoin community has done a pretty good job of kicking their beloved founder in the teeth. I really want it to be true to see the pieces of that picked up.
This'll be a good third act of the Bitcoin movie, by the way, and I look forward to the stinging Sorkin dialogue.
Just checking: by show of hands, how many people here really understand what bitcoins are or how the system works, beyond knowing they're a new form of currency, cryptography is involved, and anonymity comes into play somehow?
I am just now beginning to try to research it to really understand it, because despite being a developer and having a decent understanding of public-key cryptography, I am at a total loss to understand how this system works or achieves its apparent purposes.
My impression is that it's actually quite complex, and that the press (and developer community at large) is failing to really explain it in any meaningful way to people who don't already get it. Not that this is out of the norm with tech topics, but this is very flagrant.
I think you are overstating the complexity for someone who basically understands signing, or even just hashes. Yes, it is rather clever and takes some time to wrap you head around, but the core structure of Bitcoin is certainly not beyond reach for an average software engineer. Some of the more esoteric pieces like the runtime machine.. etc not withstanding.
I haven't seen the recent crop of materials, but I grocked it watching a 60 minute or so video presentation which I think was from someone at Mozilla. Oh, here it is:
https://vimeo.com/27177893
I wrote an academic paper on Bitcoin; now, I don't understand e.g. the detailed cryptanalysis of SHA256, which it uses. But I've a pretty solid understanding of how, given the availability of such hashing functions, and assuming they live up to their promises, you build a distributed ledger from them, and what some of the properties of that ledger might be. Not every implementation detail, but the high level principles.
I reckon most folk with degree or grad level CS education (or equivalent) would get to around that point in a few weeks (full-time?) study, probably less. (Given we can read the Bitcoin paper, nice explanations of it etc - not if we had to invent it ourselves.) I even think I've explained the main principles successfully to technical friends over the course of a few hours.
Yes, you don't just read a blog and understand how the whole system works, but thats true of many systems. Compare understanding Paxos (I'd say this is harder?), or DynamoDB, etc.
IMO there's nothing especially mysterious about Bitcoin here. Its clever, and its too complicated to explain in a paragraph in a media article, but its not an order of magnitude more complex than comparable distributed systems.
The paper introducing Bitcoin (https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf) is well-written and easy to read. Understanding _how_ it works should be simple.
On the other hand, understanding _why_ it works is difficult, as it requires understanding the hard math underlying the system. In fact, nobody knows _why_ it works, because, AFAIK, we do not know whether the hash functions used have the necessary properties (in fact, it is worse: we do not even know whether one-way functions exist, let alone that we can point to one)
I understood the important obvious parts of Bitcoin at one point, but haven't cared enough to retain that knowledge perfectly well. But I gather the key plot points of this fiasco revolve entirely around simple public-key cryptography- underneath all this mess about genesis blocks and transaction hashes, the issue is that Craig hasn't shown us he can encrypt messages with any of Satoshi's special private keys. (Correct me if I'm missing something there.) That, along with a two-sentence "public-key cryptography is magic that lets you..." primer, could be explained to any interested highschool graduate in a short blog post... by someone who cared more about being understood than generating ad revenue, at least.
You have a better technical background than me, so take this recommendation with a grain of salt, but I've found this textbook very useful: https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/randomwalker/the-princeto...
I've only read the first few chapters, but it seems to avoid the obvious traps of inaccessibility and misleading simplification.
When I finally came to the realisation about what mining is actually doing and why it's necessary to reward miners (it actually keeps the entire network secure): mind = blown.
I second you on that one. I attended the Consesus hackathon over the weekend, which is like the culmination of the blockchain community before the summit started today. I asked a whole bunch of the lot to explain bitcoin and blockchain in simple terms. All I got were more and more big words. It seems the language is very foreign, maybe it's just me.
I think that lack of simple explanation is what has slowed down innovation around blockchain. A lot of developers simply don't understand fully what they are dealing with. The presentations were mediocre at best and the recurrent question was "How is this better than what people currently use?" Unfortunately, the answer was mostly, "It uses blockchain." I doubt that suffices.
Theory: Wright made promises that he would use his weight as Satoshi to overcome current political conflict within the Bitcoin community in a way that would satisfy Gavin. Gavin sees him as an ally and has vouched for him. A distasteful ally, but for the greater good.
Given how swiftly people are attacking Wright, chances are this would fail before the political situation can be resolved.
This seems extremely unlikely for several reasons, not least of which is that of course the bitcoin community would demand simple cryptographic proof of identity.
As others have pointed out in previous threads, citing James Randi, you don't have to be stupid to fall for a con. It's quite easy to be tricked even when you think you're being skeptical.
> On his LinkedIn profile, Wright claimed to hold two Phd’s from Charles Sturt University. The University told Forbes that it never granted Wright those Phd’s.
My goodness. At which point does it become possible to press charges? Can one just go around faking that they have degrees?
The perfect proof: a guy whose blog is titled _Dr._ Craig Wright and has a huge picture of his ugly face as a banner (look at that "about" section > pretty hard to fix those pictures more than two seconds) can't be a guy who used a pseudo for years and created something that would give the fame he seeks.
The thing that convinced me of his insincerity is that his website has right-click "protection." And it alert()s if you press ctrl-C in another hamfisted attempt at "copy protection". What genuine computer expert does that, let alone in 2016? Especially one who has thought seriously about cryptography.
FYI, Electrum has stated that there was no download of a signature file of Electrum from a UK IP address on April 7 [1].
This in itself does not prove that there was no download of an Electrum signature file to the laptop that Gavin was given. He could have connected using Tor or other services through which the real IP address is hidden, but this could be another reason to suspect there was some kind of MITM hack that Wright used. Also worth mentioning that the laptop was supposedly a factory sealed unit [2].
You have a priceless Stradivarius violin. For some unfathomable reason, you stamp your violin with the words "Made in China". Now, no one believes it's a Strad. You take it to an appraiser, and he immediately says it's a fraud. "Strads are not made in China and you're a con man," he says.
Why would you stamp "Made in China" on a treasure like that? Maybe you were trying to make it less tempting for thieves, maybe you were trying to hide its value from the tax authorities, maybe you forget to take your meds and were acting irrationally that day.
It is a defaced Stradivarius, but still a Stradivarius. It doesn't matter because no one believes you.
Craig Wright does some silly things. Now, no matter what he says, ...
People are still asking the question? The story is obvious. He didn't pay his taxes since '08, he needed an excuse, he can't move original coins. End of story. It ain't him
Hard to say. Gavin Andresen says he is, but Wright didn't publish an unquestionable proof. Why would Gavin risk his reputation on that without the confidence that he really is Satoshi ?
As I see it, it is pretty clear to me. If I add together that Wright had the means, motive, and opportunity to pull a con like this and the fact he hasn't done the one simple thing that could absolutely prove it really is him it adds up to Wright clearly not being Satoshi.
Surprised this hasn't been posted yet.
From Gavin's reddit account,
"Craig signed a message that I chose ("Gavin's favorite number is eleven. CSW" if I recall correctly) using the private key from block number 1.
That signature was copied on to a clean usb stick I brought with me to London, and then validated on a brand-new laptop with a freshly downloaded copy of electrum.
I was not allowed to keep the message or laptop (fear it would leak before Official Announcement).
I don't have an explanation for the funky OpenSSL procedure in his blog post."
src:https://www.reddit.com/user/gavinandresen
If this is a hoax, I really don't understand what a Craig Wright can materially gain from claiming he is Satoshi. Unless he's playing some sort of long con, where he claims he doesn't want publicity or to profit from it, but then accepts a deal from someone to trade his non-existent genesis block Bitcoins for real hard currency. It'd be like a grifter in Las Vegas claiming he was a Sheikh or a Saudi Prince and refusing all inquiries from public, but then allowing one person to reach him and then swindling that person in a deal.
Or maybe the 'real' Satoshi Nakamoto offered Craig Wright a big chunk of bitcoins if he would claim to be Satoshi, so that his true identity would never be revealed.
Given the frequency of these fraudulent or mistaken Satoshi identifications, it's probably time that someone puts together a simple, publicly visible procedure for verifying Satoshi's identity. Make a web-site, call it something like satoshi-test.com, and include a step-by-step procedure for journalists to follow. If they can't get their Satoshi claimant to complete the test, then they shouldn't write the story. If they ignore the test, then we should ignore their story.
Here's the thing. Craig Wright was probably there, he may have even had the original idea, but it was his coworker/friend David Kleiman that actually implemented it. Or perhaps contracted someone else to implement it, as he was involved in the security industry and may have known players heavy enough to develop such algorithms. Either way, it was Kleiman that had the keys. It has become painfully obvious that Wright does not possess the technical skills to have created Bitcoin, and it also should be very obvious that he does not have the coins. He may have even written or at least contributed to the original paper. He might even be as close to a living "Satoshi Nakamoto" as there is, because David Kleiman died of MRSA in 2013. At this point, I don't think anyone alive has those keys, and Craig is trying to parlay his former role into something that he can actually turn into cash.
The whole thing seems to be handwaving that only a non technical person could believe.
Because when you're not a technical person, you won't have good priors for what constitutes proof. You'll be falling back on the same intuition you use when reading a detective story. Who has motive, who has skill, and so on. None of which take you out of the zone of doubt (say between 10 and 90 percent certain) which is why detective stories are fun.
If you're a technical person, you can see how big a deal being able to sign is.
For me, it's pretty easy. If someone says they're Satoshi, we ask him to move some BTC from one of his addresses to another. They'll still be in trust (crappy excuse). If you can do that, you're either him or he essentially gave you his identity by giving you the key.
[+] [-] amluto|10 years ago|reply
Supposedly, Chris Wright did his ridiculous laptop dance with Gavin Andresen because he didn't want Gavin to leak the signature early.
What a load of crap. These are supposedly real cryptographers we're talking about here. If you ask a cryptographer (including, presumably, Satoshi) how they would prove their identity to someone else such that the other person couldn't leak the proof, the answer doesn't involve airplanes and fishy laptops running dubiously authentic Windows programs. The answer is deniable authentication.
In the bitcoin case, it's trivial. Satoshi's public key is g^p for some p that only Satoshi knows (using multiplicative notation) on a well-known and hopefully secure elliptic curve. You can use this key for ECDSA, but you can also use it for, drumroll please, Diffie-Hellman. Gavin picks a random scalar b and tells Craig Wright g^b. Chris replies with (g^b)^p [1]. Gavin checks that the result is the same as (g^p)^b.
This is deniable: Gavin can trivially make up the transcript of the protocol, so Gavin can't use it to prematurely convince anyone of anything. No airplanes needed.
There are plenty of other ways to do this. Pretty much any zero-knowledge proof of knowledge would work.
[1] In practice, this should be blinded to avoid cross-protocol attacks and relay attacks. Craig could send something like H("Hi Gavin, I am Craig Wright, aka Satoshi Nakamoto" || (g^b)^p). A real cryptographer could double-check me here.
[+] [-] devishard|10 years ago|reply
If Craig Wright came to me and said he was Satoshi Nakamoto, I'd say, "Sign it with the genesis block's private key or GTFO." This is crypto, bitcoin is built on incontrovertible, mathematical proof. Why the hell would Satoshi do anything else?
If it ever comes to light that Craig Wright is trying to use this lie for some monetary advantage, he should be arrested for fraud, which is what this is.
[+] [-] IgorPartola|10 years ago|reply
Condition A: Wright is Satoshi and Satoshi wants to be found. In this condition, Wright's actions make no sense. Why publish an obviously fake proof? I suppose if Wright/Satoshi lost the original private keys this would make some sense, but is really unlikely.
Condition B: Wright is Satoshi and Satoshi does not want to be found. Here things actually make perfect sense. Wright/Satoshi is trying to discredit himself by publishing fake proofs. This is a sort of hiding in the open thing that might work.
Condition C: Wright is not Satoshi but knows who the real Satoshi is, and Satoshi wants to be found. In this condition, Wright is trying to prevent Satoshi from being found for some reason, and he is doing this by trying to muddle the waters and throw doubt. If the real Satoshi shows up and provides a proof, non-technical people can now say "well Wright provided proof, but that turned out to be fake. Do we trust that this is real?".
Condition D: Wright is not Satoshi but knows who the real Satoshi is, and Satoshi does not want to be found. In this case Wright is trying to somehow capitalize on being considered the real Satoshi, or is trying to protect Satoshi from being found.
Condition E: Wright is not Satoshi and does not know who the real Satoshi is, and Satoshi wants to be found. In this case Wright is trying to somehow capitalize on being considered the real Satoshi, or is trying to muddle the waters for the real Satoshi.
Condition F: Wright is not Satoshi and does not know who the real Satoshi is, and Satoshi does not want to be found. In this case Wright is trying to somehow capitalize on being considered the real Satoshi.
Thoughts?
[+] [-] dllthomas|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickpsecurity|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rjeli|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] woodman|10 years ago|reply
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis_of_competing_hypothes...
[+] [-] baby|10 years ago|reply
Another is that Satoshi, or the group of people behind Satoshi, are finding all these Satoshi stories very funny. So they are encouraging them (and that might be why one of the bitcoin dev got fooled/is lying)
Another theory is that Wright is Satoshi, Wright truly demoed a signature to BBC/bitcoin devs, but Wright wants to cast a doubt and make people forget that he is Satoshi so he published a fake signature.
[+] [-] at-fates-hands|10 years ago|reply
Holy Jesus this makes my head hurt just thinking about this possibility.
[+] [-] okket|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] j1vms|10 years ago|reply
Condition G: Wright is not Satoshi, does/does not know who the real Satoshi is, but is trying to motivate/encourage/force Satoshi (for reasons unknown) to come forward by Wright making the strongest claim (not at all bulletproof!) thus far to being Satoshi, and taking credit for Bitcoin.
[+] [-] joezydeco|10 years ago|reply
Why would you want to publicly tell everyone you're worth $200MM in Bitcoin when you aren't? Aside from the bad actors that will try to wring the key out of you (politely or violently), you also have the Tax Office to deal with.
[+] [-] Benjammer|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cookiecaper|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fullshark|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] webkike|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aakilfernandes|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] heartbreak|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] c3d|10 years ago|reply
-- Sotashi Nomokata
[+] [-] jgrahamc|10 years ago|reply
Instead we get this mess.
The mess makes me believe Satoshi is still out there.
[+] [-] tujv|10 years ago|reply
https://medium.com/@SatoshiLite/satoshilite-1e2dad89a017
[+] [-] rdl|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jsmthrowaway|10 years ago|reply
The entire Bitcoin community practically shit itself when this news dropped and everybody tripped over themselves to deny it's the truth. People are, at length, ascribing more difficult computer science problems such as subverting cryptography itself to this guy in an aim to conclusively say that he could not possibly have invented Bitcoin. (So he didn't do something really cryptographically cool, and your theory is that he can compromise cryptography to prove that he did something cryptographically cool. Huh.) Some of the theories involve like three MITM attacks on services and extensive planning with million-to-one odds. Some of the theories describe things that are impossible. It is absolutely hilarious to watch people rail against this for something that, let's be honest, they can't possibly know. (Including OP, who is oddly authoritative without hedging in a quite-libelous world.)
Imagine if it's true. God, that'll be awesome. If I were coming out as Satoshi Nakamoto, that's how I'd do it. Let the frothers froth to lose credibility, then checkmate them a couple days later.
Again, no stock in this, don't care, just an amusing thought. I will say, watching the community tear itself apart over the block size and now this reinforces for me that I never want to run software with a community. Ever. Bitcoin's community is terrifying in a number of ways (no disrespect, just an outside observation). Another angle on that is that if this guy actually is Satoshi Nakamoto, the Bitcoin community has done a pretty good job of kicking their beloved founder in the teeth. I really want it to be true to see the pieces of that picked up.
This'll be a good third act of the Bitcoin movie, by the way, and I look forward to the stinging Sorkin dialogue.
[+] [-] aerovistae|10 years ago|reply
I am just now beginning to try to research it to really understand it, because despite being a developer and having a decent understanding of public-key cryptography, I am at a total loss to understand how this system works or achieves its apparent purposes.
My impression is that it's actually quite complex, and that the press (and developer community at large) is failing to really explain it in any meaningful way to people who don't already get it. Not that this is out of the norm with tech topics, but this is very flagrant.
[+] [-] nicpottier|10 years ago|reply
I haven't seen the recent crop of materials, but I grocked it watching a 60 minute or so video presentation which I think was from someone at Mozilla. Oh, here it is: https://vimeo.com/27177893
[+] [-] feral|10 years ago|reply
How long have you spent looking into it?
I wrote an academic paper on Bitcoin; now, I don't understand e.g. the detailed cryptanalysis of SHA256, which it uses. But I've a pretty solid understanding of how, given the availability of such hashing functions, and assuming they live up to their promises, you build a distributed ledger from them, and what some of the properties of that ledger might be. Not every implementation detail, but the high level principles.
I reckon most folk with degree or grad level CS education (or equivalent) would get to around that point in a few weeks (full-time?) study, probably less. (Given we can read the Bitcoin paper, nice explanations of it etc - not if we had to invent it ourselves.) I even think I've explained the main principles successfully to technical friends over the course of a few hours.
Yes, you don't just read a blog and understand how the whole system works, but thats true of many systems. Compare understanding Paxos (I'd say this is harder?), or DynamoDB, etc.
IMO there's nothing especially mysterious about Bitcoin here. Its clever, and its too complicated to explain in a paragraph in a media article, but its not an order of magnitude more complex than comparable distributed systems.
[+] [-] Someone|10 years ago|reply
On the other hand, understanding _why_ it works is difficult, as it requires understanding the hard math underlying the system. In fact, nobody knows _why_ it works, because, AFAIK, we do not know whether the hash functions used have the necessary properties (in fact, it is worse: we do not even know whether one-way functions exist, let alone that we can point to one)
[+] [-] maxander|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] retsibsi|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Niksko|10 years ago|reply
http://www.michaelnielsen.org/ddi/how-the-bitcoin-protocol-a...
When I finally came to the realisation about what mining is actually doing and why it's necessary to reward miners (it actually keeps the entire network secure): mind = blown.
[+] [-] chirau|10 years ago|reply
I think that lack of simple explanation is what has slowed down innovation around blockchain. A lot of developers simply don't understand fully what they are dealing with. The presentations were mediocre at best and the recurrent question was "How is this better than what people currently use?" Unfortunately, the answer was mostly, "It uses blockchain." I doubt that suffices.
Or maybe I'm just the daft one, I doubt so.
[+] [-] arcticfox|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ikeboy|10 years ago|reply
You'll also need to know what Proof of work is, explained in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of-work_system
See also https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Introduction, or the rest of the wiki, or the StackExchange site.
[+] [-] miander|10 years ago|reply
Given how swiftly people are attacking Wright, chances are this would fail before the political situation can be resolved.
[+] [-] TillE|10 years ago|reply
As others have pointed out in previous threads, citing James Randi, you don't have to be stupid to fall for a con. It's quite easy to be tricked even when you think you're being skeptical.
[+] [-] outworlder|10 years ago|reply
My goodness. At which point does it become possible to press charges? Can one just go around faking that they have degrees?
[+] [-] Ileca|10 years ago|reply
Psychology > cryptography.
[+] [-] roywiggins|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dineshp2|10 years ago|reply
This in itself does not prove that there was no download of an Electrum signature file to the laptop that Gavin was given. He could have connected using Tor or other services through which the real IP address is hidden, but this could be another reason to suspect there was some kind of MITM hack that Wright used. Also worth mentioning that the laptop was supposedly a factory sealed unit [2].
[1] https://twitter.com/ElectrumWallet/status/727366861592076288
[2] http://gavinandresen.ninja/satoshi
[+] [-] cantrevealname|10 years ago|reply
Why would you stamp "Made in China" on a treasure like that? Maybe you were trying to make it less tempting for thieves, maybe you were trying to hide its value from the tax authorities, maybe you forget to take your meds and were acting irrationally that day.
It is a defaced Stradivarius, but still a Stradivarius. It doesn't matter because no one believes you.
Craig Wright does some silly things. Now, no matter what he says, ...
[+] [-] alcio|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bunkydoo|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spriggan3|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _7sdg|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] macinjosh|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] machinelearning|9 years ago|reply
"Craig signed a message that I chose ("Gavin's favorite number is eleven. CSW" if I recall correctly) using the private key from block number 1. That signature was copied on to a clean usb stick I brought with me to London, and then validated on a brand-new laptop with a freshly downloaded copy of electrum. I was not allowed to keep the message or laptop (fear it would leak before Official Announcement). I don't have an explanation for the funky OpenSSL procedure in his blog post." src:https://www.reddit.com/user/gavinandresen
[+] [-] ekiara|10 years ago|reply
Or maybe the 'real' Satoshi Nakamoto offered Craig Wright a big chunk of bitcoins if he would claim to be Satoshi, so that his true identity would never be revealed.
[+] [-] timmytokyo|10 years ago|reply
Given the frequency of these fraudulent or mistaken Satoshi identifications, it's probably time that someone puts together a simple, publicly visible procedure for verifying Satoshi's identity. Make a web-site, call it something like satoshi-test.com, and include a step-by-step procedure for journalists to follow. If they can't get their Satoshi claimant to complete the test, then they shouldn't write the story. If they ignore the test, then we should ignore their story.
[+] [-] keypusher|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lordnacho|10 years ago|reply
Because when you're not a technical person, you won't have good priors for what constitutes proof. You'll be falling back on the same intuition you use when reading a detective story. Who has motive, who has skill, and so on. None of which take you out of the zone of doubt (say between 10 and 90 percent certain) which is why detective stories are fun.
If you're a technical person, you can see how big a deal being able to sign is.
For me, it's pretty easy. If someone says they're Satoshi, we ask him to move some BTC from one of his addresses to another. They'll still be in trust (crappy excuse). If you can do that, you're either him or he essentially gave you his identity by giving you the key.