I’m Sorry
drcraigwright.net
drcraigwright.net
One scam proof was deployed on his blog where he claimed to sign a Sartre text with a key from bitcoin block 9. He carefully did not give the exact input text, only a supposed hash of the text. The hope was anyone trying to replicate would assume their problem was an incorrect source text. And there was proof that the given hash value was signed by the key. But that did not survive internet scrutiny; it was noticed that the signature came from an old bitcoin transaction. Instead of signing the hashed Sartre text as claimed, it signed the old transaction.
The other scam proof was presented in private to reporters and bitcoin developers Jon Matonis and Gavin Andresen. Here Wright supposedly demonstrated the ability to sign arbitrary messages using keys from bitcoin blocks 1 and 9. This scam succeeded: both Andresen and Matonis were convinced. But they were not allowed to keep copies of the evidence, to prevent the trick from being exposed. One speculation is that Wright was able to substitute a doctored version of the Electrum software used for the verification. But without evidence to examine outside of Wright's control, the exact details of the scam are still hidden.
But now Wright is out of ideas. His public-consumption scam failed, and his private controlled-scenario scam can't be more widely replicated.
So this message is his way of backing out, trying as much as possible to save face and keep open the possibility of claiming the Satoshi Nakamoto identity again later.
That being said, people should realize that the creator of Bitcoin does not want to be found and honor that.
People who "simply do not want to be found" don't make any sorts of claims whatsoever. People who make fraudulent claims are scammers, plain and simple.
The fraudulent evidence that Wright has presented doesn't make it more likely that he's Satoshi, they make it much, much less likely. At this point, it's more reasonable to assume Donald Trump invented BitCoin than Wright.
(PS I tried to upvote you out of invisibility because while I think you are wrong the replies are valuable)
https://twitter.com/RealCraigWright/status/72824283201683865...
I must find out who the real Real Craig Wright is at once. This is hilarious.
As for honor, if the creator of Bitcoin exists as a single entity then it's about time for them to stand up and take some responsibility in the disaster that is the Bitcoin community. Creating something so important and then leaving town is immature, illogical and down right annoying.
While I'm at it, fuck you Satoshi.
Satoshi is not responsible for the Bitcoin community any more than he is responsible for the quality of this Hacker News comment you've just written. I understand the annoyance of not knowing who Satoshi is, but he/she/they doesn't owe us anything.
Apparently, he was able to prove, but did not allow others to keep copies of the evidence. At best, you can suspect. But how can you conclude so strongly that this was a "scam"?
If he was actually the creator of Bitcoin, this is the worst possible way he could convince people of it. That's were the extreme doubt comes from.
I can completely understand someone not wanting to deal with it any longer. Also, it doesn't matter what he does or says at this point; nobody will look at the evidence (even now, likley few in this discussion know more than what others in the mob have told them) and he will be lynched. Anything he does only will fuel the fire.
At any rate, this conversation is about whether or not he is Satoshi. This is cryptography, there is no need to convince people. There is either definitively absolute evidence, or there is not. And as @lucozade put it, "he's given about as much reason to believe he is Satoshi as I have".
> This is cryptography, there is no need to convince people. There is either definitively absolute evidence, or there is not
In theory, but unfortunately not always in the real world.
This is not a court of law. People have a right to (and do!) form their own opinions without going through the courts. Calling something a scam does not require a legal judgment, AFAIK... unless you want to argue that it would be slander/libelous to do so. However, this would probably be a tough sell since saying "X is a scam" in everyday life would probably be interpreted (for legal purposes) as saying "It is my opinion that X is a scam" and opinions cannot be slander/libelous AFAIK.
That, at least, would be a good reason to not give the signature to Gavin or Jon.
However, the moment Craig failed to sign an unambiguously new text on his blog with a known Satoshi key everything that went before was suspect. Would it have proved he was Satoshi? No. Would almost everyone except a few tinfoils give him the benefit of the doubt. Assuredly.
The fact that that didn't happen is very strong evidence that Craig does not have the keys from early blocks. Does that prove he is not Satoshi? No. But he's given about as much reason to believe he is Satoshi as I have. And I'm pretty sure it's not me.
Or is it???
Yes, but the message that was (supposedly) signed contained words to the effect of "Craig Wright is Satoshi", or else his initials? How would Gavin be able to use that message to show that Gavin was Satoshi?
In particular, the person best placed and best motivated to produce such a narrative -- Wright himself -- offers no explanation.
I for one have a lot of respect for this satoshi, and if they ever reveal themselves I would like to find out more about them, purely because they sound quite interesting.
Earlier this week Craig wright came out with a wild claim with "proof" that actually worked against his favour if anything. Most people see this as a selfish act to try to claim fame and respect, while having the audacity to claim that he doesn't want that. This naturally puts him in a very dislikeable position, and I imagine many people wanted to see how he would attempt to worm his way out of this mess he has got himself in, knowing full well he couldn't produce the goods.
You're right that it "doesn't matter" but then at some level perhaps nothing does... It all comes down to subjective interest at the end of the day.
Sounds like B.S. to me, but who tf am I to judge?
Agreed. "I won't prove that I'm Satoshi anymore, but I am". It's getting more and more like religion -- we don't get to know for sure, we have to believe now.. And I'm sure a herd of idiots will do just that.
The narcissists never do that.
They make promises about what will happen in the future.
When it (doesn't) happen in the future, they don't say that they let you down or that they were in error or even admit that they agreed to something ahead of time.
In drawn-out cases there will be many deadlines, the narcissist never owning up to missing prior deadlines.
When challenged, the narcissist will create an emotionally hostile situation to cause an immediate distraction, again promising something soon, and never return to the original claim.
Now, because he knows he can't successfully claim Satoshi's identity and in light of possible charges based on ongoing police investigation (fraudulent use of tax credits), he wants to dramatically disappear. I hope the authorities have his passport(s). His thirst for fame is unreal.
Also don't understand why it would be acceptable to anyone that he should get away with falsely claiming an identity despite contradictory evidence and potentially smearing the image of bitcoin/community via his actions.
edit: Here's a mirror of the image, in case it comes down: http://i.imgur.com/7lhU0mr.jpg
And here's the OCR'd text: I'm Sorry.
I believed that I could do this. I believed that I could put the years of anonymity and hiding behind me. But, as the events of this week unfolded and I prepared to publish the proof of access to the earliest keys, I broke. I do not have the courage. I cannot.
When the rumors began, my qualifications and character were attacked. When those allegations were proven false, new allegations have already begun. I know now that I am not strong enough for this.
I know that this weakness will cause great damage to those that have supported me, and particularly to Jon Matonis and Gavin Andresen. I can only hope that their honour and credibility is not irreparably tainted by my actions. They were not deceived, but I know that the world will never believe that now. I can only say I'm sorry.
And goodbye.
20160503T16:00:03Z First Internet Archive snapshot of extraordinary proof post [0]
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20160505T12:11:46Z First Internet Archive snapshot reflecting change [2]
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[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20160503160003/http://www.drcrai...
[1] http://fotoforensics.com/analysis.php?id=c37a7368be70afd35ef...
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20160504140906/http://drcraigwri...
[3] https://web.archive.org/web/20160505133026/http://www.drcrai...
That's a very serious thing to say in regard to something you know very little about.
And I call BS, with BS on top.
How convenient...
What do you and I have to be angry about? Isn't that just playing into online mob behavior?
Narcissists have an incredible high rate of suicide, because when they fall from their high horse, the floor is quite some way down and the landing is too hard for them. Rather than being found out as fake, go with a bang... I fear the bang coming...
This note kind of worries me a little bit... no matter what he did wrong, I hope he will be okay.
Also a possibility of course... his method to safe at least some of his self-image, depends on how good he is at self-manipulation, people are often very good at it.
(For what it's worth, I'm torn on this note: on the one hand, it's deeply upsetting that someone is writing that they're feeling such torment; on the other hand, should it turn out to have been written insincerely, he's just made it a tonne more difficult for anyone else who does legitimately express feelings like this. No winners.)
I certainly believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt, but it's laughable to think this guy is actually Satoshi, and therefore impossible to see this note as sincere.
I do feel uneasy about discounting a potential cry for help, though, however unlikely it may be.
Whether Satoshi is finally identified or not, what difference will it make? I honestly don't understand the deafening attacks at Wright at first for being "outted" as a potential to be Satoshi and now when he says he is.
It'd be a significant claim if Mark Zuckerberg claimed to be a lost son of the late Steve Jobs and people would expect him to prove it. It'd be scandalous if the DNA test came back negative and would clearly peak people's interest in Mark Zuckerberg's character.
Because he's the guy who, when asked for ID to prove he's 21 when entering a bar, shows a piece of paper with "Date of birth: 21 years old" sharpied on it, and when the bouncer says "yeah this isn't actual ID" the guy goes "WOE IS ME! IF I GET THIS TREATMENT AT THE DOOR, IMAGINE WHAT THE ACTUAL BAR WOULD BE LIKE! I DO NOT HAVE THE COURAGE TO WALK PAST A DOOR SUCH AS THIS, ALAS, HORATIO" and feigns fainting.
What is dangerous and does affect me, indirectly in this case, is the online mob behavior and bullying. That does real harm to people and to our society. For example, whoever the real Satoshi is, would they ever want to be subjected to this?
In this case, it's nuts because everyone agrees on what the standard of evidence is, including him, and he's refused to provide it and acting hurt that people are sceptical. Many people gave him the benefit of the doubt when Gavin et al vouched for him; it's entirely his behavior afterwards that has turned people against him.
First, Satoshi solved a very significant intellectual problem: how to allow a group of people, who may have antagonistic members, to collude successfully. It is known as "The Byzantine Generals' Problem." What else does this person understand or have insight into?
Second, people are innately curious. Who is this person and what motivates him or her? Was this done out of curiosity or financial gain or just plain "because I could?"
Third, Satoshi is sitting on a huge cache of coins when he or she started the process. Is there any intent to use them? If someone could steal the keys to these blocks, it would a major "bank heist."
That said, if someone came out and proved themselves to be Satoshi, it would be a fairly big deal to the Bitcoin world. Satoshi himself has a lot of Bitcoins sitting under his control that he hasn't done anything with. Coupled with the fact that he was the original creator, his opinions would probably have a lot of weight behind them - and this is important when recognizing that Bitcoin right now is at a bit of a cross-roads, with people uncertain on how to proceed.
That said, I'm not heavily involved with Bitcoin, and while it was obvious to me (and most other people) that Wright isn't Satoshi, I wasn't yelling or calling for his head, and I don't really think there were that many other people doing that either - they were just a few loud mouths. All that said, you do have to keep in mind that, because of the power that Satoshi could wield, and the fact that some people have a lot invested in Bitcoin, I can understand the backlash over someone pretending to be Satoshi and potentially messing things up for everybody else.
For that matter, I believe most public people involved with bitcoin should not be trusted at all either, but that is incidental.
And too often, it works - because the technology is secure, not enough people question those who are using it and proclaiming "secure" in a loud enough voice (mt gox, cryptsy, mintpal, and countless others).
I understand the technical proofs put forth have been spurious. I wouldn't be surprised if Craig had an under-qualified underlying who didn't really understand what they were doing who was responsible for some of that. People are forgetting the human part of this equation though. His interviews with the BBC don't strike me at all as someone looking to cash in. I think he is a bit of narcissist and wants to claim some credit for inventing bitcoin, but I also see a very deep fear of being in the public eye that comes through as well. Perhaps because he has done quite a few things he's not proud of and doesn't want to have people publicizing those. But the idea that he's a scammer looking to cash in here just play doesn't out at all. What's the end game? Where's the pile of money he's after? People aren't thinking through the motivations here thoroughly enough. He's risking quite a lot by doing this with the absolute certainty that he would be found out if he was a fraud. You could say maybe he's an idiot and doesn't understand that. No one could watch that interview though and believe the man isn't intelligent though. Why talk about the negotiations with Australian tax authorities when those authorities could very easily come and say that he was lying. None of this makes any sense from the scam angle. There has to be something else going on here.
Like he did with the unearned degrees, the nonexistent business partnerships, and key signing slight of hand?
He made multiple tax refund claims to the Australian authorities - including one for $54 million as part of a program where 45% of each dollar invested into R&D are refunded. Another was a $3.5 million refund on sales tax.
The funding source in these transactions were Bitcoin. It adds up to over $150 million invested. The tax authorities asked Wright where this money came from, he told them in an interview that he was Satoshi Nakamoto.
I go through some of this in a blog post:
https://www.nikcub.com/posts/craig-wright-is-not-satoshi-nak...
His explanation didn't work, they rejected the claim and penalized him for another and were investigating him further. He fled to London.
Why he continued to press on with the Nakamoto identity nobody knows - but based on character assessments from multiple people I know who have worked with him and know him well he is a person who strives for recognition and has a history of deception (see his LinkedIn profile).
It was 2 years ago that he started showing up at Bitcoin conferences and left strong hints that he was Satoshi - he wanted people to come to this conclusion on their own (and some did). Watch these videos from a conference in Australia:
(specifically skip to 9:30 in part 2)
Also see this panel discussion, which is now well-known:
When Craig Wright first came to public attention last December, there was a stash of "leaked" documents relating him to Dave Kleiman. Many items associated to the leak were shown to be backdated. One leaked item claimed to describe a 1.1 million BTC loan from Wright to Kleiman.
Wright apparantly believes that Kleiman, who died in 2013, had a large stash of bitcoins and he wants to establish a claim on these. If he could be accepted as Satoshi Nakamoto, it would lend credibility to his claims on the supposed fortune.
Geee Craig, stop playing silly games. Sign the message or simply stfu.
On the other hand: It is clear from Bitcoin's source code that Satoshi Nakamoto did not understand Merkle trees that well: Just read the detailed comment at
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/a6a860796a44a2805a58...
In that case, if he later (now) decided to assert the identity, then he might be tempted to cobble together fake proof to get his foot in the door far enough that he could begin to assert various forms of social proof with people that he had interacted with while using the Satoshi identity.
It's worth noting that the "scorched earth" elimination of the Satoshi identity is another possible theory as to why nobody has credibly claimed the identity -- because even the individual (or group) that assumed the identity no longer has the ability to cryptographically assert that identity.
Even if a message were to be signed with the original key, people suggest that it would still not be proof as it could have been stolen or extorted. It seems there is no way to prove anything at this point.
CSW's backing by "experts" suggests he is not an ordinary conman. Surprisingly, none of the experts have so far backed down on their support of CSW. Even GA's statement does not withdraw support, only expresses regret for posting support too soon. Also CSW's boldness to assume that the real Satoshi would not out him at this point makes it likely that he was involved with the Satoshi team and has some knowledge about his identity (deceased or otherwise). Or, he is gambling.
CSW's writing style in his blogs and elsewhere suggest it cannot be the same person as the author of the white paper, and yet I've heard another say that his academic papers contain a writing style close to the white paper (I have not verified myself).
All of this is obviously bizarre - the backdating of evidence, fraudulent cryptographic proof, etc. Either he severely underestimates his audience, or he wants to be be discredited. There has been a suggestion that CSW wants to discredit himself to throw off extortionists (reported 6 months ago).
Well, if CSW is Satoshi (I think it's pretty clear that he is not; this is more of a theoretical exercise) then his attempts to gain enough credibility to at least communicate with the people that can verify (through social proof) that he is Satoshi would not be helped by making a claim like that, since it is impossible to prove.
My problem is that I don't have a good idea of why CSW is going to this trouble to claim to be Satoshi; the idea that he's a regretful post-scorched-earth Satoshi at least would be a credible motive, even if extraordinarily unlikely. The only other options are that he hopes to gain something -- maybe obtain employment or loans on the back of the reputation of Satoshi.
<img src="homepage.jpg">
my first guess would be that he wanted to delete basically everything and leave a static message but didn't want to figure out how to do that minimally in HTML/etc. so he just did an image.
If this whole story is the a result of a mental health issue, well - mental health is a serious mother fucker.
"Sounds". Let's not forget the guy's a con man.
Nice use of passive voice to obscure the subject of the sentence. He just couldn't bring himself to say "I did not deceive them." It's technically true that there's somebody in the universe who didn't deceive both of those people.
Feels like a lot is going on in his mind. Maybe he can't express everything he wants too. Maybe he's just acting over its abilities.
But holding the proof and then such a dramatic exit, playing the victim? Wow.
... something makes me wonder if Satoshi has the initials GCHQ.
Of course, on the other hand, it'd be ironic if it turns out the real Satoshi just didn't expect it to turn into such a big thing, lost the keys on a USB down the back of a sofa, and is hiding out of the sheer embarrassment of it all.
Could someone tell me, in plain English, if there are any challenges in Wright divulging the information needed to verify that he is Satoshi?
I don't think spend isn't the proper technical term.
I wonder if the scam he has been running is "front me money to build a supercomputer to bruteforce my passworded wallet containing Satoshi's millions." This would be more convincing if he were actually Satoshi and 'lost' the password....
1) so search engines don't index and remember the text? I suppose search engines only read meta data from images and not OCR them when crawling?
2) if one grants him deeper technical knowledge of information security (I don't) then you could argue he has done the image/screenshot after creating the text in his WYSIWYG editor then after publishing the article, ... so that he could switch off any backend cgi or rdbms capability to reduce his attack surface (from lot of people who are currently digging for ways to poke around his internet facing system for ways of getting in)
Of course, now it's HTML again, probably because he realized his website was getting hammered on bandwidth. Which makes me feel a little better about his health and well-being, since being concerned about bandwidth implies long-term thought processes.
Not like it hasn't ever happened before. And it will continue to happen no matter how many call bullshit.
I doubt the real satoshi would have started to learn sophisticated html in the past 7 years
Red flags and bullshit from start, especially presentation style in conference interview, to finish. Craig, if you see this comment, please aim for a Darwin Award next as you'd be doing humanity a favor.
You do not reveal yourself; someone else must reveal you.
The art lies in the orchestration of the latter.
Some trustworthy people saw Jesus, God and the miracles. Some people did not believe and some people might have claimed that it was fake.
But most people believed it anyway, and it's still believed by a big number of people to date.
Yes, it's a pretty good analogy.
I guess... I'll be the new Satoshi?
Would even that transaction still be subject to scrutiny?
People were expecting the next Jesus Christ and now everyone's so disappointed that "Satoshi" is just an average geek with human weaknesses - not the messiah everyone expected.
Had he started a Unicorn startup, nobody would have even thought to question it, but now that the myth of Satoshi has been blown to astronomic proportions, people refuse to believe that their guru is just a "simple" guy who makes mistakes and is clumsy at PR.
Look at the source code of bitcoin-0.1 and you'll notice that Satoshi was an average C++ programmer who wrote sloppy code - yes it was a prototype - but it wouldn't have stood a chance if other people hadn't gotten involved to develop it into what Bitcoin is today.
Besides, if you look at the code, he wasn't even sure he was creating a currency - it looked like he was trying to create a marketplace, complete with products and chat.
Interestingly, a lot of people treat him like a fake prophet - and are proverbially crucifying him for not being able to perform the "miracle" of making a transaction from block 9.
---
He's not Jesus and he's not Buddha, he's just a programmer who had a brilliant idea and now tries to claim his invention.
But then again, maybe I'm wrong and Craig Wright is just an idiot compromising his reputation and career for a "moonshot" and a minute of glory. That would be totally stupid for a guy who has a family and a company and who's a cryptographer - to make a fool out of himself like this. Unless, what he claims is true..
Who knows, in the end it doesn't really matter that much.
The fact that Gavin Andersen (and others?) met him and talked to him and then said that he is "the father of Bitcoin"... means that either Wright is a very good con artist, good enough to convince the chief scientist of the Bitcoin Foundation, or he is the real deal.
I've also watched the interview... if he is a con artist then he is also a very good actor too.. to me Wright looked like a person in deep emotional turmoil.
Compatible with what one would experience if he were holding the private key to billions of $ worth of bitcoin, while the public were pushing him to use it.
> if he is a con artist then he is also a very good actor too..
these two things very typically go hand-in-hand.
>Compatible with what one would experience if he were holding the private key to billions of $ worth of bitcoin,
the only thing he would need to do is sign a message using the private key from an early block. This is extremely straightforward, widely known and expected, and he instead provided an bizarre and discredited method of proof. This also comes months after he tried to use easily discredited methods to take credit, like backdated blog entries. He's a scam artist.
People are skeptical because this isn't the first time he claimed to be Satoshi [1], and that time he did it by back-dating posts. This time he did it with a demonstrably fake signing of Sartre text.
Why would the real Satoshi go to great lengths to create fake evidence?
Maybe.
It was lengthy, time-consuming, very clearly fabricated evidence.
He claimed he had private keys tied to Satoshi, but refused to sign anything with it (which would have taken 30 seconds).
He doesn't seem "an average geek." He is very smooth-talking and glad-handing. He also looks much more like the sales people than the technical people at all my places of employment.
He also managed to "sweet talk" and convince Gavin Andersen and others that he's for real...
I don't know. I cannot base my conclusion on opinions on what the Internet is saying. The noise level and the emotions are too high to make sense of it.
I've watched his interview, I've listened to what he said.
The man looks like he's serious and angry about everything... he also said that he will refuse any kind of award for it.
Being the inventor of Bitcoin is also a huge burden and risk so it's not easy what this man is going through..
At least in theory, that man can be Satoshi and my intuition tells me that he probably is, there's nothing more to it.