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Comment by toinewx | Hacker News Reader

I read that Len was a heavy linux user with no Windows experience. Meanwhile, the first bitcoin implementation is done on Windows for Windows.

Some people may remember better this aspect.

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I'm skeptical about this. Although I have been a Linux user since 1992, in my (fairly wide) experience Linux was not used in commercial settings until around 2000. Len was a professional developer working for SV companies during that period. So was I. I did have colleagues with no Windows experience, but they would have been Solaris users (or HPUX or...). Anyone writing code to be used by regular end-users would have had to have targeted Windows because there simply wasn't much of any installed base for any other OS at the time. Plus, according to the Medium article, Len worked on the PGP codebase. PGP ran on Windows (Win32, not sure about Win16).

Yep, I make this point often.

The only two that match up with the Windows piece of the puzzle are Dave Kleiman and Paul Le Roux. Of those two, Paul Le Roux had a interest in online gambling. Guess what the first Bitcoin release had references to.

There’s one more man you are missing that fits better with the Windows piece that is more likely than those two. A man that was obsessed with anonymity (with no real picture of him on the net), an active writer still today, and with the coding and cryptography chops to have actually built it.

Who are you referring too? I am really curious.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Le_Roux

I was unfamiliar and that was the wildest Wikipedia article I've read in a long time.

That would be exactly the kind of thing to do to obfuscate your identity.

That would be done because the user base of windows at the time dwarfed that of Linux. There are other better ways to cover your identity.

That seems possible. But this kind of explanation is also indistinguishable from “it’s just part of the conspiracy” type of logical track.

You guys are overthinking or just having fun claiming such stuff. Satoshi covered his tracks at communication and distribution layer e.g. using fake name, using TOR, using anon email, anon host etc.

I'm almost certain from everything I've seen about Bitcoin over the years that he wasn't a Linux developer who learnt Windows and C++ just to "obfuscate" his identity, he wasn't a non-native English speaker who learnt perfect English just to "obfuscate" his origin. He wasn't a professional cryptographer or even up to date with the latest cryptographic research according to Gavin Andresen[0]. It's most likely that he was indeed a native English speaker and a C++ Windows programmer who happened to be very passionate about digital cash payment solutions.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uWigVKslYg

You're right. I am just wondering about the satoshin@gmx.com email. Anyways, he must have it all covered.

He always used TOR but he also used anon emails like satoshi@anonymousspeech.com and satoshi@vistomail.com.

And maybe he didn't cover all tracks....how did he purchase bitcoin.org domain in August of 2008? Some say via cash in mail but I'm not so sure.

Gmx.com addresses (assuming no use of VPN or Tor exit node) excluded people in Germany, Austria and Switzerland at the time. You would always have been redirected to the country TLD options. GMX.com was a new spin off around 2009. There’s an interesting archived page here that discussed exactly this:

http://www.emaildiscussions.com/showthread.php?t=57794

Gmx is popular in Germany but I think it was always a bit niche outside Germany speaking countries it was relatively unheard of at the time.

Notably, you might of heard of GMX when visiting Germany for the CCC convention. Both Len Sassaman and Dan Kaminsky presented at CCC in the same year (2007) at 24C3 for example. Dan presented for several years in a row and fiercely opposed Craig Wright’s claims to be Satoshi.

Kaminsky, Finney and Sassaman all died rather young.

>Gmx is popular in Germany but I think it was always a bit niche outside Germany speaking countries it was relatively unheard of at the time.

He also used upload.ae to share draft of Bitcoin whitepaper[0] and upload.ae was literally unheard of. I didn't see anybody saying they used it or knowing who owned it. My assumption is that it was run by Satoshi's friend or somebody that he trusted.

[0] https://www.bitcoin.com/satoshi-archive/emails/wei-dai/1/

Opsec is never perfect. Let's leave it at that

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