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Comment by fragsworth | Hacker News Reader

The anger is coming from the bitcoin community, mostly because they're afraid for Satoshi's life. Someone could kidnap/torture him to try to get his bitcoins.

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Him, or any member of his immediate family, which the journalist of the original piece made sure could easily be tracked down.

They obviously think this because wealthy Americans are constantly being kidnapped and tortured for their money. Happens all the time right?

I suppose the difference is that most people with a reported $400 million don't keep it in cash at home. As I understand it, Bitcoin is more like cash in that possession is ownership.

Well then bitcoin is definitely the currency we want in the revolution ... ...

Well, there isn’t openly violence from the hackers, but three exchange has been hacked recently (that we know of), leading to at least one suicide… More importantly, such public heist seem to have been able to merge in the mass too fast for anyone to track them: that comes off as a step above a suitcase of unmarked bills. And, yes, it does happen: South Americans, in general, but the order of magnitude of the amont, and the lack of security makes it possible.

It’s hard to assess the actual risk: cartels haven’t necessarily been associated with cryptographers, but Silk Road made a connexion, and home-made submarines have proven a track record of adopting innovation fast and efficiently.

The sliver of risk, no mater how thin, seems not worthy of openly naming the person, as opposed to offering close-up photo and a third party confirmation that the details appear consistent.

One doesn't even have to be in the bitcoin community (or a redditor) to feel sympathy for an obviously private guy who has had a reporter stalking him and his family and publishing photos of him, his house, etc., in a major news publication. Whether he's the creator of bitcoin or not, he and his family are now the focal point of an intense amount of attention and as you highlight, possibly danger.

Or his family. At his departure from the project he made it obvious that he wanted to be left alone so people should respect his wishes.

Maybe he wants a pony too, why should anyone give a shit?

ethics

I missed the ethics class where we decided to give the superrich whatever they want.

You also missed the class where you should have learned that human rights are universal and are not diminished by being wealthy.

It's also the wrong guy by the way.

Because asking a (possible) rich guy a question is a huge violation of his human rights.

You actually have a good point but the first was a bit mean and a little much.

No, it's perfectly legal but unethical.

In the words of Lebowski: It's not wrong, it's being an asshole.

The reporters that camped outside of Bernie Madoff's house were assholes too, the way Madoff tells it.

Being an asshole =/= unethical. Make a real argument that it's unethical.

You are attacking a retired engineer who lives a zen-like life in a suburban McMansion, after a brain accident because he can get “whatever [he] want?” Really?

I'm not attacking anyone. Argument in grandparent was he wants X so everyone needs to do X which is frankly repulsive in a country with a free press.

You find human decency repulsive?!

You think that it would be the polite thing to do for reporters not to pursue him. I agree with you. I think where we differ is with the respect to the obligation of journalists.

Journalists are in the business of finding out information that's useful for an open democratic society in making decisions. If this person might be the genuine Satoshi, then it stands to reason he might offer useful information or a new perspective on Bitcoin or money in general.

Thus I think to not pursue this story as a journalist would be a violation of j-ethics.

Is there a particular reason why he'd be at risk for this versus any other well known wealthy person? Are lottery winners worried about this?

Lottery winners usually don't have millions in hard-to-trace cash sitting around.

I'd think Bitcoins would be a whole lot easier to trace than dollar bills.

The real reason behind this fear is that some consider Satoshi their hero and icon. Anything, therefore, that he doesn't or wouldn't (if you maintain this isn't the real Satoshi) approve of especially as it relates to himself inspires strong feelings and irrational justifications like "he could be kidnapped and tortured."

Or at least that's the only reason I can imagine this argument keeps coming up. Any other wealthy person could also be kidnapped and tortured. Heck, most wealthy (100m+) people probably have pretty valuable things just laying around their house that are far less traceable than Bitcoins.

Bitcoin is certainly easier to trace than dollar bills - I'm not confident about "a whole lot easier". But few people have the kinds of sums Satoshi purportedly has in BTC sitting around in any liquid asset in their home. I certainly hope Satoshi doesn't, either, but it's significantly more likely that he can move tremendous amounts of value without involving intermediaries (and thus more risk) than it would be for really any other individual.

Of course, in this case, I hope the bitcoin network would resign itself to coloring those coins, if Satoshi was extorted out of his coins.

Sure, but his bitcoins probably aren't just sitting around either. The fear was that he'd be kidnapped/tortured in order to acquire them. If we're allowing for that, it seems like anyone with sufficient wealth would be a target.

It's still easier to un-reversibly steal large $X in BTC than in USD, in most of the ways people store large amounts of the respective currencies. Stealing from your bank acount involves more people and more moving parts and thus more risk (and large transfers are watched).

I agree there's (hopefully) a good chance his BTC are in cold storage in a safety deposit box, or something. People fail to do that with BTC more often than people fail to put millions of USD in the bank, though.

Actually, I've been wondering if he didn't withdraw from BTC because he was embarrassed about having lost the private keys to his early accounts... :-P Not that I really think that likely, either.

Lottery winners should be but they aren't, here's a pretty good article: http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/03/a-financial-plan-f...

I dislike people who conflate the median with the average ("It’s just not possible for 60 percent of the men in a room to be above-average drivers, unless you’re at a Nascar convention." -- it is certainly possible, its not possible for 60% to be better than the median driver, even if you are at a NASCAR convention.)

Depending on the number of people in the room, it might not be that unlikely for 60% to be above the global median, either. If there are three people, 100% are going to be above the median, 66% are going to be above the median, 66% are going to be below the median, or 100% are going to be below the median... All of those is more "dramatic" an outcome than 60%.

Their money might be in various physical assets or a bank. This guy could have keys on seizable hardware and could be coerced into giving up passwords that might quickly lead to tens of millions.

It could be safer to be known publicly.

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