Bitcoin Forum

You are trying to create a decentralized, censorship resistant, open source form of money, and you build it on top of a closed source operating system which is known for it's ties with three letter agency, hidden exploits, and all sorts of these bad things.

I find it weird that he would develop on windows. As far as I know, his first release was for windows only, and from what I've read, some code analysts claimed that he was a windows guy.

What is your take on this?

He probably only had experience programming in windows and with GUIs. Bitcoin 0.1.0 was a Windows only, GUI only application.

This sounds plausible to me. Back in the Flintstones age, I used Windows servers for years because Windows was used in the medialab where I trained as well as by my first ICT employer. Sometimes it’s more practical to use a crappy platform you know than a better one which you’re previously unfamiliar with :o

To be honest it is not relevant ! . I am not a tech guy but if you build something like blockchain , Does it really matter on what platform you built it ! . You build something that can not be manipulated nor can it be  erased(without been exposed to the whole world ) . Maybe he meant  to build it on windows just to give them the finger !  :D.

Cypherpunks code. It doesn't need to be perfect, it just needs to work right. If Satoshi had experience with programming on Windows, it seems like the best way forward for the project. Don't sit here and judge his decisions a decade from when they were made.

No one knew what Bitcoin might even become back then, and there was every chance it would just fade away or disappear. It's a project Satoshi worked on without knowing the outcome. The best way forward was to get a working client out there, which he did.

You can sit and analyze every small decision but it's of no use. Sometimes you just got to make a decision. People forget Satoshi was still only human.

If the program code is open source, it can be reviewed for security and ported to other systems, regardless of the original operating system.

Windows used to be the macdaddy.

Good question.
Bitcoin is a distributed system.  Back then no one would build a distributed system not on UNIX.

Bit of a far-flung theory, but I think it might have been a deliberate ploy to cover their tracks and keep their identity a mystery.  If it was someone closely connected to Unix development, but they didn't want people to connect the dots and discover they started Bitcoin, what better way to do it than to make the first version Windows-only?  Secure in the knowledge that if it was successful, it wouldn't take long for Bitcoin to migrate back to Unix, the spiritual home of open source.  Never underestimate Satoshi's brilliance and forward-thinking.

Maybe he wanted to create Bitcoin in a way that soon after its creation people could use it. Rather than being somewhat restricted those niches that only use Linux. His goal has always been to take his product to the common people and ordinary people like GUI interface.

Well, back than windows was at it's best - that's a very simple answer. If windows would not become that bad, I would not switch to Linux.
Now I'm on Linux for over two years and not even once looked back. But Back than - yea, Windows was the key.

Can you tell me what do you mean when saying windows was at it's best? Depends on what are you looking for. For games, graphics and for almost everything, windows was and is still the best. But here we talk about bitcoin which is known for it's decentralization (currently not decentralized for me as it has to be) and privacy. Windows isn't for privacy, only winner here is Linux.
Seems answer is his lack in knowledge of linux platform.

Im not judging satoshi for using windows, im just curious about why. If you are developing something which is basically holding your own money, seems most convenient to do so under an OS that may not be filled with spyware (and today we know for a fact that windows has deep ties within NSA and co) so I would have started on linux since day 1, specially if you wanted to remain anonymous, since it would be easier for your computer to get infected with stuff on windows.

This seems to make sense.  If the person or persons responsible for BTC wanted to remain anonymous, or if they were part of an organization which was virtually all windows based this would be a great reason to use windows.   What groups use predominately windows, and if they did not use windows, would be easy to spot? 

The power of anonymity is being in the herd.  The windows herd is VERY large and easier to disappear into. 

Windows had no real privacy issues until Vista upgrade, really. But you could be right, may be he did not know any better.

LOL. Windows was an open hole ever and always and anyone with just little computer knowledge knew that.

Windows has an abysmal security record. There were versions that you couldn’t install on a network-connected box without being compromised before the installer had even finished. See e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaster_(computer_worm). Then at some point (I think it was XP SP2), Microsoft configured its installer to actually turn on the software firewall, which helped somewhat :D

just most people use windows

OP, hahahaha.


Or maybe Satoshi was smart enough to pretend to have programming experience only in Windows. I believe he was trying hard to hide the truth that he might be one of the original cypherpunks.

Good job, Nick, good job.

I don't think it's far flung at all and you're right, this to me is a perfect example of forward-thinking... that actually you might realise seems to remain with the bulk of Bitcoin core developers.

Satoshi were a group of highly intelligent people - near flawless communicational language, extremely sound coding. From the beginning, they were already keen to safeguard their identities and part of the strategy would have to include deliberate inconsistencies in character, to complicate any potential profiling they were sure to attract. I think using an OS more common for programmers is part of that obfuscation, and would have helped narrow down any such attempt.

It could also be practicality. If you wanted adoption beyond the confines of cypherpunkery you want Bob and Alice's PCs to be able to run the early clients.

Ah, good, so it's not just me then.  So if we are looking at prominent Unix developers, is this theory (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2836902.msg29168805#msg29168805) plausible?  It would certainly explain Satoshi's absence, but obviously not in nicest of circumstances.   :(

It just seems to fit somehow.  Think about it this way, if you had been a primary contributor to something as innovative as Unix, you had now retired from working, you had experience with ciphers and cryptography, plus you just so happened to be a goddamn visionary genius, why would you not take a shot at trying to fix money by applying the same open-source principles?

I believe that Bitcoin was created as an experimental project by the Fed, or some other agency of the banking elite. Of course, they would use Windows so that they could check to see what people were doing with their baby.

http://bigsig.com/s/jet-sig.png

Not the greatest plan when it's open source.  I don't credit the Fed with a vast amount of intelligence, but even I don't think they're stupid enough to surveil people with code you can check for backdoors and tracking malware, along with being able to port it to any *nix, Android, MacOS, etc system.  It just doesn't seem feasible.

Windows is closed source! C'mon man. Would you use a closed source currency? nope, same goes for the operating system. Why would you or anyone with a functional brain use an OS that's closed source and holds your private keys at any point in time? that goes against the very principle of cryptography and satoshi used it to develop bitcoin which is hilarious, but I can understand how if that was all that he had to develop it's better than nothing. But I wouldn't feel too safe holding 1,000,000 BTC in a windows machine that was online at any point in time... not a very good idea. I know that Bitcoin wasn't worth anything back then, but he was still around in in late 2010 when the price was around 30 cents, 30 cents x the supposed 1,000,000 BTC = that's $300,000, a decent amount. I hope he moved these coins from the initial windows online computer, but we know he never moved his stash so...

That's why they used Windows. We know that Microsoft provided backdoors for US government departments to use. Why would they need to include anything in the Bitcoin software. I think they wanted to see what the anti-globalists could do with the concept. Right now it looks as if they are doing a pretty good job. :)

as windows is very user friendly , not like linux command base very techie , he wanted to to be used by every common man.

Well. One thing is - I believe, that he could have mined his coins later on in the development, let's say in first 1000 users of the bitcoin. This way he would still get his mnoney, but he would never have to touch his "original" wallet. Another possibility is that he never minded the money. May be he is already dead from an old age by now.
And the windows - as someone above noted: he could want it to be able for use by everyone, not just linux geeks, I believe these days Linux is much more available and common, than before.

IMVHO initial  release was on Windows for two reasons:
1. Developer(s) wanted to reach the broad audience.
2. Convenience. Specialist in cryptography was developing on ready available computer. Linux on home computers was not so polished  as today.

Funny, that prevented me to look at Bitcoin core till v. 0.2.

I think Satoshi had a much bigger vision for Bitcoin that most people give him credit for. Let's take someone that write virusses. What platform <OS> will you target for your virus, if you want it to go viral <literally and figuratively> : The answer is simple - You target the platform with the most users for maximum exposure.

If he wrote this in some obscure code, most people would have recognised his work from previous projects. He can hide much easier in a community with thousands of developers coding for the most popular OS.

Have you thought the reason could also be that he used windows to help the adoption? If he used something else, people would say "ahhh again something for geeks"


You maybe have never tried GNU/Linux, because the time when everything was done in a terminal is gone since decades. You can do almost everything with a GUI and now some OS are more "friendly" to use than Windows OS. I can customize a Linux OS you won't really be able to make a difference with Win 7

I don't get it. In the early releases the mining client was the same as the wallet client because satoshi's idea was that everyone could be able to mine, so this means that the biggest bulk of coins was mined with whatever initial software was availble which again was also the wallet. This means

1) The computer was online
2) The computer was running windows

When was the first linux ever release? Some guy here said 0.2 I think... I wonder what amount of coins got mined by then? So unless im missing something, a big chunk was mined in an online windows computer which means a compromised computer.

Properly secured Windows (except Windows10) computer is unbreakable. Even for NSA. Why? Because a 0-day in network stack or network card drivers is only way to hack it. Manually install all security patches. Disable all auto updates. Disable unnecessary services and configure firewall to reduce attack surface. It is it. I challenged to hack my Windows 7 or Windows XP machine to steal all my coins back then. Nobody succeeded. In such case the NSA/CIA/FBI will try to get physical access to machine to install malware or read disk contents.

It is ridiculous how paranoid some Windows haters are. They obviously never been hackers themselves and also dont know how police and spy agencies do things.

More notable thing that probably nobody noticed is that Satoshi's hard drive was using NTFS compression, most likely on whole partition. This is very untypical to have NTFS compression enabled on whole partition upon manual formatting.

How would you know this fact?

Edit: restored message from crash
The alternative theory is that he was an "experienced programmer" with an equivalent of black-belt in billable hours padding. That doesn't preclude being "good programmer", just puts in the background to the primary goal.

Yet another alternative theory is that initial coding was done by Satoshi's contractor, not Satoshi himself; and that later on they split for whatever reason.

Those then segue to the whole group of theories that Satoshi was an employee of some government spying agency. Those theories further split into two subgroups:

a) intentional covert work for which Satoshi was normally paid
b) after-hours personal project that unexpectedly grew, possibly affecting negatively his normal duties.

I believe the part about "extremely sound coding" is wrong.I have heard some comments that Bitcoin's early code was full of bugs and was basically spaghetti code and it started to improve when the first contributors came in.

This made some followers think that Satoshi was a good cryptographer and mathematician but he was not a good programmer.

Doesn't make sense to me. In order to be sure that something is not hacked, you would need to at least know what the code is doing. Sure this doesn't mean that Linux isn't hackable, everything with code is, but my point is.. how do you even know what updates to enable and what other updates to ignore? Updates are packages of closed source code. You are trusting to believe what it says on the description but you don't know what you are actually installing with each update, one of these updates could contain a backdoor for the NSA or something. You can block ports with a firewall, but that's about it. A keylogger that's embedded in a file that is part of the OS would go ignored by firewalls for instance. For example, imagine that the reporting tool in windows which is just an exe, sends a text file with keystrokes to someone... how would you even notice if you can't see what Dw20.exe is doing? (or any other closed source executable for that matter).

Okay. I am interested in about windows as unhackable as you said.... but why except Windows 10? it's still windows... forgive my ignorance. I just want to know so that I can buy better OS in the future.

It goes even further... last year it was discovered, that all HP machines had a sound driver, which would log all keystrokes into a log file. The original intend is for sure unknown, but the idea was, that you had to capture the control keys to change the volume (and more). So there was debug code in the executables, and they have been detected fairly late. There is no evidence, that this data was used to be sent anywhere, but if a sound driver is able to log keystrokes, even those which are irrelevant for its function, then security in a layered fashion is not one of the strong points of this operating system. Now try to get the source code of this sound driver! You won’t, it’s also closed source. Same could be true for WiFi cards... closed source. Now compare this to Unicode systems. You can install proprietary software, but you must not! And you can read source codes of majority of the OS, and you can even modify it in a way, that you see, what is going on under the hood. You can’t do this with Windows. There is a reason, why this OS is not used in high secure environments...

I think he just liked Windows over linux :)

I see two reasons bitcoin was developed on Windows:

- Satoshi wanted bitcoin to be accessible to as many people as possible so Windows at the time would have been a good choice. 

- Also, Unix development of bitcoin may have given clues to the identity or identities of Satoshi being that the platform was smaller.

Well, this is ironic to create an open source code in a restricted one. Maybe they were just trying to make a point, or maybe they just wanted blockchain to go into everyhouse.

But to me is not relevant, to be honest.

In my opinion
This sounds reasonable to me. Back in the Flintstones, I used Windows servers for years because Windows was used in the lab media where I was trained and also by my first ICT company. My suggestion is that you can know it first

I think y'all are reading too much into this.

Back in '09, 'Nix was not really that accessible or usable to the average person. If you were very familiar with Windows, like I was, 'Nix was kind of incomprehensible without a sharp learning curve. And unlike today, where Ubuntu and Mint are extremely widespread, there was the definite problem of the Linux community.

It was an 'old boys club' to the extreme. Newbie bashing on here is NOTHING compared to what it was in the late 20th and first years of the 21st century in the Linux community! Those people had an axe to grind, and just couldn't possibly get it sharp enough. I switched to Linux in '12, and haven't regretted it. But the community has changed.

The biggest roadblock to the general adoption of Linux in the early days (I'm talking 91 to about 2010) was the linux community itself. They openly viewed themselves as superior beings, and damn you if you wanted to break in! Then they whined about people using Windows when there was an oh-so-superior option. That it actually IS superior in a lot of ways was not a mitigating factor. Whether you love or hate Ubuntu, Canonical went a LONG WAY in changing that perception, and now 'Nix is gaining a lot of traction. It still has a lot sharper learning curve than Windows, but past that, I'd consider them about equal from the user perspective. But Windows is a LOT more friendly to a newbie, still, than any flavor of Nix.

Now as to Satoshi, first off, he/they were NOT outstanding coders. The later development team described the original code as "spaghetti code" in several instances. The brilliance of Bitcoin cannot really be understated, but it's brilliance is in concept, not the initial programming. If I were to field a guess, I'd leave out all the conspiracy theories (though I like some of them :D ) and just say it simple: He was familiar with Windows. Unix was still pretty esoteric back then.

Because satoshi is actually Elon Musk. If you read books about him, he is a guy who programs in Windows and good at C++.

He's also in bed with anyone who appears to have authority. I find this highly unlikely.

Now maybe Peter Thiel...

Maybe it was important for it to be available to a wide range of users. If it was only for Linux, it would have been exclusive to the tech-savvy people. Everyone can run Windows, so everyone could use Bitcoin. Nothing difficult - click, run, gain. This is what made the breakthrough, the ease of use. Remember that when you chose the next ICO or build your own coin - the easier your product is for people to use, the more likely to succeed it is.

Windows 10 is a spyware, XP is the best version of Windows. you can try https://www.ubuntu.com/desktop for free.

Those little details only rise my suspicious that the dramatis personae "Satoshi Nakamoto" between 2008/2013 was in fact Hal Finney ... ::)

While it's possible, I'm not convinced it's likely due to the different approaches and ideas they seemed to have regarding development.  They seemed to have vastly differing stances (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1735.msg26835#msg26835) on Bitcoin's association with WikiLeaks.  Plus, if they were the same person, they certainly went to a great deal of effort (https://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/finneynakamotoemails.pdf) to disguise the fact.  It's sadly probable that Satoshi is dead, though.

I don't know either... I my mind bitcoin works a lot as a distributed PGP's web-of-trust model ... in fact you just need to add "economy model layer" to it to make it works ...

I agree and disagree. I think Satoshi is a composite person, and I agree that Hal is likely one of the components.

Agree on you sir, maybe he thinks that Windows is the most suitable for BTC since it's algos are too simple compared with others. I mean i don't find windows that crappy but i believe the simpleness of BTC's algo is what make it unique versus the others. Or maybe satoshi has no choice back in the days but still he has a big success and i think he must be proud of it .

Probably to show that it can even run on windows ;)

Bit seriously, probably because a lot of people used windows, specifically those days. So it would be more easy for mass adoption

I agree, especially if what you're making is electronic money.  Stick with what you know well because the probability that you'll screw something up on the platform you don't know as well is much higher than the chance that 3 letter agencies are going to mess with your creation (especially back when Bitcoin was 'born').

Once the source code was published (I don't know if that was right from the jump or a little later), it is open to the world for audit/review/porting to other platforms.  It is hugely important to "know what you don't know" and defer to the expertise of others in those areas and/or increase your knowledge and competency in that new area.

As we see from the spectre/meltdown vulnerabilities, there will always be weak points, possible vectors of attack, in any sophisticated system that are essentially outside of your control.  Do the best you can with what is in your control and a development process that favors continuous improvement will serve as a feedback loop driving further refinement.  From what I can discern of Bitcoin's early days, it was pretty good out of the gate, but it's certainly improved in many ways since it's inception.  That will continue.  That's one of the great things about technology, continuous improvement, especially in open source projects.

Best regards,
Ben

My take on this is that, it does not matter whether it was on Windows or iOS or Ubuntu, Android, GUI, GitHub or even go to space to develop because no one is made out of no where you need to rely on the what some other people have done to create something unique. He might be a window guy but he created something Window might not break and I am not sure he even used windows 10.1 that we have today. He further showed that where people are seeing the problem with limited resources, he saw the opportunity to put his own name in the sands of time which might even outlive a lot of us.

Well, I think satoshi develop bitcoin on windows because he's so familiar with windows, also when it became successful, he never gave it a thought to try to experiment it on another OS, like Linux or something else.

I think this makes the most sense.

In order to make the adoption of the product easier for normal people I would have chosen windows and gui too. Its not like he did sacrifice anything with this decision.

There is possibility he is windows guy. It also makes sense to develop on windows because the world are mostly windows users.

Based on the public things I've read I thought as others have mentioned that Satoshi was a "windows guy", but the release of the emails from Satoshi to Hal Finney (https://www.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/finneynakamotoemails.pdf) tell a different story:



So it looks like Satoshi was actually a "Linux guy" in the end as he mentioned it was easier to make software for Linux, and he was using the gcc debugger.

It seems to me that he was just publishing the software for Windows as it was the more commonly used OS, but he would have preferred to use Linux.

Or he could've just used MinGW to build the 0.1 version, especially if the program layout on the filesystem consisted of bin/, usr/, lib/ folders MinGW programs are packed as (as later Windows versions of Bitcoin Core had always been).

This question cannot be answered well with the original author missing.  What can be answered is why you would develop on Windows in 2008 (as apposed to Minix, SCO, Linux, GNU Hurd?). 

Windows has and had:
* The best market penetration.   To get more users of an application you can write it on Windows
* Wide range of development tools and software for development.

Rather than use Microsoft only frameworks, it takes some effort to use portable libraries and frameworks.  These days, Android is the new Windows.

From the emails you can tell he was actually using both, gcc and Visual Studio to generate the executables:

That would be a VERY possible reason why Satoshi decided to build the first implementations of Bitcoin in Windows, IF it was not to do the extra steps to "pretend he's a Windows guy" and hide his real identity. He probably wanted a user-friendly UX/UI and make it more encouraging for ordinary users to run the software. There also was a poker application embedded in the client, no?

Also with market penetration there are a lot more places to go for friendly help then with a lot of other development. Doing a bit of over generalization but when asking for help when compiling stuff on Windows you get help from online discussions and other people. When asking for help when compiling for Linux you get 'didn't you read the docs??? it's right there on page 308'

Also, with the market penetration Windows stuff just tends to run, with all the flavors of linux out there and the different install options sometimes if you want to give a fully compiled binary it takes more work to make sure it will run it all since you can't be 100% sure what packages were installed, but with Windows you know that every install has certain things.

-Dave

Do not you overcomplicate things? The whole discussion starts from assumption that linux is cool and windows is for dumb people. Using other system just to pretend you are someone else? It almost smells like an another flame war.


I agree with that. You have everything there, tools (& support) and many potential users. It would not make a sense to develop a software for a limited number of users just because linux is so great. And than of course adding extra effort to port it to windows.
And again - remember that decade ago linux was even less popular then today and the fragmentation is also a problem - even if you had a 'linux users', many of them preferred to use packages instead of building from the source* - so you must prepare your program for several distributions.

* ah, Gentoo ::)

Actually during 2008 - 2010, I have not known, or discovered a community of Windows Users who were developing open source applications in Windows, that also supported each other. Many among Windows users, it's always the customer goes to the vendor/developer if there are issues.


It will "tend" to run in Windows, but I believe not very smoothly especially considering that it's open source software. Plus it's harder to fix in Windows without the help of the developer.

my bet it's simply because windows is good on threading . linux has no waitformultipleobjects() alternative