Bitcoin Forum

After reading Gavins thread on public relations, I wanted to find an easy way to make Bitcoin come across as a more professional, trustworthy project. I don't need to explain why that's an important image to establish.

So I changed my forum display name from [mike] to my real name, which was easily available from the BitCoinJ project anyway. Quite a few important players in the Bitcoin community aren't actually anonymous even though they use nicks on this forum. When people evaluate Bitcoins potential, one question they ask is, who are these people? Is anyone seriously standing behind this project? Just using our real names when posting is a simple step that will re-assure people who are deciding whether it's worth their time. So I encourage you to do the same - it's easy to do by going into the profile tab and clicking "Account Settings".

Here's a quick reference guide to some of the communities top contributors, based on publicly available information:

• Gavin Andresen (https://profiles.google.com/u/0/gavinandresen/about), no need to introduce the project maintainer. He previously worked at Silicon Graphics and now runs his own company.
• MagicalTux - Mark Karpeles, owner of MtGox and Kalyhost
• Vladimir Marchenko (https://profiles.google.com/u/0/vmartchenko/about?hl=en), runs Marchenko Ltd which sells mining contracts, previously developed the figator.org search engine.
• xf2_org - Jeff Garzik, who does kernel development at Red Hat
• BlueMatt - Matt Corallo, core developer
• sipa - Pieter Wuille, core developer and maintainer of the network graphs (http://bitcoin.sipa.be/)
• justmoon - Stefan Thomas, creator of the WeUseCoins.com site/video and WebCoin.
• Hal - Hal Finney, one of the creators of PGP
• mndrix - Michael Hendrix, creator of the (sadly defunct) CoinPal and CoinCard services
• theymos - Michael Marquardt, creator of the widely used blockexplorer.com site
• genjix - Amir Taaki, creator of the Britcoin exchange
• Mike Hearn (https://profiles.google.com/mh.in.england/about) - Google engineer who works on Gmail and developed BitCoinJ (http://code.google.com/p/bitcoinj/)

There are a few others I know based on private information. If you're OK with appearing here (or not appearing here) let me know.

BTW I know plenty of people posting in these forums prefer to be totally anonymous, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Aaaah, but anybody can change their nickname to Mike Hearn. How do we know you are the real Mike Hearn? Could you please post a copy of your passport and birth certificate?  ;)
 

Seriosly though, I'm going to follow Satoshi's example and not post under my flesh name, for all sorts of practical reasons.

For example, I don't want a prospective employer to be able to google me and read about my philosophical stance on intellectual property on this forum.  This has nothing to do with lack of integrity, not standing up for my beliefs, or whatever. It's purely a matter of self-preservation. It's a jungle out there and I want to place myself in a good negotiation position, which means being in control over what you disclose about yourself.


PS. If you want to I'll post a SHA-256 of my real name.

just in case it's not clear, it's likely that someone else could brute-force that (and they could then post your name right afterwards in the discussion), unless your name is something like 13kqJEMqZPSPmc18wzogz71pAFzU7SCJhs.

it would be wonderful, however, if a SHA256 hash of anyone's real name happened to meet the present difficulty.

i like what mike's trying to do, but (1) using this forum is probably too obscure for most people in the mainstream who are going to be evaluating bitcoin economically, rather than technologically, and (2) this particular forum is already teeming with the sort of extremist fantasy that repulses many people, and that doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon. the main bitcoin.org page already lists some real people's names.

Good point, what if it's just the first 4 characters of the SHA-256?

I run with two accounts.... one for legitimate community orientated and stuff, and the other for... other things

@forever-d, it depends how plausible you want your deniability to be.

the first four characters in the typical printing of a sha256 digest (a simple hex string) amount to two bytes of information, or 16 bits.

in 16 bits, you can store 65536 possibilities.

so if someone tests whether your hash corresponds to a particular name and comes up with a matching four-character hex-string signature, they can trust that the probability of a coincidental collision was 1/65536. in other words, they can be 65535/65536, or 99.9985%, confident that you were claiming to have the particular name they tested.

but that doesn't intuitively tell the whole story, because people tend to be bad at accommodating base rates intuitively. if the attacker already suspects that you are a particular person and runs that name, a collision gives them a pretty high confidence that they're right. if they're going to try 130,000 names randomly, however, they'd expect to collide a few times anyway, and a collision wouldn't tell them much.

practically speaking, then, it depends on many variables. i'm afraid we're diverting mike's topic, however!

No that's fine, divert away. I just wanted to explain why I changed my nick.

It definitely won't have a huge impact, but I think it's a step in the right direction. If you look at Tor, they do this and I think it makes the project much more respectable and (by implication) harder to demonize:

https://www.torproject.org/about/corepeople.html.en

What if we just make up realistic names to use as our forum names? For example, I could call myself Jamal Williams even though that is not even close to my real name.

Why bother? There's nothing wrong with using a pseudonym.

The only point of using your real name is to stand up and say, this is my name and I support Bitcoin. If you use a fake name and start achieving things then eventually you'll get called on it, and won't be able to reach your full potential. The transition from Satoshi leading the project to Gavin was essential for this reason: Gavin can appear in Forbes and explain what it's all about, whereas Satoshi could not.

Mike,

i think this is a great idea but it would be even more helpful if ppl listed their credentials as well.  a name by itself does nothing for me beyond the nickname.  however, credentials, education, etc would really make me more confident that the place is being run by adults who know what they're doing rather than by a bunch of young geeks/ hacksters.

one of the first things i do when i talk to ppl about btc is pt at Gavin and say "Princeton graduate".

Sure, that's why I included things these people had done.

Credentials and qualifications I'm not so bothered about because most people get them when they are quite young and after that, things they achieve in their careers matter more. I don't know what qualifications Hal has and I don't really care: he created PGP with Phil Zimmerman and that's better than any PhD or degree.

That's your choice -- I prefer my pseudonimity, thanks.

At some point I might want to take credit for my Bitcoin activities, so I don't want to use a fake name. In fact, I would list Bitcoin Block Explorer on my résumé if I was applying for a relevant job this year, since that's the biggest and most public programming project I've ever done.

Using a non-obvious pseudonym might be a good idea for people who want to be anonymous. It adds some apparent credibility, I think.

In my case, it's not about being anonymous. Everyone with half a brain could probably find out who I am. I simply don't want all my forum contributions to show up in Google queries. There is no reason why everybody would have to be able to trivially look up everything about me. Especially not for the rest of my life, given how long every piece of information lingers around these days.

Edit: it's interesting too see how many people still think in terms of either total transparency or total anonymity, even on a forum like this.

I was considering switching to my real name anyway... I value my right to privacy a great deal, but I'm already using one of my standard handles here. If I had something to say anonymously, I certainly wouldn't be doing it under this account---or, for that matter, from this IP.

Done.  Real name it is.

Man, you guys are slow! (http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=6769.0)

;)

I've steadily gravitated toward using my real name for many things, for a few reasons:

1. It looks more professional
2. My name is already on the internet, if people looked hard enough.
3. What is someone gonna do with just my name?
4. I like my name better than any nickname I've ever had!

You sir, have an awesome last name.

I'm so confused now...

Argument from authority. You know George W Bush graduated from Yale and Harvard, right?

I like what Mike has done better, which is to list achievements. It's not what where you went to school, it's what you did with that knowledge afterward.

All these name changes will make the 'list of honest traders' completely useless! :(

understood and agreed.  but when you're trying to convince someone of bitcoins legitimacy how would you respond to "Well, BitterTea does it!" :D

I suppose its up to how you define developer, but I'm not technically one.  I don't have commit access (nor should I, I don't know nearly enough about C++).  I do happen to spend a ton of time on bitcoin, and have one (about to be two) chunks of code in the repo.  But I suppose at the end of the day, "core devloper" in FLOSS can mean a ton of different things.

C'mon Satoshi.  Your turn.  :-)

First name: Goat
Last name: Pig
Middle name: Raccoon

Sorry, that's not safe either. The problem is a dictionary attack going through all common names and calculating the 4 characters you use. It may hit a few times (since 4 characters is a handful of bits) and they'll have a very short list of candidate names for you.

I think it's a good idea. I appreciate the public stands. I'm not doing it myself though.

I think I can get used to this real name thing.  :D


You've explained Bitcoin with superhuman patience to about a bajillion people on IRC (including myself), so firstly hat off to you and secondly you are totally (hard-)core in my book. <3  :)

quite the coming out party we got here .... hope they don't have a bitcoin round up any time soon, although the more people adding their names the less likely it becomes. Admire your mettle guys, hope you appreciate what you are up against.

(I prefer to remain pseudo-anonymous for now for commercial and private reasons ... people who matter can easily find out and the people that don't can't.)

Hey, the real name doesn't have to be your own :) Look at me being trustworthy and all now! Of course, it's a bit of a fad, but it's akin to banks and law offices building expensively decorated buildings to look 'professional' and 'trustworthy' to their investors.

Maybe we could have some designer redesign the site and forum as well.

Ah, we're nerds. You know many nerds there are in the world? If they take us out there's a million more. :D

I don't want to reveal my meatspace identity for the probable chance that what I'm doing is illegal in most firstrealm jurisdictions. It doesn't mean that what I'm doing is wrong or bad, but simply banned by those in power.

It's a form of armour, where so often in life we are exposed and naked to the eyes of the state and organisations because of what they know about us. When what I'm doing is the latest target boogieman it's good that my physical identity isn't easily known.

Also no one needs to know my real identity to know whether I'm trustworthy or not, I'm not concerned with looking legit, because the fact is I'm not. But I get shit people want done so that's really all that I think matters.

All these real names is a great idea. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of me, but here's a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RJXP1tfSBM (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RJXP1tfSBM) - I'm in the background. My real name is Jon Smyf

My real name is William Moore.

I suggest that the op is a cia/nsa/fbi plant, attempting to uncover the identities of some forum users.

Fortunately it's easy for him to show otherwise, provided that he has a well-known public key.

If people want to use their real name here, I have no problem with that. I wouldn't do it myself, but as long as I am not going to be forced to reveal myself, then I'm not going to stop those who do want to reveal themselves.

If people doubt you're who you say you are, this is what you can do about it:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

I am the real Ian Maxwell with public key fingerprint BFBC8D95. My key is only self-signed, but you can verify it by doing the following:

- - -  Send an email to ian.maxwell@gmail.com with subject line "BFBC8D95" and body text "bitcoin".

- - -  I will respond with a signed message referencing this one.

If you do verify my identity, I ask that you sign my public key afterward.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
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=o3wJ
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Consumers are vendors in their own smaller markets.

Saying Gavin is Princeton Graduate reinforces the elitist position that only Princeton / MIT / Harvard or Rhodes Scholars can contribute or conceive of a worthy cause.

THERE ARE ENOUGH ELITISTS PROHIBITING PEOPLE FROM HELPING EACH OTHER. Google United Homeless Organization. The lack of documentation of their actions (not names) for each other destroyed them. Andrew Cuomo licked the blood off his lips when he shutdown a decentralized homeless empowerment group that had a 25 year run. All because some whiny armchair generals who never stuck their neck out for anyone had an inflated opinion and an exaggerated sense of self-importance.

You want to 1) placate that self-righteous hyena, crowd of armchair generals and 2) draw them in when we need more solid community growth and cultural resilience?
You want more OMFGWTFONLY21MBTC! threads? More inflation / demurrage lametard whining? Your timing sucks.

My pseudonym (I use the name everywhere, everyone knows my politics and bulldog determination) is a vicious attack on that.

If we give up our pseudonyms we give into the consumer / vendor, master / slave, king / subject, professional / ass-kisser, celebrity / cheerleader mindset.

Mine means paid provocateurs are on Santa's Naughty List - By God I'll rout you traitorous fuckers out wherever I find you.

how about "SuperMan"[bin Batman ;P]
but females can call me "Zorro" :-P

My rule is generally to use my real name if it's common in the community. Looks like it's going to be more common here, so I'll bite.

Hey now.  I still do plenty of kernel devel at RH :)

(insert usual disclaimers:  bitcoin is a hobby, not in any way sponsored by my employer, etc.)

ok, my real name is Eric Fontaine.  OMG!

I like this key-signing (http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=9251.msg133662) approach, but it doesn't really prove who you are.  Instead it proves that a certain key is associated with a certain email address, and there is no need for any of them to point at my real person (or real name).

Cheers,

FWIW:

Luke-Jr - Luke Dashjr, core developer (of Spesmilo), Eligius pool admin, and owner of Lightfoot Hosting

A quick google search maps from gigitrix->real name, but hopefully my results for real name don't map as readily to gigitrix. SEO, nothing more: I want the right stuff to come up under the right context: no employer is going to be interested in my massive Reddit addiction, for instance!

This idea has merit. It can be valuable to attach our online identities to our offline identities. But no one seems to have pointed out the relevant analogy... our legal names are no more "real" than our internet names, just as dollars are no more "real" than bitcoins. Maybe what we should be changing is our legal names rather than our internet names.

I use mine everywhere.

I split mine between the forum (markm) and IRC (knotwork). Googling both together seems to work adequately, albeit maybe only because google knows my history. Does it work for others too or is google simply fooling me into thinking I am easy to find?

-MarkM-

Real names go a long way when it comes the the credibility of Bitcoin. If you want the general population to start using bitcoins for real, they'll have to trust the brand. Using real names and credentials, be it eiter in your screen name or signature, will certainly help with that.

I completely agree, Neo.

"Real" names are only really necessary in order for governments to data-match and keep track of you.

Don't forget that friends and family might like to call you by your name

They can just as easily call you 'neo' or 'astro', or any other preferred name.

Mike, I took the liberty of taking what you've provided and putting it in the bitcoin wiki:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/People

I figured if people didn't have a problem with their name being publicly available here, they wouldn't mind having their names put on the Wiki. If any one would like me to remove their information from the Wiki, please let me know.

I've also added a Bitcoin Companies (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bitcoin_Companies) and an empty Investors (https://en.bitcoin.it/w/index.php?title=Investors&action=edit&redlink=1) section.

*Edit, I'm thinking 'bitcoin companies' might be redundant, as we there's already a Trade (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade) section with a large number of bitcoin accepting sites, so I'll delete it.

Good job guys, now you need to start your own forum far away from this one.
Or push to heavily moderate this one, to the point of complete reset.

When their is official forums for Bitcoin.org, I might join that one with my real name as my user name and drop this one.

There will be no official forum again.

Feel free to make your own, better moderated forum though. It will instantly be as "official" as this one. Having everything concentrated in one community is not good.

I don't think everything was ever concentrated in one community.    The most skilled people in their specific fields of what they do with Bitcoin may all have accounts here, but I guarantee this is not their stomping grounds.   This place was a good representation of newcomers and old users together, as that is what it is.  There is the level headed and there is the nuts.   Not sure why the programmers or whomever was in charge of linking these forums and the official site felt the need to disassociate from that.

FWIW, I plan to stick with the name Astrohacker, although you can find my "real" name if you look hard enough. And I don't think we should discriminate against people who prefer to remain pseudonymous. For some info on the value of pseudonymity, see this article: http://socialmediacollective.org/2011/08/04/real-names-policies-are-an-abuse-of-power/

We agree on something.

I would never use my real name in an unsafe centralized forum such as this.
this forum in my perspective is the antithesis to bitcoin, the solution to a social problem that contributes to the underlying problem. Bitcoin as it's conception, is to strive to exist after the social problem.
Not to attribute problems to it's own concept and growth by retaining it's flaws.
A software dev with a full head of hair doesn't read his forums.

There!

I'm using my real name as well now ^^

feels good.

I'd be happy to revise my username and provide my information. My email address contains my name and is publicly available, anyway. My name is Mike Moceri, I'm a law student at Drexel University. I'm also working on a number of bitcoin-powered businesses, including Anonymous Academy.

My name is
Juan V. Gomez
I live at
4809 Bungalow Road
Omaha, NE 68102

I am 86.9 kg and 184 cm tall

My mothers maiden name is Wade. I have nothing to hide (http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/).

Roger Wehbe

I certain do have something to hide, but only to avoid identity theft and stalkers.  I don't post a home address, private phone number, or other private information here or anywhere.  I would strongly recommend the same precautions, especially to other women.   While there are no more dishonest or dangerous people on the Internet than in the world in general, when you post on a public forum you are exposed to a much larger number of people.  The odds almost guarantee that some of them are not people you would want following you home.

However, I post in forums using a nickname or handle simply because that is how it has always been done in the years I've been active on the Internet, which is roughly since it began.  Anybody who looks on my web site (http://www.ergosphere.net) can find my full real name, contact email address, and even my resume.   There is nothing about my interest in Bitcoin that I am trying to keep quiet. I think it's a fascinating and likely quite useful new technology.  I want to know more about it and possibly contribute to its success, not as a playground for currency speculators, but as a viable currency. 

There's a huge difference from posting your name to posting your entire address... Just saying ^^

There is. :-)  My real name is Catherine Jefferson.

If you want to find someone, the name on the internet doesn't hide much.  Is my name real? Does it matter?  I'm easy to find and I haven't been attacked by a psycho axe murderer (yet).

True, Patrick, but unless I much miss my guess, you're a guy. :-)  Women who have spent any appreciable amount of time as single adults learn to be cautious about giving out personal information online.  I don't troll or flame in newsgroups, cyberdate (I'm married), or engage in the sorts of activities that attract unwanted attention, and receive a good deal less of it than most of my female friends.  Nonetheless it is an issue from time to time.  I would encourage anybody, and especially women, to be cautious about sharing personal information.  If a woman is single, it is wise not to share a full legal name because that can sometimes lead to an address if one is listed in public records anywhere.

Your point is valid, and it also depends on the person and what they are comfortable with.  Still, you don't necessarily have to be known by name to get into trouble - random people on the street can cause that easily enough.

FYI, all the weirdos on this forum use all three names, as in middle name included.

I've been using mine since I launched TradeHill. I think this thread was a great idea as well.
As far as exposure it's not as big of a problem when you have a common name but some of us are one of a kind or close enough to it.

Jered

As a weird update, someone was randomly attacked here last week on the street - a couple of teenagers beat on a journo who was on the way home from work.  He died as a result.

I've made quite a few mistakes in my short time here but I've never been that keen on working for other people so it never bothered me to make mistakes and just flat out be wrong on some issues. If a crazyface like me can become this successful, let it be a lesson to everyone else that due to the inherent nature of hiding things, it will only be a matter of time. Be open from the start.

I prefer first name and last name only. No spaces, and camel cased.

Today we lost the Ryland as we knew him.

You're right. Nothing to hide. Here's mine:

http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=qr&chs=350x350&chl=MECARD%3AN%3ACharlie+Levy%3BTEL%3A9123878469%3BEMAIL%3ACharlieLevy%40teleworm.com%3BADR%3A2937+Lilac+Lane%2C+Savannah%2C+GA+31401%3B%3B

Should I do this?

I changed my name on IRC briefly to AmirTaaki and it just felt awkward and strange. I've been using genjix over 10 years now, and the name is a part of my identity. It has a rich history which I don't quite want to give up now. Like a warm blanket wrapped around me.

I don't mind my real name either. It's interesting and different. But genjix also means a lot to me as a faceless identity I grew as a person with. I kind of like to be anonymous sometimes. I will occasionally change my name on IRC and pretend not to be me or obfuscate my identity to new people. I spend a lot of time on 4chan. It has a nice concept where it is more important what you say, rather than what you do.

If there is a reason for me to switch though, then I will. It isn't a huge deal.

I've always had the desire to change my name to just my real first name--Bruno--long before that movie came out. As a kid, I wasn't to fond of it because the others kids bastardized the name. Back then, I was thinking of changing it to Frank. But later in life, I embraced the name as others expressed how different it is. When I conducted my shows in Nashville during the late 80's and early 90's, I only used Bruno, which proved productive.

As for now, I prefer to remain using Bruno as my real name on this forum, but I'm easily found in Sandwich, Illinois. If there ever comes a time that my full name needs to be made available somewhere, I will provide it to theymos, thereby having an authority know who I am. My last name is of Lithuanian origin.