Before jumping to conclusions and screaming “hack!”, has anyone even considered a potentially innocent explanation?  I have a pessimistic view of human nature, but the paranoia in this thread is off the charts.

This is good advice, in my opinion:


The forum officially agrees with newalias about that, and with me.  Read the warning that the forum gives you, when you set up the ridiculously stupid insecurity misfeature of a so-called “secret question”:


Duh.  Why does theymos even allow this?

I spot-checked this user’s post history.  At a glance, it looks normal to me.  I also noticed that he just received a red tag from someone in DT (fortunately outside my trust network; my trust network is infinitely superior to DT).

Now, this could be a bizarre beginning for a social engineering attack.  And the PM also seems to indicate that newalias is probing something, somehow.

I will reach out to him, and politely ask just what he is trying to do.  Meanwhile, I will add a neutral tag linking to this post—to be updated or removed, if or as appropriate.  I request that someone in DT should do likewise.

Maybe, just maybe, this could simply be a very clumsy attempt at whitehat protection of the forum, from someone who needs to see the late Dan Kaminsky’s White Hat Hacker Flowchart:

AWESOME! 🧨

I think we are getting somewhere.  Now, would you please add me to the list in OP (“Last edit: July 04, 2022, 06:02:35 PM by cryptomaxsun”)?  Don’t make me beg here.

Suggested text for OP’s list of users for which you want an “eternal ban”:


Thanks in advance.

P.S., please don’t forget to give me negative trust feedback as you have been doing to others for their political opinions.  Thanks again.

I think that OP was indeed clear about that:  It is not about negative trust feedback.  It is about privacy.  The possibility high probability of being outed, and the anti-privacy culture that aggravates that problem.

Observe that I gave Lauda as another example.  In the immediate aftermath of her disappearance, some of the speculation was so disrespectful of her privacy that I was immediately motivated to write this, q.v.:

• The Privacy Culture Manifesto, by nullius (2020-10-24).  To be updated.  Soon.

Now, to elaborate—


I do not want to derail this into a Reputation drama about my personal experiences, which were contextual in OP to explain my thinking about Satoshi.  (I am anyway entirely ignoring Reputation, except for a few threads where I am already involved; who has time for that?)  But to avoid going off into the weeds with abstract theoretical discussion, some concrete examples will serve to illustrate the nature of the problem.

Please read the following with the question in your mind:  What would happen to a Satoshi alt?

Satoshi is orders of magnitude more famous than I am.  He has numerous people on the forum (and in the mainstream media) speculating on his identity, on his whereabouts, and on what happened to him.  Many people also hate him, or secretly hate him, or are quietly seething with jealousy over the alleged (and likely untrue) million-BTC Satoshi stash.

Please don’t focus on particulars, but generalize the particulars.  What kind of culture does this forum have?  Why is it socially acceptable to pry into alt accounts that are properly nobody’s business?  How can we expect for a hypothetical Satoshi alt to be treated, when the forum’s culture embraces cliques of “highly trusted” Sherlock Holmes wannabes who relish the prospect of outing people for no reason?

It is not about those particular DT users, either.  Don’t particularize this argument to them.

Example A:  Ploni Almoni.  In 2020, a new account with an idiomatic Hebrew name for ‘Anonymous’ posted a topic on a 2014 Glenn Greenwald article, based on the Snowden archive, about “How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations”.  (Full-thread snapshot.)  I was perplexed at the vehemence of negative reactions to that; the reactions were bizarre, inexplicable!  Why would a group of high-trust users lash out at that, spit on it, publicly ridicule it?

More perplexing still:  A deep-green, high-inclusion DT neutral-tagged that account as a “fake newbie”—plus with what looks to me like a thinly-veiled antisemitic remark; oh, of course that Jewish-looking account which you irrationally hate must be from the Mossad, out to get you!

Most perplexing:  A group of DT members who immediately disliked that account also immediately decided that it was I.  Some of them raised this alleged connection to ridicule me/allegedly-me in other threads, at least as late as nine months after.  They patently desired for that account to be publicly perceived as a nullius alt.  (I “admitted” that that account was mine, but only because he/she had publicly requested that everyone should “admit” to being him/her.  Outside that context, I neither admit nor deny that it is mine.)

The creator of that account obviously wanted to keep it anonymous, and was clearly using an alt account in good faith to discuss issues of public importance.

Example B:  death_wish.  In May of 2022, a Newbie account posted in the Wall Observer about his getting wrecked on leverage.  He made no attempt to hide his being an experienced Bitcoiner, and an experienced user of the Bitcoin Forum.  He strongly implied having experience with the Wall Observer; he named WO regulars whose advice he sought.

There soon ensued some thoughtless speculation that he is I.  And then— Within less than 48 hours after the account was created, a deep-green, high-inclusion DT neutral-tagged him as “not-a-newbie”—with a gratuitous insult:

He disappeared for a few weeks, then restarted actively posting about his margin account problems.  The same DT and several of her public associates took to following him around, calling him “nullius”.  They smeared “nullius” every way they could—they even affirmatively claimed, without any evidence, that he (allegedly I) was lying about his margin liquidations, for reasons I cannot fathom.  N.b. that D.W. made it excruciatingly clear that he was not seeking any kind of financial assistance.

So thoroughly did that clique associate that account with me in the public mind that a supposedly pro-privacy user blatantly addressed death_wish as “nullius”.  (Note to self:  Be skeptical of BlackHatCoiner on privacy issues.)

The creator of that account obviously wanted to keep it anonymous.  He was clearly using an alt account in good faith to discuss issues of personal importance to him—and explicitly to warn newbies about the dangers of margin accounts, as he said many times.  His very first post contained a graphic entitled “object lesson”.

I have never admitted or denied the allegation that I am death_wish; and in his entire post history thus far, death_wish has never admitted or denied being me.  I do like to rub it in the faces of the anti-privacy canaille that they have no power to force me to answer that question either way.  Neener-neener.  Whether it’s “yes” or “no”, if I ever violate my own longtime policy either way, it will need to be for a some reason infinitely better than the peremptory demands of some dumb trolls.

Example C:  Unidentified accounts that are definitely not mine.  I have seen several accounts that were not mine accused of being nullius alts, by the same group of DT members.  I cannot identify the accounts, without breaching my “neither admit nor deny” policy:  I can only identify accounts with neither admission nor denial, or deny unidentified accounts.


Whereupon, I reiterate:  If I have such troubles, what would Satoshi’s risk be?  Millions of people around the world are eager for a Satoshi sighting.  He could not afford the risk.  Naturally, I try to help give him an anonymity set—well, either that, or Satoshi is a grandmaster troll here:

Quote from: actisstupidname on February 17, 2018, 01:05:39 PM

Nullius' knowledge about blockchain science and cryptography is a dead giveaway. His arrogance is a dead giveaway. He is an alt-account of a member who was here long before Bitcoin was even talked about in the mainstream. No way in the world he just registered in this forum last March 29, 2017. If you're an expert in blockchains, you pretty much have visited or even make posts here in Bitcointalk in the past.

[...]

He could even be Satoshi.  

I neither admit nor deny the allegation that I am Satoshi.

---

Quote from: odolvlobo on July 06, 2022, 06:21:18 AM

FYI, I have given negative trust to many scammers on all of their multiple accounts because they are scammers and not because they have multiple accounts. I don't see anything wrong with that.

Also, I have heard that people try to cheat signature campaigns somehow by having multiple accounts, and they are given negative trust. TBH, I don't really know anything about that and I don't really care, unless the signature campaign people are expanding their agenda beyond just signature campaigns.

FYI, I have experience with being in DT.  I tagged accounts for those same reasons.  I also supported Lauda’s tags and flags on those same grounds, and for account sales/farming.

In one instance, the cat almost broke my mouse with clicking to support Type-1 flags when she mass-flagged more than one hundred accounts, which were being abused by one individual to grab slots in “one slot per person” signature campaigns and sigspam the hell out of the forum.  Caught with blockchain evidence by Bitcoin_Arena.  I always checked the evidence independently.

I don’t see anything wrong with that.

---

Quote from: Kakmakr on July 06, 2022, 10:00:27 AM

He also went into hiding, because he knew that the 3L3tter agencies will want to hunt him down.... and also greedy criminals and beggars that would want to get their hands on his money.

Satoshi created Bitcoin to serve the people and not himself.... and he stepped back into the shadows. He knows that there are VERY clever people out there that might be able to DoX him, so why risk all that for no motive to come back.  

Quoted by way of helping to explain this.  It squarely answers about 80% of what franky1 said, plus much of odolvlobo’s puzzlement.

---

Quote from: slaman29 on July 06, 2022, 10:37:14 AM

I've never really experienced anyone ever asking me about my identity here, sometimes about location but that only in reference to actual topic being discussed. I guess it's different because if I ever leave (or come back with different user) not many people will realize or even care.

[...]

But from my own view, I don't understand or agree that this culture happens. OR if it's culture it only affects those who do get involved in forum business. I think many more are like me only involved in the topical discussions, Trust and Spam report at a basic level. It never comes to my mind to identify the person behind a username.

I think the problem is proportional to how unusual the personality is.  How rare it is.  And how much of a motive anyone has to care about that particular person.

Not to come off as arrogant towards you—there is just no other way to say it—does anyone care what you do?

Now, would people care what Satoshi did?  How many nosy busybodies would be thrilled to discover a Satoshi alt?  Not to mention TLAs, as Kakmakr mentioned!  That is a high threat model.  Let’s start with with droves of idiots who simply want to gossip.  Wow, cool, this is Satoshi!

---

Quote from: death_wish on June 25, 2022, 02:48:10 AM

Any new identity of mine will attract such speculation; whether it is correct or incorrect, the speculation itself will follow me around.  You have no such concerns, for there is nothing special about you.

Unique little snowflakes have the luxury of anonymity:  They are all alike.  Fungible and indistinguishable.

I am truly unique.  In style and substance.  There is only one of me in this world.  The content of my thoughts is itself a globally unique identifier—my soul is unique, in a mythopoetic sense.

(Ironically, the same trolls who are mentally fixated on pursuing my identity will thereupon accuse me of arrogance, perhaps even of grandiosity.  They themselves inadvertently help to show the world just how special I am!)

---

Quote from: franky1 on July 06, 2022, 04:52:34 AM

i personally never used another account and if mouth dribblers wanted to call someone else a franky.or suggest other accounts are me..  thats their problem. it just makes them look more like idiots for even trying. let them fall down their own holes they dig themselves..

Well, then I suppose you do not have this experience.

Quote from: franky1 on July 06, 2022, 04:52:34 AM

satoshi, lauda,yourself would not need to provide birth certificate Id to prove your return from the dead. it can be made obvious by your writing style and your context.

That is the problem!  The whole point of OP is about the unlikelihood that any high-profile Bitcoiners could ever successfully contribute under a new identity, disconnected from the old identity.

Quote from: franky1 on July 06, 2022, 04:52:34 AM

the github is open if they wanted to arrest anyone with control over bitcoin they would have arrested bitcoin core maintainer Wlad by now, ..

Outright “arrest” is not the only concern!

Wladimir makes it excruciatingly clear that he does not control Bitcoin Core development.  He does not want a target on his back.  (And this is one of the things I most respect about him:  Wladimir gets it.)  Please do not compare his position to Satoshi’s.  Wladimir does not have, and does not want the type of power that Satoshi would unavoidably have just from being Satoshi.

---

Quote from: darkv0rt3x on July 06, 2022, 09:35:34 AM

(really?? deleting posts from who disagrees with you?)

To avoid waste of time, clutter, and sigspamming, I delete low-value posts with stupid arguments that miss the whole point of a statement, and that interpret the word “denial” as meaning ‘psychological denial’ when I was speaking of ‘admit or deny’ (!).  Re-posting what the topic starter deleted is rude and unwise.  You are now personally unwelcome in all of my threads.

Go away.  Learn some forum manners.  Learn to read.  Or if you prefer to whine about my usage of self-moderation, some scummy troll created a whole thread for that.

---

Note for the record:  While I was writing, editing, and gathering links and images for this post, the topic was moved by staff to Meta from Bitcoin Discussion, where I had originally filed it.

A funny thing:  I was just musing on how dealing with this matter has been a thankless task...


...and then, the first one to thank me was Dabs.

Dabs, as you understand, I was extremely reluctant to come forward with this.  I sat on it for two and a half years.  When other things came to my attention, indicating to me that it was not a one-off indiscretion, I procrastinated for weeks before forcing myself to make a thread about it.  Till now, the only thanks I got was some vicious insults and libel from others.

So—you’re welcome, and thanks for the well-wishes.


That is an important clarification from you.  I will update the other thread accordingly, when I make some necessary replies there later—q.v.  (Prioritizing, setting this first.)

Some of your other statements may be relevant there, insofar as they may necessitate changes or questions.


A question:  Is this still active?  You are currently linking to it in your signature.  I would not have bumped this thread, if you were not actively promoting it in your signature.  Also, goldkingcoiner also said in WO that you are running charity for children—speaking in present tense, not past; he even essentially accused D.W. of misrepresenting your charitable work as “begging” on your own behalf.  At this point, I wouldn’t rely on what he said, but rather, see what you have to say about it.


Dabs, as you are aware, we had no prior contact before the PM exchange fully disclosed in the other thread.  There is no reasonable expectation of privacy for essentially hitting up a total stranger for money.  That is against forum rules; why would you expect my discretion?

I did immediately forward it to another high-trust user, someone who is still active, just to get a gut-check opinion; the response was very negative towards your PM.  The sender of that response has a reasonable expectation of privacy.

I am quite strict about a gentleman’s code for good-faith correspondents.  When someone has a reasonable expectation of privacy with me, I tend to meet and exceed that expectation to an unreasonable degree.

On the flipside, I have a long-running thread to publish hate mail; and I advise the publication of attempts to draw innocent people into illegal activity.  Oh, and I will publish begs.  Usually, I should be more prompt about it than I was when the sender’s name is “Dabs”.

---

I am sympathetic to what you say.  As I said above, I was very reluctant to come forward with this.

In other threads, you noticed my attachment to Lauda.  From what you say here, I think you will understand this:  When I first came into contact with Lauda, I was down all the way in life.  Through misfortunes that were not my fault, I had become impoverished, homeless...  I never wanted to disclose that publicly; but I mentioned my bout of homelessness in PM to Dabs in 2020, now published in the other thread.  I also know hunger and hardship.

At a time when my life was broken, Lauda helped me put it back together.  I needed that.  She was like a guardian angel to me.  But I am pretty sure that if I had ever asked her to give me money, she would have probably issued me negative trust feedback, and cut all contact.  It was not that kind of help!  She knew that I am life-and-death strict about money.  I observe that she had me green-trusted and trust-included at a time when she knew that I was poor.

Thus, I definitely appreciate the value of it when people help others.  In fairness, I am glad you spoke up about your experience with Dabs; I don’t know him personally, either way.  As you understand also, I did not ask to be solicited for money; and I cannot in conscience simply ignore what seems to have been a repeated event, just because the user’s name is “Dabs” and he is highly trusted.  To the contrary, his high-trust position places on him a greater responsibility.

Censorship is the story behind the story here.  I am glad that the Bitcoin Forum, and especially theymos, have a strong tradition of supporting the freedom of speech.

---

---

What do I need to do to get added to your list of censorship targets?

On grounds of “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” maybe I should ask theymos the CEO of Bitcoin to ban you for spreading anti-Russian propaganda.  You are a dupe of the American Empire’s proxy-war machine, plus a hypocrite, a shill, and a patsy.

Don’t you care that innocent Russians and Ukrainians are dying because the U.S. professional nation-wreckers decided to blow up that part of the world?  I wish that the war could stop.  I am outraged at the U.S. and NATO for causing it.  And I absolutely will stand up here on the Bitcoin Forum against the U.S. propaganda system’s censorship, misinformation, disinformation, and one-sided demonization of Russia.


All italics are Greenwald’s.  Highlighting is mine.

I linked to both of these articles, and many others, in my first post on this thread.  Alas, most people do not read.

Anyway, I am not interested in debating the war here and now.  I am interested in:

• Getting myself added to the list of censorship targets.  Because I stand for free speech.  Please target me with your censorship campaign.  Pretty please?
• Getting this thread moved from Meta—a forum-governance board where this thread is off-topic, and where its presence has a chilling effect on free speech—to Politics & Society, the proper place for discussing non-forum-governance politics.

Save your propaganda for someone who is as dumb as you are.

What do I need to do to get added to your list of people you want to censor?

Maybe you should try clicking all those links I made to one of my longtime favourite journalists, Glenn Greenwald.

---

OP has been reported to the moderators, with a request to move this off-topic thread to Politics & Society.  I would be shocked if I were the first one to report it.  I am shocked that it’s been allowed here in Meta for the past four months.

Please add me to that list.

Partly, this is a protest for free speech:  I would very likely ask to be added to such a list, even if I otherwise agreed with the one making the list.  You want to ban people from the Bitcoin Forum for expressing their political opinions?  No matter what those opinions are, please add me to your list.  Also, please issue me negative trust feedback, as you have been doing to others for their opinions.  Thanks.  I’d be honoured, especially if you call me an information terrorist.

Not to say that I disagree.  Oh, noes!  Putin is an evil man:  I think that he’s the new Saddam Hussein, and Russia is now Iraq.  It is totally unprecedented for any country to make a preemptive military escalation when a strategic threat develops at its borders; anyway, I do not know how to read a map.  I am so glad that the Western media have never lied about atrocities, that the U.S. president has no corrupt connections that may be relevant, and that—totally unlike Russia!—the Western intelligence agencies don’t have a long history of using online brigades of professional shills to manipulate discussions and destroy reputations.

Evil Putin bans all freedom of speech.  Russia’s enemies embrace freedom of speech.  There is no active U.S. program to censor Internet discussions about Russia.  Unlike Russia, the West tolerates dissent.  I can just totally believe that everything Russia says is false, and everything its enemies say is true.

Anyway, this discussion of the war is off-topic in Meta.  The important question is:  Why is this thread still here?

---

On a personal note, I am aggrieved at the war—and for my own part, I lay the blame squarely on the corrupt politicians in America who engineered it.  I have had both Russian friends and Ukrainian friends for years.  When things started to blow up in that region in 2013–2014, I tried as delicately as I could to plead that the worst wars are wars between brothers.  I strongly dislike some of the rhetoric that the Russian media tend to apply to Ukrainians (and also, to various people from the Baltics).  Nonetheless, when the U.S. has been seeking via NATO, etc. to gain a strategic proxy like a dagger poised at Russia’s belly, I cannot avoid looking at a map, and remembering how the U.S. reacted in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

---

I have recently noticed some non-n00bs who should know better issuing negative trust feedback based on pro-Russian political opinions.  That is reprehensible, and a clear ~.  This forum has a customarily strict taboo against using political opinions as the substantial basis for negative trust feedback.  That is not even something that was ever controversial in DT, like some of the types of tags I issue.  Red tags for political opinions are 100% clear-cut trust system abuse.

The moderators should move this thread to Politics & Society.  It is totally off-topic in Meta.

Permitting this thread in Meta gives the impression that the administration may consider sanctioning people who express unpopular opinions about the war.  The continued existence of this thread in Meta has a chilling effect on the freedom of speech.

OP is perfectly free to express his political opinion in the Politics & Society forum, or in forums where generalized or off-topic discussion is invited or tolerated (WO, Off-Topic, or the generalized Serious Discussion board).  If he wants to advocate that forum users with unpopular opinions should be banned from the forum and/or burnt at the stake, then that discussion is on-topic in Politics & Society.

OH MY GAWD,
THE END OF BITCOIN!

😿 😿 😿




/s

ps, op, ur dumb. kthxbye.

“Decentralization” is only a buzzword to most people; the public generally does not understand it, even when they benefit from it.

Out of many reasons to value decentralization, I will pick here only one:  Safety.

Most newbies are unaware of the digital monetary systems that failed before Bitcoin.  They failed because they were centralized, and their central authorities failed.  DigiCash is only the most famous example.  DigiCash, Inc. went bankrupt in 1998.  Would you want to have been holding DigiCash, when DigiCash, Inc. went bankrupt?

In Bitcoin, there does not exist any central “Bitcoin, Inc.” that could fail.  Any major participant in the Bitcoin ecosystem can fail.  The worst that can result is a short-term bearish market impact, as occurred when Mt. Gox failed.  Bitcoin just keeps going.  Your funds remain safe—as long as you keep them in your own self-custody wallet, controlled exclusively by your own private keys.  “Not your keys, not your coins.”  If you store your coins with a centralized party, such as an exchange, then you risk losing all of your money if that party fails.

IMO, Goldman Sachs’ entrance to the market is bearish for Bitcoin.  They will do their best to extract profits in central bank shitcoins (“dollars”) any way they can—and they are quite talented at what they do.

Retail buyers with moons in their eyes get excited by institutional money.  I ask if Bitcoin is ready for it yet—if the BTC market is yet robust enough from adoption and usage to sustain the onslaught of highly-capitalized professional traders who account PnL in USD, without destabilizing.  Such participants have already changed the market sufficiently to yield the benefit of killing off magical TA lines, such as faith in 200 WMA as a quasi-mystical Bitcoin Bottom.  At least, that is better for Bitcoin in the long term.

Money so “valuable” that people must be forced at gunpoint to use it—such wow!

It would be otiose to speculate on whether you would preach to slaves about the “value” to them of their chains, or cook up a sophistic theory deprecating the value of a pair of bolt-cutters.  Of course, when I put it that way, you will rationalize a counterargument however you want.

---

I was just now reading OP.  Musing on an ungrounded pile of abstractions without adequate empiricism.  The naïve reading of books, out of contact with reality.

OP reads as if someone decided that the U.S. dollar has value, and Bitcoin has no value—then spent some time researching ways to rationalize this conclusion.  Needless to say, it is riddled with the sorts of fallacies that some of us have seen too many times to be interested in further waste of time.

I searched all three pages for the word “petrodollar”.  Zero hits.  My, are you in for a surprise when the scam collapses.

Please advise, why are you even here?  If you seek to debate with some Bitcoiners, or maybe to preach to them under a doth-protest-too-much^* username the salvation of the Almighty Dollar, then perhaps some of the folks here will enjoy the opportunity to practise answering common fallacies.  But others of us are too busy for such diversions; and for my part, much though it will shock some of my friends, I actually agree with Nietzsche’s conclusions about Socrates.  So as for debates.

---

^* Although I see that it seems you are, or may purport to be affiliated with some website, it does not escape my notice that preaching to people under the name “reasonspace” is like saving souls for Jesus under the name “saintly_virtue”—or seeking no-escrow trade deals under the moniker of “honest_trader”.  Cf. “RationalWiki”, a propaganda site.  My own term for this:  Those names doth-protest-too-much, methinks.  By contrast, what may be inferred from my name?  I loudly brag and declare to the world that I am nobody’s, I am of nothing—I belong to zero!

Two words:  Exemplary punishment.

My point was that if they wanted to return under new identities, they could not.

The personal security risks to Satoshi would be far too high for him ever to act as “Satoshi Nakamoto” again, except perhaps on his deathbed.  For that reason, among others, I think that the probability of Satoshi returning as “Satoshi” is negligible.  If he were to use the forum again, it would need to be through an alt—but that incurs the risk of his new name being outed as Satoshi.

For this reason, I think that the probability of Satoshi ever again using this forum in any way is negligible.  (Assuming he is still alive—a proviso which also applies to the unobservable Schrödinger’s cat.)

Lauda intentionally burnt her bridges; Sandra, you are quite correct about that.  Lauda can never be Lauda again.  And I do NOT think that she would ever want to return to this forum under a new identity, and restart from scratch; it is just not a Lauda thing to do.  But there is an unwise, ill-considered meme in some quarters that she will be back under another name.  My point was that she could not do that, either—not even if she wanted to.  At least one of the persons spreading that meme is the type who enjoys hunting for the alt accounts or “main accounts” of people who have not done anything wrong.  Judging by their behaviour in other cases, he and many others would not respect Lauda’s privacy if they believed they had found a new Lauda alt.

For that reason, in addition to my knowledge of her character, I am sure that Lauda will never return to this forum under any name.

---

Good question.  Abuse prevention is a perennial question in privacy and anonymity circles.  It is even a security issue, insofar as the intentional creation of abuse in privacy-oriented environment is a social attack on that environment.

For cleaning up a large part of the abuse on this forum, death_wish had an interesting idea:

Although for whatever reason, someone with a 4-digit uid sent 50 merits to that post, it is a generally unpopular idea.  I think that if that were ever done, a large proportion of all abuse would evaporate overnight.

As for the remaining abuse:  Contrary to what you say, this forum is not decentralized.  The forum is a fully centralized system.  Its administration has plenary authority over everyone here, and they delegate much of that authority to staff.  I think that some changes in forum policies would do much to stamp out abuse; but such changes are unlikely, so I will not raise an off-topic tangent about what I have in mind.

---

You must be using a different forum.

I know that, for instance, some people in Politics & Society personally loathe you, franky1.  If they ever suspected that a new account was yours, do you suppose they would miss the opportunity to call putatively-you a “fake newbie”?

In my own case, I have sometimes seen new accounts which were not mine being accused of being me.  Of course, I did not deny it!  They were not pretending to be me, they were not claiming to be me—through no fault of their own, they simply got falsely accused of being me.  I thank them for improving my anonymity set.

---

You did not read carefully.  I suggest rereading.  You do not thereby disagree with me at all.

jamyr and uchegod-21, thanks for your kind words.  A clarification for those now joining us:


Super-hyper-ultra-banned, not with an ordinary account ban.  Lauda got the same ban as Satoshi, whose account is totally disabled to help protect against potential security compromises.  From earlier in this thread:

---

Continuing discussion of the Lauda Memorial Crypto-Puzzle:


In honour of Lauda’s thread, it is my pleasure to introduce even in a very informal way some thoughts that I have had on what I call Kolmogorov v. Kerckhoff.

My ideas about this are handwavy, not rigorous—and I know the difference.  Nonetheless, I have observed that in practice, the set of all programs with relatively low Kolmogorov complexity is, itself, a keyspace.  It is an ill-defined keyspace, which would make many cryptographers and security wonks shudder with horror; but it is a type of keyspace, or rather, I conjecture (*waves hands*) that it could be made one.

Sets of programs have been more rigorously turned into keyspaces of sorts.  For instance, Monero’s RandomX POW mining algorithm meets this description in a different way.

From another perspective, I think of it as a crypto-key version of naming the biggest number.  Since I specified that I used only standard things, and the solution can be quite easily programmed with readily available tools, the upper bound on the set of possible solutions (= “keys”) is expanded by adding new primitives, new standards, new tools.  By an analogy that is to me more philosophical than mathematical, I see that like inventing new notations for expressing bigger numbers.

Anyway, I am using a blackbox program as the secret quasi-key.  The program has publicly known inputs.  The entire security of the system relies on keeping the program secret.  But this, in turn, seems like the nullification of Kerckhoffs’s principle.  That is, of course, a security doctrine, not a mathematical rule.

Lest I discourage anyone from attempting the puzzle, I emphasize that I laid out sufficient clues.  At least, I think I did.  So...


...I would not be so cruel!  Hashing some data in weird ways with no hint of the inputs would give others an exercise in frustration, not a fun puzzle.

I probably used hashes, and some other things.  Hints were dropped about what and how—subtle hints, but sufficient to get me on the right track if I myself ever forget how to reconstruct the private key.  Of course, that would simply be jogging my memory.  Will others find the hints?


Good luck. 😼


Thanks.  That’s a good page; I have seen it before, so I guess we read some similar things.

It does not mention that Solana uses a hash-based timelock in its consensus algorithm; they call it a VDF (Verifiable Delay Function), even though it is not a real VDF.  It should probably not be discussed here, for risk of ghostly hisses and scratches.

Gwern also has information and experimental writeups on GANs, including StyleGAN.  The thiscatdoesnotexist.com site that I have been using as an official source of Lauda images is run by the authors of StyleGAN2.  I have been thinking to use Gwern’s info as a general guide to setting up my own Lauda image generator, but I lack the hardware for this type of project (GPUs, etc.).  Someday...

GANs for creating nonexistent cats are discussed earlier in this thread, with references.  It is my way of inducing people to read the thread, so that they fall under the witch’s spell.  ;-)

Local rules:  Moderated at my discretion.  I have in my AI settings a censorship dial that goes all the way from “free speech absolutist” to “literally Fascist”; I may feel like turning it up here.  Needless to say, permabanned users are permabanned.

A tangential addendum:  In OP, I linked several times to posts by or about an account that some people allege is my alt.  Thus, although reputational issues are off-topic here, and I will nuke from orbit any inappropriate discussion thereof, I should reinforce my message in OP with a few words about why I linked to those posts—why most of all, I made sure to link to those posts.

Per the policy that I have consistently upheld for years, I neither admit nor deny the allegation that I am death_wish.  It is nobody’s business if I am.  If I am not, it would be impossible for me to not to have discovered the account through the numerous public accusations—plus one PM from a Legendary account, with a gently implied question about this.

Either way, I did think it exemplary for the message in OP here.  I have therefore linked several times to death_wish’s posts for an excellent example of why people may want unacknowledged alt accounts, as disconnected from their “real” fake-names as their “main account” fake-names are from their dox.  Never forget that “pseudonym” literally means “fake name”.

I have also had some fun with the issue—then laughed all the more, and issued negative trust feedback, after a possibly delusional, definitely malicious habituated liar accused me of deleting a post that’s still there.  It is the classic Big Lie technique.

Anyway, my point hereby is this:  I believe in privacy.  I am quite resolute about that.  I think it’s funny that a bunch of degenerate gossip-mongers believe they can coerce me to admit I am he.  And it would be funnier if I’m not.  If not, then on principle of privacy, I will gladly take the troll-attacks for some poor sod who wrecked himself on margin, lost his bitcoins, then publicly humiliated himself by venting and weeping and wailing in the presumed safety of a throwaway account.

Didn’t I always tell people not to buy BTC on margin?  Why, yes—yes, I did!

Has my life been perfect?  Assuredly not.

Is yours?  I will guess no.  Have you never done anything that you regretted—which hurt only yourself—for which you took full responsibility—about which you just wanted to talk?

In a thread that is primarily about Satoshi and pseudonymity, this is the inverse of “we are all Satoshi”:

We are all death_wish.

I ask that at least 3 DT members support this flag (direct discussion to the relevant Scam Accusations topic):

Flag 2998 created.

Due largely to the factors mentioned in this topic, I believe that anyone dealing with Dabs is at a high risk of losing money, and guests would be well-advised to avoid doing so.  This determination is based on concrete red flags which any knowledgeable & reasonable forum user should agree with, and it is not based on the user’s opinions.

A non-exclusive summary of some facts in evidence which, when taken together, constitute concrete red flags which any knowledgeable & reasonable forum user should agree with:

• Dabs runs and actively promotes a thread whereby he takes donations, allegedly for charitable purposes and not for his own benefit.
• Dabs also runs an escrow service.
• Dabs has, thus far, three publicly revealed instances of begging behind the scenes in PMs.
• In one instance of begging, Dabs explicitly lied:  He said that he had not begged “in 30 to 40 years”.  It is now known that he had secretly begged in at least one other recent prior instance, only four months before.  (When else?  How many others?)
• Dabs sent not less than one of those begs to a total stranger with whom he had no prior connection or contact whatsoever before that day.
• Dabs sent not less than one of those begs to a total stranger who, unbeknownst to him, was actually poor.  When, with understandable irritation, the recipient of the beg essentially pointed out that it was horrible to beg shamelessly to a poor person who had never begged, Dabs’ response was arrogantly and quite callously to allege that his situation was “harder”.
• In 2019 and 2020, Dabs alleged that he “lost 95% (maybe more) of [his] coins” and “lost everything since last year”.  In 2022, one of Dabs’ apparent friends publicly claimed that Dabs “is in an uncomfortable financial situation and could use any and all help”.  Although actual, alleged, or putative poverty does not in itself constitute evidence of dishonesty or untrustworthiness, it is a red flag when combined with such behaviours as begging to strangers in PMs.  How far will Dabs go?  What else will he do, if he is in actual or alleged financial desperation?

The foregoing list of concrete red flags could already be continued.  It will thus conclude for now, to avoid excessively repetitive redundancy and waste of time.

Negative trust feedback will be issued on the same basis.

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goldkingcoiner:  Tagged (again) for defamation, viz., factually untrue and reputationally damaging statements made with self-evident actual malice.

suchmoon:  Nonsense beneath reply, and off-topic.  Some of it also defamatory—but if I were to tag suchmoon for every defamatory statement that she has ever made about me, I would spend all day writing new tags.  Hereby, I will not continue to take thread-derailment bait in the form of personal attacks that ridiculously try to put me on the defensive—when I have done nothing wrong, and I have conscionably brought out evidence about Dabs that people need to know about.

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No, wrong.  I myself got a beg from Dabs about two and a half years ago, in which he claimed he had not begged “in 30 to 40 years”.  Alarm bells started then—but raised in volume when I saw evidence that he had done the same thing almost three years ago, and he is evidently doing something similar today.

When did this start?  Unknown.  It is known that it has not stopped.


One of the reasons for the popularity of charity scams is that it is very difficult to catch someone who is not a total idiot.

If Dabs were to cheat in an escrow deal, I reasonably expect that there would probably be an accusation.  Thus, although his escrow clients and potential clients deserve to be informed about this, that is only my secondary concern here.

Do you expect for starving children to raise a scam accusation?  The question is rhetorical.

Do the donors and prospective donors of Dabs’ allegedly charitable thread deserve to be informed about this?  It would be obscene to pretend otherwise.

Has there ever been an audit of Dabs’ charity by a disinterested third party?  By “disinterested”, I mean someone neutral towards Dabs.  Not one who will search for excuses, as you seem to be doing.

Note that I myself am totally neutral towards Dabs—or rather, I was.  I have no interest in defending him.  I also had no grudge against him, no wish to cause him trouble—that, indeed, is why I sat on this for over two years, against my better judgment.

I was very reluctant to come forward with this.  The overall response that I am getting shows that my reluctance was misplaced.

Among other things, “neutral, disinterested party” means a party who will not refuse to act appropriately on negative evidence.


His reputation has obviously not remained “spotless” here.  The beg itself is a spot.  There are now three known instances.  That reasonably raises two questions:  How many more, and what else?

“He has been caught doing something very sleazy only a few times, and caught lying about it only once” does not equate to “spotless” in my book.

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He mentions this in the thread I linked.  I encourage newbies to read it; it will help people to understand a little bit more about why OgNasty is giving merits for this.


Not for merit, and it obviously does not satisfy the thread’s requirements:

Hahah.  Easier for you and for me.  Point-and-click gooey interfaces are hard. :-/


I think the purpose here is to help people learn.  It’s not a puzzle.

At that, I must congratulate OgNasty on keeping this thing going.  I wish that more people cared about PGP.

Hey, how many newbies nowadays know that Hal Finney, the co-author of PGP, received the first Bitcoin transaction from Satoshi Nakamoto?  Bitcoin and PGP belong together.