The question of whether Bitcoin was created by the NSA has popped up several times. Some believe that Satoshi was an NSA agent.

We know that the secret documents Edward Snowden made public made interesting revelations. Among them are the backdoors the NSA inserted in Pseudorandom Number Generators. PRNGs can be intentionally weakened to allow backdoor access, enabling an entity with knowledge of the backdoors to predict the outputs of weak generators. Any system relying on such PRNGs would thus be insecure.

The NSA has looked for ways to decrypt encrypted data to gain access to it. They managed to do that by compromising the Dual EC DRBG algorithm, which was thought to be secure. In a different example, the NSA reportedly paid $10 million to the encryption company RSA to use a weak encryption algorithm, which the NSA had a backdoor to. It was for a protocol that was certified in the US by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

We know from other sources that the NSA and the UK's GCHQ have the tools to decrypt emails, online banking accounts, etc. A US program paid tech companies millions to favor their weak RNGs and insert intentional weaknesses that the government can exploit. The agencies also cooperate with ISPs and telecommunication companies.

The NSA has also exploited internet cable taps and tried to find ways to decrypt data from Google, Hotmail, Yahoo, Facebook, etc. Security agencies have ways to break the encryption of fiber-optic internet cables.

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When Satoshi created Bitcoin, they could have used a certified method to achieve randomness. One of those that turned out later to be backdoored and weak. Instead, they used an uncertified method in ECDSA and secp256k1 for key generation.

One might wonder if this was just a coincidence or a choice made by someone who knew about the backdoors in certified RNGs. Did Satoshi have insider knowledge about potentially vulnerable algorithms, or did they make their own conclusions that certified encryption wasn't safe based on their programming and cryptographic knowledge?

Insecurities in certain certified systems were already found as early as 2007/2008. It could well be that Satoshi knew about this and had nothing to do with the NSA.

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I don't think Bitcoin was created by the NSA or a similar agency. I also don't think Satoshi was an NSA operative in any form. I believe he thoroughly studied encryption algorithms and cryptography before choosing what key generation method to adopt for Bitcoin.

But it’s an interesting idea. What do you think? Was Satoshi in the NSA or just a knowledgeable programmer who appeared at the right time?


Sources and further reading:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1alb982/saw_this_video_was_wondering_what_you_guys_think/
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/09/05/us/documents-reveal-nsa-campaign-against-encryption.html
https://www.theverge.com/2013/12/20/5231006/nsa-paid-10-million-for-a-back-door-into-rsa-encryption-according-to
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-gchq-encryption-codes-security

You get to kill two birds with one stone (Keystone). You have an opportunity to onboard more users to your products and weaken the competition and have people abandon their devices at the same time. Ledger only have themselves to blame, of course. All this started after they announced Ledger Recover and made it available for the Nano X.

And today is 25 February, which means Lightning Pizza Day. In other words, it's another opportunity to create a special 20% discount on new sales. It is getting ridiculous, but I like that they are giving new customers so many opportunities to purchase their products at discounted prices. 

Let's not forget the lifelong 28% discount for Ledger users who decide to purchase a Keystone.

It's not possible to downgrade the firmware version of a Ledger hardware wallet. There is no public information on how to do that that I am aware of.
Regarding Ledger Live, you can install older versions of the software from Ledger's signatures page: https://www.ledger.com/ledger-live/lld-signatures

Despite Ledger Live being open-source, you are still dealing with a closed-source firmware. Even if you can understand and get rid of lines of code you don't like from Ledger Live, you know absolutely nothing about what the firmware does. And that's true for all of Ledger's firmware versions, not just the ones bearing the Ledger Recover code.

I assume you copied this marketing phrase from the source but it doesn't make sense. Think about it. If you don't trust the original source of your seed phrase, importing that same seed into a Tangem doesn't improve your security one bit. It still came from an untrusted source regardless how you use it later. Also, if you don't trust Tangem, it makes no sense to use it for seed generation.

I see. So it's just a piece of software you load onto an existing hardware device. The Krux belongs to the category of DIY hardware wallets, which made me think it's a device you need to build yourself using multiple parts like the Seedsigner. But I see that it's much easier than that.

These devices only generate entropy from a camera picture you take with them. Even the Krux team developers recommend using dice rolls for entropy generation according to their help section.

The existence of the bug is already known because JackpotRacer made it public. If what he said is true, both he and at least one more person know how to abuse said bug to win a round of blackjack in an unfair way.

By not contradicting the existence of the bug, Blackjack.fun has, in a way, admitted that it does exist.
All software have bugs, and you can't prevent it. The way you deal with them is what counts. If Blackjack.fun allows people to make real-money wagers on a game that is buggy and can be exploited, we need to question their honesty. You just can't have that and not inform your players about it. The right course of action is fixing the bug asap and removing it from your game portfolio until that happens. Otherwise, you are dishonest because you are allowing your players to wager their money on a game that can be manipulated.     

bullrun2020bro seems to have changed his name to bullrun2024bro. He was last online 3 days ago on the forum. He must have seen your PM if it was sent correctly. I don't know what happens if a user changes their forum username but you send it to the old one. Try again with the new username: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2744352

Kryptowerk hasn't been online for a week.
DVlog and lombok were online today.

I found two things interesting in these email exchanges between Back and satoshi:

- Satoshi apparently didn't know about B-Money at the time Adam asked them about it. Perhaps, it was on purpose. Someone with such knowledge surely made enough research about previous experiments with digital cash and came across B-Money. If they did know about it and pretended they didn't, the question is why? Perhaps it was one of their early failures, and satoshi didn't want that their involvement in the project to be known. Or I am just a conspiracy theorist.  

- Satoshi said about their Bitcoin paper that "we propose a situation." It can mean a group of people who worked on it or it was another trick of satoshi. Maybe something similar they did with the changes between British and American English. Sometimes they would write in American English, in other examples in British. 

That's because you are using the stateless mode that Jade offers, where all your private data is wiped clean after you turn the device off. Jade works both as a traditional HW that saves the keys on its chip or a stateless device.

Now that you mention it, the Krux is only available as a DIY hardware wallet, right? Can it be purchased as a fully assembled unit, like the Seedsigner?

I know. I have been saying that from the start. I don't know how the situation is in other more active boards like the Russian or the Turkish one, but I am guessing it's pretty bad. Compared to them, we are surely in a much better position. All the admins have to do is check the number of reported and handled reports from our local board to understand if any action needs to be taken. Since that stat isn't convincing... 

I think the one I have is pretty close to 1m if you stretch it out completely. I doubt you will get something of that length today regardless of which company you buy from. These were the types of cables they sent back in 2017/2018.

Why? There aren't any on the market or do we not know the exact model?

Even if it's not under warranty, they might be willing to send a replacement device for problems like the one LTU_btc is experiencing. But he should be ready to go through a troubleshooting process before that. They are going to ask him for video/image proof of every step of the process as proof that the wallet isn't working.

Whoever the person is that contacted me, they didn't want to post about it in public. I hope you understand when I say I am not going to reveal their name in public either. I will leave it up to them to post about it publicly if they feel they should or if it's time. I was also approached by a highly trusted legendary-rank user who confirmed the story about Chips.gg and their owner soon after that. Now, it's a waiting game.

This is not something I can verify on my end since I haven't played any games, and so can't verify the nature of past rounds. Someone who has played Blackjack.Fun's provably fair games can do that. It's positive that the information is there, at least.

Eva, do you have problems with your eyesight?

In that case, you are out of luck. I use a laptop, so even the short Trezor one I took a picture of above is OK for me. In your case, you would have to be on your knees holding the device in your hands while looking up from below your table when trying to compare and verify transaction data.

Go to a local PC or mobile store in your city and get a long data cable that is long enough for your needs. Alternatively, use the Bluetooth feature of your Nano X.

That's another reason to create a SeedQR code and use that every time you need to recover your wallet or create fresh PSBTs. If the navigation keys are of low quality, it's better to use the camera. That way you are sparing the buttons, to not wear them out as quickly.

The way I understood it is that the use of the PIN, and therefore also the virtual secure element, is optional. You can choose not to use it. And if it stops working, you can recover your coins with the recovery phrase or a SeedQR (if you created the latter).

No, this isn't the person I have been in contact with via PMs. It looks to me like RioVIP was an old player who later got promoted to some staff position. Mookis123 mentioned there was an additional player who was scammed by the casino and that she would tell them to post here. Maybe RioVIP is that player.

If you think about it, it's been 48 months since theymos said no. The fact that we still don't have a moderator up to this point means the request wasn't granted. My Magic 8 Ball tells me we aren't going to get one now unless we bully theymos into promoting someone.

Does anyone else have a hardware wallet they would like to show the community at Bitcointalk? Let's try to revive this thread a little.
I am particularly interested in seeing images of some genuine DYI devices. I know that some users here have those, so don't be shy and let's see them.

Maybe the cable that is standard for the Nano X is shorter than the one for the S model. Perhaps they have different cables and you were simply unlucky enough to get the shorter one. Still, how long do you need it to be? Its only purpose is to connect your hardware wallet to a laptop or computer. It doesn't need to be long.

When I compare my Nano S cable to the one I got when I bought my Trezor One, it's like 4 times longer. But I am satisfied with both.