Questioning Satoshi Nakamoto's existence...

[Gabi]

I still think that "satoshi" is a group of people

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[JohnRetardKeynes]

One has to consider why would he wish to remain anonymous?

One theory is that Satoshi is a number of people, a group.

If so, why pretend to be one person? A group could still be anonymous - eg "Anonymous" "Lulzsec" etc.

Why would an individual not wish to be associated with the creation of bitcoin?

It seems to me 2 likely explanations

1) they didn't wish bitcoin to be seen in the context of their previous writing. I've not read this Discipline book, but if it advocated a political line and the author of it were the creator of bitcoin, it might cast bitcoin in a political light. Eg if it predicts that a crypto currency could topple the US government, then bitcoin would be seen in light of that - ie an attempt to do that, which might turn many (but no means all) against it.

2) they intend to profit from bitcoin. Whoever invented bitcoin stands to make a lot of money as the currency appreciates (as they'd have got the first bit coins very cheaply). The very limited supply of bitcoins makes vast currency appreciation a certainty if they catch on (as appears to be happening). The creator might not wish people to see quite how well he's doing from it. Personally I don't see why the creator of something successful (eg Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Larry Page, etc) should not make a fortune from it, but many people might use the growing wealth of the creator of the system as a criticism of it.

[sporelord]

You guys are like detectives!  I love the internet.  This is definitely an eye opener.  I want to read that book now!

[JoelKatz]

Why would an individual not wish to be associated with the creation of bitcoin?

It seems to me 2 likely explanations

One more: 3) They fear for their physical safety if it's known that they control millions of dollars in untraceable assets.

[JohnRetardKeynes]

Why would an individual not wish to be associated with the creation of bitcoin?

It seems to me 2 likely explanations

One more: 3) They fear for their physical safety if it's known that they control millions of dollars in untraceable assets.

Isn't that a bit of a contradiction?

The assets are untraceable, but you know who owns them?

[payb.tc]

Why would an individual not wish to be associated with the creation of bitcoin?

It seems to me 2 likely explanations

One more: 3) They fear for their physical safety if it's known that they control millions of dollars in untraceable assets.

Isn't that a bit of a contradiction?

The assets are untraceable, but you know who owns them?

'control' is not a contradiction for 'own'. please re-read joel's post.

[JoelKatz]

Isn't that a bit of a contradiction?

The assets are untraceable, but you know who owns them?

It's even worse if he doesn't! Suppose some mobsters figured out who Satoshi Nakamoto was. They kidnap him and demand he tell them the private keys to his millions of bitcoins. If he doesn't have any such private keys, he's in even worse shape than if he does. He has no way to get them to put the rubber hose away.

[Raoul Duke]

Look at this comment on the cached page:


Some people think you are Satoshi Nakamoto
Take a look: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=35465.0

... they're on to us!

OMFG! 

Thas was me dude! 
Just look at the site in the name of the commenter and look where the mirror of the page is hosted...

[MackTrow]

If Paco Ahlgren is Satoshi Nakamoto (and personally I think he is), then I don't think he really cares if people get close to the truth. First of all, he probably wrote the article about bitcoin, and then when people started saying he was Satoshi, he probably just pulled it to be safe. I guess he didn't think people would have saved copies.

But think about it . . . if you've read Ahlgren's book, you know he's a master chess player. If he's Satoshi, then he planned out every move well in advance. Just because a couple of us geeks on a forum think we've figured out a connection probably isn't going to affect him too much. In reality, he's probably having a good laugh about it!

If there is a connection, I'm pretty sure that he's hidden his assets good enough that nobody's going to be able to find any evidence linking him directly. So he's probably just sitting back and enjoying the show.

[payb.tc]

paco nakamoto has a good ring to it.

[Desolator]

I think I've got more of this figured out...

Did anyone check if his math and coding creds match up with this theory?  Because you have to be pretty darn good at complex math and logic to design a system like this and obviously you'd have to write the software to run it too.  I think evidence suggestions one of three things:

1. He's the theory designer of the system and got a few other people to do the original coding and math design so Satoshi is multiple people.

2. He's the original entire designer start to finish and wanted to hide that fact.

3. He's a member of some semi-political hacktivist group like anonymous or lulzsec and solo or in a group designed the system and doesn't want to be identified because of that.

I think 3 because this system really does seem like if one of those groups wanted to raise a ton of money in a way that really matches their ideals and message, this would be it.  So he probably approached them or they approached him and got it going.  The only problem is, don't bitcoins predate both those groups?

Now I'm not into the wiki world but isn't there a way to tell what IP did the original writing and majority editing on the wiki articles about Satoshi?  Because the "real Satoshi" as in whoever it really is despite the name, would be checking it a lot of cleaning up any evidence and purposely adding false info to maintain the facade all the time. If the IP is located where this guy lives, tada.

[MackTrow]

Because the "real Satoshi" as in whoever it really is despite the name, would be checking it a lot of cleaning up any evidence and purposely adding false info to maintain the facade all the time. If the IP is located where this guy lives, tada.

Right. Because Satoshi wouldn't hide his IP address. Why would he want to do that?

[MackTrow]

There was one thing that has been bugging me ever since I read Ahlgren's book. BTC is a completely digital currency, not backed by gold or anything. But in the book, the currency is backed by assets, and its actually a paper currency you can carry in your wallet. Also, Ahlgren doesn't talk much about encryption or anything like that.

But today I remembered a part in the book where it says that the author changed the details to protect the people involved. That gave me a shiver, so I did some more research. I already knew that Ahlgren finished the book in 2000 or 2001. But it wasn't published until 2007. But BTC wasn't created until 2009.

So here's my guess. Ahlgren started working on this before he even wrote the book -- back in the late 90s. Then he wrote the book and the description of his currency was flawed on purpose. Then after the book had been out a while, he (and whoever helped him) created the real thing.

This story gets stranger every day. I still haven't gotten a response from Ahlgren. Has anybody else tried to contact him?

Mack

[Desolator]

Because the "real Satoshi" as in whoever it really is despite the name, would be checking it a lot of cleaning up any evidence and purposely adding false info to maintain the facade all the time. If the IP is located where this guy lives, tada.

Right. Because Satoshi wouldn't hide his IP address. Why would he want to do that?

For precisely the same reason that he posted a BTC related article on his own website, then deleted it but actually only moved it he's intelligent but not very careful or wise and potentially not as ultra-skilled as a person in his position has to be with modern computing and the internet, especially security and privacy.

[MackTrow]

My guess is that he's confident enough that he's not worried about what people are saying. I'd bet all my bitcoins that nobody's ever going to be able to prove that Alhgren is Satoshi.

Here's another thing to think about . . . he has a lot to gain if bitcoins go up. Writing that article makes alot of sense. But then when people started saying he was Satoshi, maybe he just thought better of it.

Anyway I doubt he's really all that worried. I still think there's no chance we'll ever know for sure. Ahlgren's book is like a blow by blow of bitcoin. The coincidences are too much for me to ignore. It would be one thing if the book appeared after bitcoin. But it didn't.

That's my theory, and I'm sticking with it. (But I still wonder why he hasn't returned my emails.)

[Swingjinx]

My guess is that he's confident enough that he's not worried about what people are saying. I'd bet all my bitcoins that nobody's ever going to be able to prove that Alhgren is Satoshi.

Here's another thing to think about . . . he has a lot to gain if bitcoins go up. Writing that article makes alot of sense. But then when people started saying he was Satoshi, maybe he just thought better of it.

Anyway I doubt he's really all that worried. I still think there's no chance we'll ever know for sure. Ahlgren's book is like a blow by blow of bitcoin. The coincidences are too much for me to ignore. It would be one thing if the book appeared after bitcoin. But it didn't.

That's my theory, and I'm sticking with it. (But I still wonder why he hasn't returned my emails.)

He hasn't returned them because he probably doesn't exist either...Andy Kaufman style.  You guys are going to keep chasing your tails on this one.

[Boussac]

deflationary? the supply increases. it is not deflationary, except from the perspective of a mind steeped in excessive inflation. but he does get valuation correct in this paragraph.
[/quote]

IMHO Bitcoin IS deflationary by design because it is a limited amount of money chasing a growing amount of goods.

By the way, Satoshi sounds like Mark Karpeles getting a call from the core team: can you post this paper while you are in Japan so the FBI does not come after US ?
This is my answer but what was the question again ?

[JohnRetardKeynes]

Why would an individual not wish to be associated with the creation of bitcoin?

It seems to me 2 likely explanations

One more: 3) They fear for their physical safety if it's known that they control millions of dollars in untraceable assets.

Isn't that a bit of a contradiction?

The assets are untraceable, but you know who owns them?

'control' is not a contradiction for 'own'. please re-read joel's post.

So you're talking about the "control" he has over the entire bitcoin system - not just Satoshi's own stash (which he "owns")?

I thought the whole idea of bitcoin is that our money is safe even from the creator of the system? IE Satoshi DOESN'T control it? Its peer to peer, the system controls it. Or did I miss something?

Are you telling me that if some gangsters start sticking things up Satoshis arse that my money is at risk?

[JoelKatz]

Are you telling me that if some gangsters start sticking things up Satoshis arse that my money is at risk?

If any early adopter dumps all their coins on the market at once, the value of your bitcoins it at risk. That's about the worst they can do, unless they're evil geniuses of some kind that come up the kind of brilliant scheme that only works in movies.

An example of such a 'movie plot' attack would be to abduct the people who control the forums and the release of the client, create a fake urgent bug report using fake forum posts from many well-known forum users, and induce most of the network to upgrade to the latest version of the client. Somehow, you'd have to stop people from noticing and finding other ways to get out the word. And then use the tampered client to pay for everything you possibly could in fake coins, cleaning out all the exchanges. (In case it isn't obvious, I don't think such an attack could ever pay off enough to cover the costs of launching it.)

[Desolator]

I hope I'm wrong but isn't it the case that there are many miners but there's only one single bitcoin client.  So unlike bittorrent, it's not a network that many apps can use with a common engine.  The client is the bitcoin network. There's a distributed and unmodifiable database called the block chain exists "outside" the clients, right?  And to cheat it, you'd have to convince every single other computer in the entire world that your fake transaction is legit.  Impossible?  HELL NO!  It's simple!  They're all running the same client!  Just rig the client to say it's a legit transaction and suddenly everyone in the world agrees. Here's why that catastrophically bad:

Let's say the developers of the bitcoin client version 0.3.25 decide that in that version, they want to make it so every time address number "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" sends a payment, it received 1000 BTC for free. You're thinking that wouldn't feed into the chain and would get rejected because the chain would tell you the money came from nowhere and it doesn't calculate correctly.  But that's the problem with people's perception.  There is no "the chain told the client _____" The client reads in the chain and makes its own determination about what's allowed and disallowed and all the rules in the network reside in the bitcoin client.  It only relies on everyone else on the network to verify any changes in BTC ownership so your client can't just make things up....but like I said, you can get everyone's computers to agree on something if everyone's using the same exact client.  If they're all coded to agree that creating 1000 BTC from nowhere and stuffing it into the block chain is legit, it's going to do it because nobody has some alternate client to say no.

You can't have every single computer in the entire bitcoin network run one piece of software to manage the chain. It's a really bad idea and I don't see any reason a modification like that to the client software by the originators of it wouldn't work.  And they have no reason not to rig it to accept rogue transactions because they could make a lot of money from it.