[NPR] Did A Reporter Just Solve A Bitcoin Mystery? - Satoshi Found?

[bulanula]

Don't think so:

o Davis, the author of the New Yorker story, emails Clear.

"I like to keep a low profile," Clear replies. "I'm curious to know how you found me."

Davis eventually cuts to the chase:

Finally, I asked, "Are you Satoshi?"

He laughed, but didn't respond. There was an awkward silence.

^ awkward silence doesn't really work over email.

LOL

The bigger LOL is when he cashes out after the scheme is uncovered and the baby Jebus is found

Who cashed out 20k last week ? Must have been him too seems he likes living the good life lucky on him  

[gusti]

Granted, our hero is not that stupid. There is not a single possibility that Satoshi is being discovered by a journalist because he wrote in british style.

[meanig]

Always knew he was from the UK.

Dublin is not in the UK.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Ireland

The country is highly ranked for press freedom, economic freedom and democracy and political freedom.

[ineededausername]

He certainly looks the part.

Somebody should make a tshirt with this.  You know, kind of like Che tshirts except for libertarians.

[dunand]

Michael Clear put a message on is university page.

http://www.dsg.cs.tcd.ie/Michael.Clear => http://www.scss.tcd.ie/~clearm/bitcoin.html

This is the last message I'm posting about him. If he wants to be be low profile that's ok. He did enough for Bitcoin already.

[BitcoinPorn]

This poor guy is going to be hounded for quite a while I bet

[jwzguy]

Um, so he thinks the fact someone's using British spellings means they are from the UK? He didn't think maybe there were a few people from the UK employed teaching English in other countries?  

[ctoon6]

your wrong, I AM SATOSHI NAKAMOTO.

but to be serious, if his real identity is found, gradz.

[racerguy]

is "bloody hard" a phrase Americans use?  It's used a bit here in Australia and maybe UK though I'm not sure.

[d.james]

Leave Satoshi ALONEEEEE

[m0w3r]

This guy, Michael Clear, is a little too young to be Satoshi, no?  Just graduating as an undergrad in 2008?  Well, it's possible certainly, but I had thought Satoshi was ~30yo.  Some of Satoshi's forum posts also appear a bit more mature than undergraduate posting, but you never know I guess.

[ribuck]

Bitcoin was Satoshi's passion, not his career. Satoshi succeeded because he was a generalist, an all-rounder, someone who had a great understanding of crypto, but also of economic reality and software construction.

I think anyone who attends a specialist cryptography conference is not going to be Satoshi.

[Elwar]

It is better that there is no human face to Bitcoin. That is what they are trying to do.

If you can put a face to Bitcoin you can slander that face and create guilt by association for anyone who uses Bitcoins.


"Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency created by a sexual deviant, is getting a lot of attention lately"

"Bitcoin, a hair brained scheme devised by a man with a history of deception, has been growing in popularity among unsuspecting investors."

etc.

[ribuck]

It is better that there is no human face to Bitcoin.

Until they are ready to award Satoshi the Nobel Prize for Economics.

[julz]

Apparently the 2nd 'suspect' is from Finland - so the New Yorker story has hit the Finnish press  (tietoviikko.fi - A Finnish IT magazine)


(sorry for the google-translated title)

Finnish researchers suspected Bitcoin-inventor of money

[2011-10-04


http://www.tietoviikko.fi/kaikki_uutiset/suomalaista+tutkijaa+epaillaan+bitcoinrahan+keksijaksi/a697067

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=fi&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tietoviikko.fi%2Fkaikki_uutiset%2Fsuomalaista%2Btutkijaa%2Bepaillaan%2Bbitcoinrahan%2Bkeksijaksi%2Fa697067&act=url


"This suspect is a 31-year-old Finnish Technology Research Institute researcher George Lehdonvirta . He has studied virtual currencies, and he is a programmer background. He is also involved in other things, privacy issues, focused on the Electronic Frontier Finlandin (Effi) operation."

[TiagoTiago]

It is better that there is no human face to Bitcoin.

Until they are ready to award Satoshi the Nobel Prize for Economics.

Would the prize be paid in bitcoins?

[Rassah]

your wrong, I AM SATOSHI NAKAMOTO.

The great Satoshi would know how to spell "you're" correctly 

[cablepair]

That story was lame and does not prove anything. If he was Satoshi - He would not of done the interview at all.

[freequant]

Satoshi knows that search is a hard problem, but verification is trivial.
I think if he really was Satoshi, he would not have tried to deny it.