
Why I Don't Think Craig Wright is Satoshi - danielrm26
https://danielmiessler.com/blog/why-i-dont-think-craig-wright-is-satoshi/
======
WalterBright
Hal Finney. Hal was a quiet, unassuming fellow who you had to get to know
before you discovered he was incredibly smart.

Hal could never attend class, flip through a textbook on an unfamiliar
subject, and then ace the final exam at Caltech. What would take me a solid 3
months of work.

The Satoshi thing is just the kind of prank Hal would have done.

~~~
want2know
I always wondered if the style of writing and coding could lead to the
identification of the real author.

Or was he also clever enough to change his way of writing to even hide that?

~~~
lawl
It can, it's called stylometry. There was a talk at CCC i remember. I think it
was this one: [https://media.ccc.de/v/31c3_-_6173_-_en_-
_saal_g_-_201412291...](https://media.ccc.de/v/31c3_-_6173_-_en_-
_saal_g_-_201412291715_-_source_code_and_cross-domain_authorship_attribution_-
_aylin_-_greenie_-_rebekah_overdorf)

Iirc someone asked during Q&A if they tried to identify Satoshi Nakamoto like
this and they said they think they know who it is but don't want to say.

------
apo
> And I think he’s definitely brilliant enough to do the work.

It's part of the scam. Bamboozle the target with technobabble. Target lacks
the skills to independently verify the claim or even recognize the vocabulary
is just plain wrong.

The technical lack of understanding has been documented repeatedly and in
depth. Still, people insist in heaping misplaced praise on this huckster's
intellect.

[https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/op-ed-how-many-
wrongs-m...](https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/op-ed-how-many-wrongs-make-
wright)

Not only does Wright's temperament not match Satoshi's, but Satoshi actually
knew what he was talking about.

~~~
dvtrn
"Bamboozle the target with technobabble. Target lacks the skills to
independently verify the claim or even recognize the vocabulary is just plain
wrong."

Ah yes, an adage of my old Staff Sergeant (who probably borrowed it himself)
"if you can't convince them with brilliance, confuse them with bullshit".

~~~
cesarb
The canonical wording of that phrase seems to be "If you can't dazzle them
with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit." according to
[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/W._C._Fields](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/W._C._Fields)

~~~
brianpgordon
A related quote is- "There are two ways of constructing a software design: One
way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the
other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious
deficiencies."

s/software design/piece of public technical writing/ and you have a pretty
good match for Wright.

------
mcv
To me, the damning evidence is that Craig Wright tried to trick people into
thinking he signed something with Satoshi's key when it turned out it was
merely clever digital sleight of hand. Losing the key is possible, but
employing a trick like that is a big warning sign that you're fake.

------
mikorym
> he’s definitely brilliant enough to do the work

That was not the impression I got from him.

He did a cheap trick (on his own computer!) that would make a novice think he
is Satoshi (he called a variable and then misspelt it deliberately to deceive
the observer). Maybe I just don't like the word brilliant.

------
thrwaway6542
Satoshi wrote the bitcoin whitepaper, a nine-page document:

[https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf](https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf)

can't you test Wright's claim by just saying "walk us through how you wrote
this paper. the thought process, how it came to fruition. what was on your
mind. you included a number of references, where did you get these? just, the
whole process, etc."

presumably wright would hem and haw and not say anything.

\--

EDIT: I'm puzzled by the downvotes. I've been accused of not writing something
myself, and it's easy to defend by just showing my work, drafts, etc. anyone
who's ever written anything can speak really easily, maybe after a quick
glance to look at it again. talking about the creative process is a pretty
solid defense of authorship in my opinion.

~~~
comicjk
If you think a false Satoshi would hem and haw and not say anything, you don't
know how con artists work. Some people have the skill of lying fluently. If
Wright isn't Satoshi, then clearly he is one of those people. Therefore this
test would not distinguish anything.

~~~
ksaj
The lack of humming and hawwing isn't nearly as convincing as the lack of
demonstrable knowledge that should be expected of the real Satoshi.

------
q3k
Well, of course. Can we stop giving him attention, please?

~~~
AznHisoka
I have to agree. The media and everyone is taking his bait and giving him
undue attention. Nobody thinks Craig is Satoshi. Nobody!

------
clubm8
Why do we think Satoshi is a singular person?

My pet theory is "Satoshi" was multiple people.

IIRC there was even speculation about one programmer who sadly passed away
shortly after Bitcoin's launch.

If someone(s) used some variation of Shamir's Secret Sharing to lock up the
credentials the death of one could have made them inaccessible.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir's_Secret_Sharing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir's_Secret_Sharing)

------
bitwize
I thought everything pointed to Paul Le Roux being Satoshi?

~~~
epx
I'd bet $1 in Nick Szabo.

~~~
bdcravens
My money has always been on Hal Finney. Timing of his death and Satoshi's
silence seems too coincidental, to say nothing of the fact that the first p2p
transfer was between Hal and Satoshi, and Hal's credentials. Also can't ignore
that the person who was falsely portrayed to be Satoshi due to his name
(Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto) lived 2 blocks from Hal.

~~~
tim333
The work was probably done by Finney and Szabo together. As Satoshi is a
fictional entity it could represent either or both of them. Though I think the
writing under the name Satoshi was probably mostly Szabo.

~~~
bitwize
That was my thinking at first as well. When I heard the name and that it was a
pseudonym I thought of two things:

* a shadowy genius from a Dan Brown novel (like Ensei Tankado from _Digital Fortress_ )

* Nicolas Bourbaki (who _was_ a group of people)

But Le Roux is as smart as a group of mathematicians, and is much more the
sort of person who would come up with ultralibertarian solutions like Bitcoin
(being, you know, a criminal mastermind and all).

------
perl4ever
Setting aside the footnote about his private key, I find the logic annoying
even if the conclusion is correct, because it's purely begging the question,
IMO.

It reminds me of the argument that the moon landings were faked because the
astronauts would have been killed by the Van Allen radiation belts. The only
real answer to that is, well, they tried it and they weren't. But that doesn't
resolve anything for doubters.

------
Lowkeyloki
Maybe it's just me, but who cares who Satoshi is? Knowing wouldn't change
anything.

~~~
lsiq
Well, for one reason, if Satoshi is alive; he can easily crash the entire
bitcoin market if his wallets start selling currency.

If he's dead, (which is the case if he's Finney), then that is a not a risk.

If he is alive, then the likelyhood of him cashing out at some point is pretty
high. He may be only be waiting for the moment when there is enough liquidity
in the market for him to dump it all at once - and we're probably not quite
there yet, he's said to have just under 1M BTC.

------
democracy
I am wondering if we can find his c/c++ code from 2008/2009 and compare with
bitcoin early releases - that would clarify a few doubts...

~~~
democracy
Ah ok, looks like there is no code that he wrote, that is pretty much enough
to know :)

------
democracy
[https://www.stopcraigwright.com/screenshots](https://www.stopcraigwright.com/screenshots)

"Tonight I am downloading Java Security courses" \- haha, that's epic...

------
joyjoyjoy
I think I am quite sure who Satoshi is. Paul Le Roux.

------
PatrolX
Correct, Wright is not Satoshi.

Because Satoshi is a project, not a person.

