
Satoshi Nakamoto made a post after years of silence? - insulanian
http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/profile/SatoshiNakamoto
======
rattray
It seems more likely to me that the ning account was compromised, but this is
fun/interesting nonetheless.

For example, reading through his initial launch post is kind of fun:

[http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topics/bitcoin-open-
sour...](http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topics/bitcoin-open-
source?xg_source=activity)

> I've developed a new open source P2P e-cash system called Bitcoin. It's
> completely decentralized, with no central server or trusted parties, because
> everything is based on crypto proof instead of trust. Give it a try, or take
> a look at the screenshots and design paper: ...

~~~
snakeboy
I enjoyed one of the replies,

> The reason balance of the system is important: if it's going to be used for
> payments, you don't want to have large changes in the value of the coins. It
> would lead to distortions, I believe, by continually increasing the
> "purchasing power" of a single coin.

Stability of the coins' value is desirable for long term use.

~~~
cromwellian
And yet Bitcoin is one of the most volatile currencies I can thing of,
somewhat flies in the face of all of the promises made for it.

~~~
beatgammit
Not promises, but predictions. I don't think Nakamoto anticipated the massive
interest in speculation, which is driving the lack of stability.

Long term, I'm more bullish on solutions like GNU Taler[1][2] that don't try
to invent a currency, but instead work with existing currencies to simply
transactions. I don't think Taler will necessarily be _the_ solution, but
something like it could work out.

\- [1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micropayment#GNU_Taler](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micropayment#GNU_Taler)
\- [2]
[http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/taler/](http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/taler/)

~~~
_Nat_
Was Bitcoin meant to be an enduring project?

I mean, I get that a lot of people see it that way, but it's always struck me
as giving off an experimental vibe. Presumably an enduring solution to
something as fundamental as a monetary system should have stronger design
principles. By contrast, Bitcoin feels more like a prototype/demonstration of
blockchain technology mixed with a social experiment.

------
stale2002
To give people a heads up. There has been a huge amount of drama in the
Bitcoin space, and this is related to the individual known as Craig Wright.

Craig Wright made a bunch of claims a couple years ago, that he was Satoshi.
He released a bunch of "proof" that was proven false.

Recently, he created a new crypto coin callee bitcoin Satoshi's Vision.

This new post is almost certainly another fake attempt by Craig to claim that
he is Satoshi.

~~~
insulanian
That's a speculation.

~~~
truantbuick
It's speculation, but if you've been following the drama like I have (I'm not
particularly interested in cryptocurrency per se, but I love reading about it
like a sporting event), it's almost certainly Craig.

Craig Wright has been caught numerous times falsifying evidence that leads
people to think he's Satoshi Nakamoto. It's such a ridiculous ruse, and I
think the only reason he's still hanging around is he's backed by a
billionaire named Calvin Ayre who has thrown his full weight behind Craig
Wright. Ayre built a whole company around Craig that's constantly trying to
promote him as being Satoshi.

A couple weeks ago, a new twitter user with the handle @satoshi emerged and
tweeted a signature that validates with Satoshi's public key. The problem? A
signature in ECDSA can easily be forged using only knowledge of the public
key. It doesn't prove anything unless you're signing a non-gibberish message.
This is also very similar to a trick Craig Wright already tried when he first
tried to claim he was Satoshi in 2016.

The twitter user got suspended, so that got shut down without much of a fuss
in the media, but if you follow this closely, you know that Craig was involved
based on MO and because the public relations blitz of his company was very
carefully coordinated almost exactly when @satoshi started tweeting. (Among
other things, @satoshi and Craig's typical twitter posted extremely similar
tweets within a few minutes of each other.)

Similarly, in this case, Craig and associated social media accounts started
making thinly veiled oblique references to "light" and "nour" at the same
time.

------
walrus01
The only way someone can prove they're the "real" satoshi (note: Craig Wright
is NOT satoshi, he's a fraud), is to use a known-only-to-satoshi private key
to move some arbitrary amount of coin from a very early wallet to a new
wallet.

~~~
pedrocr
And by doing so crash bitcoin value since it is believed those early wallets
with lots of coins are effectively destroyed.

~~~
walrus01
It seems to be doing a pretty good job of crashing on its own, at present.

~~~
anongraddebt
Laughed out loud. Have some karma.

------
shiado
That site isn't even served over TLS. I don't doubt somebody easily
compromised it.

~~~
noobermin
If someone compromised it, wouldn't they post something more interesting than
'"nour"'?

~~~
floatingatoll
No. Not necessarily.

------
joeblau
This is interesting because Iv'e had countless discussions with Bitcoin
Maxamilsits who assume that all of Satoshi's coins are never moving and that
he's gone forever.

~~~
bitxbitxbitcoin
Assume... or hope?

~~~
joeblau
I had a CISSP for a few years and used to do security deploys and audits for
highly secure systems. One part of our teams process was assessing risk. Based
on my training, it looks like they _assume_ the coins will never move. The
thing is that nobody knows Satoshi's OpSec and events like this don't help.

People are saying Ning was hacked, but is that for sure? Did Satoshi's
computer get hacked, did the Ning get hacked, what happened? We may never
know, but for me there has always been a non-zero chance that Satoshi's coins
could move. I don't know what the result of that would be.

~~~
solarkraft
1) Lots of headlines

2) A new hope to find out his identity. He couldn't really pay someone
anonymously without using a tumbler, the tumbler he'd use would gain a ton of
PR and could become the quasi-official Bitcoin tumbler.

3) Depends on the amount, but I think there'll be a great fear that he could
move all of it - that amount would almost certainly being the Bitcoin economy
down since its value is (I think) based on the assumption that the coins will
never move, so the BTC price would decrease sharply.

That's my guess.

------
joewee
Since we are throwing out random theories, I feel fairly confident that
Satoshi Nakamoto lives on the East Coast of the United States and is unlikely
to ever touch any of his previously used accounts.

------
walrus01
Very interesting that for a website/forum operated by people with a high
degree of technical skill, I see no https (TLS1.2) anywhere. All plain http.

~~~
bcaa7f3a8bbc
The entire infrastructure of P2P Foundation Wiki was from 2008, and nobody
bothers to rebuild, I believe...

------
djent
I half-ironically propose it is meant to be read as "no, you are"

~~~
solarkraft
I half-ironically support this.

------
keehun
It's interesting to note that Google Translate (on "Detect Language" set)
translates "nour" as "Light" in Arabic.

~~~
starbeast
Alternatively, the Urban Dictionary defines 'nour' as a very attractive and
funny girl.

I find the Satoshi puzzle to be far more interesting than bitcoin itself. The
level of operational security Satoshi has achieved is incredible - 'The wise
one who lives in the middle' has proven to be a good choice of name. All
things considered, I would not be at all surprised if Satoshi turns out to be
a small team inside GCHQ, or somewhere similar.

~~~
CamelCaseName
Nour/Noor is a very common name for girls.

It is also my name. I am a guy. Thanks Mom and Dad.

~~~
zerealshadowban
Short for Noureddine, a common male name. Source: several North African
friends with this exact name.

See also [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nur_al-
Din](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nur_al-Din)

------
scythe
Maybe Satoshi is a Japanese-Brazilian? (Or -Peruvian, -Uruguayan, etc.) Brazil
has some pretty good coders (cf. Lua) who might often find themselves with
nothing to do (poor job market) and who have direct experience with the
downsides of capital controls (protectionism), plenty of whom are of Japanese
descent and who could get away with pretending to be Japanese to throw people
off.

~~~
reviseddamage
wot

------
kovach
Have you read the Bitcoin Origins story by Phil "Scronty" Wilson?

[http://vu.hn/bitcoin%20origins.html](http://vu.hn/bitcoin%20origins.html)

In it he claims that the Satoshi handle was actually shared by him, Craig
Wright and Dave Kleiman, and they created Bitcoin together.

------
anonytrary
This all looks really fake. Plus, there's incentive to fake something like
this, because of Satoshi Nakamoto's fame, elusive nature, and lack of identity
ownership.

------
sneak
It is exceedingly likely that if Satoshi was not Hal Finney, s/he has probably
been somewhat active (under a non-Satoshi nym, obviously) this whole time.

~~~
mrhappyunhappy
I firmly believe that Nick Szabo is Satoshi. Academic background, studies
currencies, highly intelligent, worked on bitcoin-esque project before.
Perhaps he had some help from a few close friends who do not know him as
Satoshi.

~~~
throwawaylolx
I'm pretty sure most people in the Bitcoin community know this, but it's
generally avoided as a topic of discussion out of respect for Szabo.

~~~
mrhappyunhappy
Totally. I just pointed it out as others have speculated. I'm sure nobody will
bother him about it and respect his denial. I wouldn't want to be outed as
Satoshi either.

------
ajawee
Just a curios question: since bitcoin.org was initially bought and maintained
by Sathoshi. Is it possible to track some info from domain registrar?

~~~
bcaa7f3a8bbc
Like today, there were a handful of providers of anonymous hosting and domain
service. Satoshi registered the domain and hosted the website via
anonymousspeech.com. So no, it's not possible to obtain his identity directly
from the domain name.

But there is a potential flaw - anonymousspeech.com used to accept cash-in-
mail, but stopped for a while, then started accepting cash again. It is
unclear whether Satoshi used cash, or credit card/bank transfer. If he used
the latter one for payment, the government can just subpoena all the financial
records. But there are evidences to believed he used anonymous deposit. So the
answer is still no.

IMHO, by today's standard, Satoshi Nakamoto's anonymity is flawed. A large
portion of the infrastructure for anonymity and privacy (Bitcoin!!) didn't
exist back to that time, in addition, he didn't demonstrate the extreme
rigorous practice of operational security similar to underground blackhat
hacking groups, for example, he was using GMX as his main mailbox, which was
not known for its security, and obviously it was eventually hacked, etc.

In conclusion, he did enough to obtain a reasonable degree of 2008's
anonymity. But his anonymity is saved only because it wasn't/isn't illegal so
he wasn't a target in the beginning, and by now time has buried all the
traces. It probably won't survive a coordinated takedown by multiple law
enforcement agencies (something you can accomplish with a fair chance of
success today).

~~~
solarkraft
Regarding GMX: I know it as a very German-focused service, so could we infer
something about him this way?

I'm also sure he connected to the site through proxies.

------
Markoff
considering this come when bitcoin it's falling for months and someone wanna
bring media attention to bitcoin and push price higher i am certain it's hack,
just look for the motivation

------
mirimir
Also interesting:
[https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2018-November...](https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2018-November/043904.html)

That's from 2018-11-28, before the ning post.

~~~
walrus01
Doesn't mean anything, anyone can create a protonmail address and post to a
public mailing list. Grammar and sentence structure reads like a fluent native
English speaker that is attempting to impersonate the clumsy writing style of
a non-native-english speaker.

~~~
mirimir
I get that. But the timing is interesting, no? Just a day or two before the
ning post. That suggests to me that somethings up.

------
CyberDildonics
These question marks after statements (or half sentence questions) really need
to stop - I was hoping hacker news wouldn't slide into the lazy terrible
internet grammar trends.

~~~
trhway
It is probably non native speaker like a Russian for example where it does
work that way. (Of course posting in English one is expected to follow rules
of English.)

