Bitcoin's Creator Revealed?

RickStain · Mar 9, 2014

jackfinarelli said:

DeskMonkey1 said:

Since I'm woefully ignorant on politics and economics, can someone explain to me why the creator of Bitcoin wouldn't reveal his identity?
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Oh, and while you are at it, why is the identity of the creator of Bitcoin sufficiently interesting to draw all of the attention and effort that is revealed here?
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Because he solved a fairly important and interesting cryptography problem, and a bunch of loons have turned it into a tulip bulb bubble with a market cap that has touched 10 digits.

YankeeFan · Mar 10, 2014

Forbes:

A linguistic analysis done at Forbes’ request indicates that Newsweek fingered the wrong man when it tried to unmask the creator of the digital currency, Bitcoin.

...

I asked Juola & Associates, a firm that uses a technique called stylometry to identify the authors of anonymous texts, to compare e-mail, message board posts and letters to the editor by Dorian Nakamoto to writing attributed to the Satoshi Nakamoto who created Bitcoin. The firm’s techniques, developed by Duquesne University associate professor Patrick Juola, seek to identify patterns of language use, like whether a person uses long words or short ones and what the most common words they use are. Juola has over 100 scientific publications and has written two books; he was also one of the forensic analysts who identified J.K. Rowling, the Harry Potter author, as the writer of a mystery novel, ‘The Cuckoo’s Calling,’ that she had published under a pseudonym. After the book’s true authorship was revealed, it went on to become a best seller.

John Noecker Jr., the chief scientific officer at Juola & Associates, had already become intrigued by the idea that his company’s techniques could identify the real Satoshi Nakamoto. In July 2013, after seeing an infographic on the website Chartgirl, he had tried the software on Satoshi candidates identified by journalists like Joshua Davis, in the New Yorker, and Adam Penenberg, in Fast Company. The candidates included Michael Clear, Neal J. King, Shinichi Mochizuki and Vili Lehdonvirta. All of them were researchers in cryptography, mathematics, or related fields who had public communications he could draw upon. All had also reportedly denied being the creator of Bitcoin.

His technique strips out formatting, and then examines: the author’s average word length; the 100 most common words used; groups of consecutive words, because people often use the same phrases unconsciously; and what parts of speech they tend to use. Then those numerical values are analyzed mathematically. First, Noecker looked to see whether the writing samples can really be grouped together. Then he looked to see if any overlapped. If Satoshi Nakamoto were a pen name for another author, their writing styles should match.

Noecker found that King was a better match than any of the other men. But he says that it was impossible at to be sure King was Satoshi, because it wasn’t possible to say that those men are the only candidates. The problem is akin to a police lineup: If the culprit isn’t there, a witness might pick the best match from the lineup anyway, even though that person is innocent. “If we were trying to identify the Unabomber with a group of writings by President Obama, the works of Shakespeare, and Beowulf, we would expect that President Obama would show as the most likely candidate to be the Unabomber, simply because both authors write in modern American English,” he says. So Noecker did nothing with his finding.

I requested that he re-run the analysis with Dorian Nakamoto, largely based on writing compiled by a poster on the social media site Reddit. These included an e-mail he had sent to his local government, letters sent to model train magazines, and postings on message boards about model trains and firearms. Noecker concluded that King still seemed like the most likely candidate in the lineup; no method ever identified Dorian as being a more likely to be the Bitcoin creator than King, who still can’t be said to be a likely suspect.

“This does let us say fairly confidently that it’s not Dorian,” Noecker says. “If this were a [police] lineup, if everyone picks the same guy that doesn’t mean that guy is the perp. But if they’re picking the same guy and it’s not you, you’re not the perp.” At another point, he said that he can say “with some conviction” that Dorian is not Satoshi Nakamoto.

What about the possibility that Dorian Nakamoto wrote the Bitcoin whitepaper with the help of a co-author or editor who had a significant hand in crafting it? Could it be that these were Dorian’s ideas, but someone else did a lot of the writing?

“It’s possible it could have a significant effect, but normally we can identify both the editor and the author,” says Noecker. “If it was edited really significantly, if Dorian had written up an outline and someone else had followed it, then it is possible that could ‘wash out’ the effects. I would have expected to see a closer correlation than we did even with fairly extensive editing.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2014/03/10/data-analysis-says-newsweek-named-the-wrong-man-as-bitcoins-creator/
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YankeeFan · Mar 10, 2014

Author defending herself against Forbes on her twitter account: https://twitter.com/truth_eater

MisterCreosote · Mar 10, 2014

Anyone still want to argue that editing isn't necessary because no one cares if facts are wrong?

YankeeFan · Mar 10, 2014

MisterCreosote said:

Anyone still want to argue that editing isn't necessary because no one cares if facts are wrong?
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I think a big problem here is that there are people who are experts in things like Bitcoin and cryptography, and an article like this is going to get incredible scrutiny from them.

The author appears to not be enough of an expert on these subjects to write, or defend the article.

Felix Salmon:

Goodman, on the other hand, is a proud journalist, who gets personally offended whenever anybody raises questions about her journalism, her techniques, or her reporting. In a reporter’s career, she says, “you check facts, you are building trust and building a reputation”. Goodman feels that her own personal reputation, combined with the institutional reputation of Newsweek, should count for something — that if Newsweek and Goodman stand behind a story, then the rest of us should assume that they have good reason to do so. There’s no doubt that a huge amount of work went into reporting this story, very little of which is actually visible in the magazine article itself.

In aggregate, says Goodman, an enormous amount of evidence, including evidence which is not public, persuaded her that Dorian Nakamoto was her man. Goodman has not decided whether or how she might publish that evidence. When she appeared on Bloomberg TV, she said that she would love for people to look at the “forensic research” and the public evidence in the case — but, talking to me, she made it clear that she didn’t consider it her job to help out other journalists by pointing them to that evidence. What’s more, she also made it clear that she was in possession of evidence which other journalists could not obtain.

In other words, Goodman spent two months following leads and gathering evidence, both public and private. Eventually — after confronting Dorian Nakamoto in person, and getting what she considered to be a confirmation from him, both she and her editors felt that she was able to say, on the front cover of Newsweek, that he was the guy. The article itself was the culmination of that process, but it did not — could not — contain every last piece of evidence, both positive and negative, public and private, about both Dorian Nakamoto and every other candidate she looked at. The result is not the process, and Goodman feels that she should be given the respect due a serious and reputable investigative journalist, working for a serious and reputable publication.

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2014/03/10/satoshi-why-newsweek-isnt-convincing/
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MisterCreosote · Mar 10, 2014

YankeeFan said:

I think a big problem here is that there are people who are experts in things like Bitcoin and cryptography, and an article like this is going to get incredible scrutiny from them.
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An even bigger problem is that you posted this here, and in less than an hour, multiple major flaws in the reporting and the final product had been exposed.

Things that, you know, any editor worth his/her salt would've asked before this got published. Let alone published on the cover of a magazine's first print edition in more than a year, that they just happen to be charging $8 a pop for.

Dick Whitman · Mar 10, 2014

YankeeFan said:

MisterCreosote said:

Anyone still want to argue that editing isn't necessary because no one cares if facts are wrong?
Click to expand...

I think a big problem here is that there are people who are experts in things like Bitcoin and cryptography, and an article like this is going to get incredible scrutiny from them.

The author appears to not be enough of an expert on these subjects to write, or defend the article.

Felix Salmon:

Goodman, on the other hand, is a proud journalist, who gets personally offended whenever anybody raises questions about her journalism, her techniques, or her reporting. In a reporter’s career, she says, “you check facts, you are building trust and building a reputation”. Goodman feels that her own personal reputation, combined with the institutional reputation of Newsweek, should count for something — that if Newsweek and Goodman stand behind a story, then the rest of us should assume that they have good reason to do so. There’s no doubt that a huge amount of work went into reporting this story, very little of which is actually visible in the magazine article itself.

In aggregate, says Goodman, an enormous amount of evidence, including evidence which is not public, persuaded her that Dorian Nakamoto was her man. Goodman has not decided whether or how she might publish that evidence. When she appeared on Bloomberg TV, she said that she would love for people to look at the “forensic research” and the public evidence in the case — but, talking to me, she made it clear that she didn’t consider it her job to help out other journalists by pointing them to that evidence. What’s more, she also made it clear that she was in possession of evidence which other journalists could not obtain.

In other words, Goodman spent two months following leads and gathering evidence, both public and private. Eventually — after confronting Dorian Nakamoto in person, and getting what she considered to be a confirmation from him, both she and her editors felt that she was able to say, on the front cover of Newsweek, that he was the guy. The article itself was the culmination of that process, but it did not — could not — contain every last piece of evidence, both positive and negative, public and private, about both Dorian Nakamoto and every other candidate she looked at. The result is not the process, and Goodman feels that she should be given the respect due a serious and reputable investigative journalist, working for a serious and reputable publication.

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2014/03/10/satoshi-why-newsweek-isnt-convincing/
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Goodman is, flat-out, wrong.

She's definitely wrong in 2014.

The work has to stand by itself, no matter where it's published, no matter who publishes it.

"Just trust me," doesn't cut it.

RickStain · Mar 10, 2014

Well, she's not going to get it. Especially not with such an obviously made-up quote to open it.

YankeeFan · Mar 10, 2014

RickStain said:

Well, she's not going to get it. Especially not with such an obviously made-up quote to open it.
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The L.A. County Sheriff's office confirmed the quote!

MisterCreosote · Mar 10, 2014

The quote was real, with a large part of the conversation excerpted that made it so intentionally misleading it may as well have been false.

YankeeFan · Mar 10, 2014

MisterCreosote said:

The quote was real, with a large part of the conversation excerpted that made it so intentionally misleading it may as well have been false.
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Exactly.

But, it was a better story the way she told it.

H.L. Mencken · Mar 10, 2014

MisterCreosote said:

The quote was real, with a large part of the conversation excerpted that made it so intentionally misleading it may as well have been false.
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Goodman: "This is the guy who created Bitcoin!"

Cop: "What the fuck is Bitcoin?"

Goodman: "It's like money, but with numbers."

Cop: "The fuck?"

Goodman: "Yeah, it's like a formula, and you encode it, and once you have the code, you have the currency. It has the potential to shake up the entire financial system."

Cop: "Whatever, I'm not sure I give a fuck. But you need to get off this dude's porch."

Goodman: "But he created Bitcoin! It's worth billions!"

Cop: "This guy created Bitcoin?"

Goodman: "Pretty sure. I thought his shit car would be a little more tricked out though."

Cop: "Yeah, looks like he's living a pretty humble life. Some financial currency genius, lady."

Fin.

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Bitcoin's Creator Revealed?

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