Newsweek thinks it’s found Bitcoin’s creator, and his name really is Satoshi Nakamoto

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      Until now, it's been widely assumed that the creator of Bitcoin is a person or group using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.

      Today (March 6), Newsweek published online an article by journalist Leah McGrath Goodman that identifies the inventor as a man living in Temple City, California. And his name is Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto.

      Here's an excerpt:

      Far from leading to a Tokyo-based whiz kid using the name "Satoshi Nakamoto" as a cipher or pseudonym (a story repeated by everyone from Bitcoin's rabid fans to The New Yorker), the trail followed by Newsweek led to a 64-year-old Japanese-American man whose name really is Satoshi Nakamoto. He is someone with a penchant for collecting model trains and a career shrouded in secrecy, having done classified work for major corporations and the U.S. military.

      Of course, not all Bitcoin users are convinced Newsweek's found the right person. A Reddit post, titled "Remember, there's no proof in the Newsweek article", observes:

      The "proof" is the guy has the same name and vaguely relevant credentials. That's it. There's no other evidence.

      One comment on the Reddit post states:

      My question is where did the two forensic investigators get the tip that he was into model trains? That's the lead that led them to him. They are good enough at their craft to get inside the head of their target. So they would have actively looked for hobbies, interests, history etc. I don't recall anything that indicated he was a model train enthusiast. Unless I'm missing something this detail would have had to come from a close source. It almost feels like a parallel construction.

      It received this humorous reply:

      He ended the whitepaper with, "CHOOOO!!! CHOOOO!!!! HERE COMES THE BITCOINTRAIN MOTHERFUCKERS!!!"

      In any case, the Nakamoto in the story wasn't laughing when Newsweek showed up at his driveway. And whether or not he invented Bitcoin, he probably isn't amused that Newsweek published a picture of his house.

      Comments

      1 Comments

      newspeak

      Mar 6, 2014 at 11:04am

      Newsweek fired all their 'fact checkers' because they are now an online blog and not an actual printed publication, so they have carte blanche to just make up shit like Stephen Glass once did.

      The real "satoshi" took careful measures to conceal his identity, including using all sorts of privacy VPNs available at the time and Tor to post on alt.cryptography (where he announced bitcoin) and also kept careful OPSEC in all his dealings with bitcoin devs he brought on and the bitcointalk forum. You won't find a single post about his personal life, and Gavin claims he never talked about it.

      He also mined his coins late at night, on a large server cluster and given his UK slang and of course the genesis block which quotes the Times "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks." he/she/they are probably British.

      I find it hard to believe somebody would go through all this trouble and just end up using their real name. This article is fiction