Earlier today we reported that in what many are convinced is just another self-gratifying publicity stunt, Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright “outed” himself as bitcoin’s mysterious creator “Satoshi Nakamoto” by unleashing a major PR campaign and revealing his “identity” to three media organizations – the BBC, the Economist and GQ.
As Verge writes, after meeting with Wright, Bitcoin core developer Gavin Andresen stated unequivocally, “I believe Craig Steven Wright is the person who invented Bitcoin.” But while established bitcoin figures were quick to agree with Wright’s claims, many remain deeply unconvinced, believing Wright has come forward to drum up interest in a new supercomputer venture. Others are even more skeptical, and are convinced that after digging through Wright’s claims, that “Satoshi” is anyone but the Australian.
As a reminder, this is not the first time Wright has made headlines in relation to bitcoin. In December, the Australian businessman was put forward as a possible founder of Bitcoin by Wired and Gizmodo. After the news broke, Bitcoin fans discovered a string of apparent fabrications from Wright’s past, and Wright was brought up on charges by Australian tax authorities on uncertain grounds.
Among the things that are perplexing is Wright’s sudden desire to “claim fame” for being Satoshi: why keep quiet for so many years then suddenly appears out of the blue. Then again, “even skeptics have to admit, Wright is the strongest candidate we’ve ever had. He claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto — and some of the biggest names in Bitcoin believe him.”
However, as the Verge adds, “what’s missing is the math. Wright’s demonstration showed both reporters and Andresen a signature produced by a unique private key believed to belong to Satoshi Nakamoto. But that signature seems to have be pulled from a public message signed by Nakamoto in 2009, as researcher Patrick McKenzie showed on Github. The message failed to verify when McKenzie attempted to test it, a result of changes made to the OpenSSL protocol in the last seven years.”
That was, more or less, all of his “evidence.”
Other proof has turned out to be difficult to come by. Wright says the early Satoshi-linked bitcoin are all owned by a trust, so he can’t prove his identity by spending them. Andresen claims to have witnessed more definitive cryptographic proof that Wright holds the keys, but without anything to verify, all the public has is his word.
It gets worse:
Beyond the technical details, the takeaway is simple: Wright doesn’t have any math to back up his claim. Even worse, he pretended to have something he didn’t, and seems to have fooled an awful lot of people along the way. As a result, many observers are still demanding proof, particularly now that Wright seems eager to establish himself as Bitcoin’s mythical inventor. “Wright needs to sign something new, today, to prove he holds the crypto keys,” said Bloq’s Jeff Garzik, a central developer in the Bitcoin world.
Cornell professor Emin Gun Sirer, who specializes in cryptocurrency, was far less tactful and even accused Wright of an attempt to mislead.”We have yet to see proper cryptographic proof,” Sirer said in a statement. “What we’ve seen looks like a deliberate attempt to mislead.”
There is currently no publicly available cryptographic proof that anyone in particular is Bitcoin’s creator.
— Bitcoin Core Project (@bitcoincoreorg) May 2, 2016
In short, the claims don’t add up. So what may be the real story here?
In addition to merely trying to trump up publicity to help his tangential business ventures, Wright could simply be a puppet in the escalating feud between the two proposed version of Bitcoin. As the Verge reminds us, even before the Wright news, the system was in bad shape, with transactions taking as long as 43 minutes to work through an overstuffed network. Efforts to fix those issues have split the community in two, as Core and Classic developers move forward with two different versions of the Bitcoin software.
Verge’s conclusion is that not only is Weight not “the” Satoshi, but that his appearance may simply serve to push the agenda of Bitcoin core developed Gavin Andresen.
Finding the One True Satoshi could be the perfect way to resolve that split and unite the two factions — but instead, Wright seems to have only deepened the divide. The Economist reports that Wright favors Andresen’s version of Bitcoin, furthering the political implications of this morning’s news.
The bottom line, “if Wright wants to convince the community, he’s picked a bad way to do it. So far, his case has been all authority and no math.“
Meanwhile, the search for the real Satoshi will continue.
via http://ift.tt/1rdIeuT Tyler Durden