[HN Gopher] The Bitcoin whitepaper is hidden in every copy of macOS
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The Bitcoin whitepaper is hidden in every copy of macOS
Author : waxpancake
Score : 196 points
Date : 2023-04-05 22:03 UTC (56 minutes ago)
(HTM) web link (waxy.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (waxy.org)
| Ancapistani wrote:
| > One other oddity: there's a file called cover.jpg in the
| Resources folder used for testing the Photo media type, a
| 2,634x3,916 JPEG of a sign taken on Treasure Island in the San
| Francisco Bay. There's no EXIF metadata in the photo, but
| photographer Thomas Hawk identified it as the location of a
| nearly identical photo he shot in 2008.
|
| If I were Thomas Hawk, I'd be sending Apple a bill for the use of
| my photograph.
| jonas21 wrote:
| I don't think it's his photograph -- they just both
| photographed the same sign (the Apple version contains parts of
| the wall that are not in Thomas Hawk's version).
| jeffybefffy519 wrote:
| Shadows on the sign are different, as well as some of the
| natural growths around the sign.
| RajT88 wrote:
| If this shipped in 2013, or earlier, it would really be
| something.
|
| 2019? Nah.
| [deleted]
| kris-nova wrote:
| I would be willing to wager there is more inside that PDF than
| just the contents of the Bitcoin white paper. Curious if anyone
| has a hash sum handy
| greyface- wrote:
| $ wget https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf [...] $
| openssl sha256 bitcoin.pdf SHA256(bitcoin.pdf)= b1674191
| a88ec5cdd733e4240a81803105dc412d6c6708d53ab94fc248f4f553
| $ openssl sha256 /System/Library/Image\ Capture/Devices/Virtual
| Scanner.app/Contents/Resources/simpledoc.pdf
| SHA256(/System/Library/Image Capture/Devices/VirtualScanner.app
| /Contents/Resources/simpledoc.pdf)= b1674191a88ec5cdd733e4240a8
| 1803105dc412d6c6708d53ab94fc248f4f553
|
| (Ventura 13.3)
| ehPReth wrote:
| /System/Library/Image Capture/Devices/VirtualScanner.app/Conten
| ts/Resources/simpledoc.pdf
|
| sha256: b1674191a88ec5cdd733e4240a81803105dc412d6c6708d53ab94fc
| 248f4f553
|
| sha512: 2ac531ee521cf93f8419c2018f770fbb42c65396178e079a416e703
| 8d3f9ab9fc2c35c4d838bc8b5dd68f4c13759fe9cdf90a46528412fefe1294c
| b26beabf4e
|
| crc32 (lol): 13af7d06
|
| md5: d56d71ecadf2137be09d8b1d35c6c042
|
| sha1: 8de2fdb04edce612738eb51e14ecc426381f8ed8
| cududa wrote:
| The entire directory is really weird. Looks like some sort of
| directory of assets for automated testing the data from
| scanners (like, physical document scanners) returning properly?
| Built in macOS md5 hash reports the PDF's hash as
| d56d71ecadf2137be09d8b1d35c6c042
| eis wrote:
| md5: d56d71ecadf2137be09d8b1d35c6c042 sha1:
| 8de2fdb04edce612738eb51e14ecc426381f8ed8 sha256: b1674191
| a88ec5cdd733e4240a81803105dc412d6c6708d53ab94fc248f4f553
| size: 184292 bytes
|
| These are from MacOS 10.15.7 The file matches the officially
| released whitepaper pdf.
| jerrysievert wrote:
| Mojave: openssl sha256 /System/Library/Image\
| Capture/Devices/VirtualScanner.app/Contents/Resources/simpledoc
| .pdf SHA256(/System/Library/Image Capture/Devices/Virtu
| alScanner.app/Contents/Resources/simpledoc.pdf)= b1674191a88ec5
| cdd733e4240a81803105dc412d6c6708d53ab94fc248f4f553
| Animats wrote:
| Is there a Bitcoin miner somewhere in there, too?
| indy wrote:
| Every iPhone ships with a bitcoin miner. It gets activated once
| your phone is over a year old.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| I wonder if that would generate a financially significant
| amount of BTC. Would they ever actually mine a block with
| that little compute?
| pas wrote:
| if the hash rate drops by a sufficient amount, then they
| could :)
| nouryqt wrote:
| For what it's worth the virustotal page[0] for the sha256 hash[1]
| of the pdf file has it marked as "File distributed by Apple" so
| it must have been known for some time now? Would be interesting
| to know when that notice was added but there is no archive of the
| site unfortunately.
|
| [0]
| https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/b1674191a88ec5cdd733e424...
|
| [1]b1674191a88ec5cdd733e4240a81803105dc412d6c6708d53ab94fc248f4f5
| 53
| gardenhedge wrote:
| Confirmed on my MacBook bought in 2015 and on version macOS
| Catalina Version 10.15.1
|
| Cool.
| flir wrote:
| It's on this Mojave 10.14.6 machine too. The internet says
| that's Sep 26, 2019.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I can confirm the PDF is _not_ present on OS X 10.9
| Mavericks.
|
| So it was added some time between 10.10 and 10.14.
| blauditore wrote:
| It was almost certainly added around the hype in 2019.
| zeven7 wrote:
| 2015-2017 and 2021-2022 were hype years. 2018-2020 was
| dead crypto winter.
| inlined wrote:
| [flagged]
| colesantiago wrote:
| [flagged]
| mdmglr wrote:
| 184 KB * how many Macs on earth? I don't mean anything by this,
| just interesting thought experiment.
|
| Was numbers.pdf not enough to accomplish what they wanted?
|
| My opinion: I understand the OS is a big multi-team effort but
| this just not cool. It's not about the contents of the file or
| that it's about bitcoin.
|
| Plain and simple: Don't ship files that don't need to be shipped.
|
| All these files, if they are test files, should be in
| unit/integration test resources.
| reaperman wrote:
| Back in my day, "easter eggs" used to be cool.
| mdmglr wrote:
| How is this pdf cool?
|
| Back in my day easter eggs were fun.
| dingosity wrote:
| Tech isn't about fun any more. It's about making huge
| stacks of cash. We used to build things because it was fun
| and half-way artistic. Now we only build things if we think
| we can convince a VC to give us cash for it.
|
| Though... I suppose this isn't exactly the venue to
| encourage people to do things simply for the joy of it.
|
| [Also... you kids get off my lawn!]
| colesantiago wrote:
| [flagged]
| plasticsoprano wrote:
| How is a hidden file, that was just now stumbled upon 4+ years
| later, an endorsement?
| colesantiago wrote:
| It isn't hidden if it was found with a full path to file and
| now on full display.
|
| By adding it into the main macOS, a sentient being at Apple
| deliberately chose that file to place it into a major
| operating system. I consider it an blantant endorsement.
|
| I'm questioning Apple's review process because of this. At
| worst this is akin to malware.
| mhluongo wrote:
| > and the former would never allow this to happen ever.
|
| Not sure what you mean here. There are many Linux distros...?
| [deleted]
| colesantiago wrote:
| And they will never allow this to happen.
| sodality2 wrote:
| https://minerstat.com/software/mining-os
|
| It's not even relevant, though. You can make your claims
| about the supposed endorsement without making a reference
| to Linux at all, or even if you did, appeal to the freedom
| aspect of it - you can probably remove it and compile it
| yourself. To claim that none of them are even ideologically
| supportive of it? An absurd claim
| monero-xmr wrote:
| The Bitcoin white paper is probably one of the top 100 impactful
| non-literary documents of all time. Makes sense to be used
| alex_sf wrote:
| Really though? I'm confident there are 100 RFCs alone that were
| more impactful.
| alwillis wrote:
| We've seen many instances of documents that weren't highly
| thought of at the time of their publication, with that
| changing radically later.
|
| Vannevar Bush's essay "As We May Think" in 1945 is a
| visionary document that describes technologies we take for
| granted today more than 70 years ago.
|
| It's possible the Bitcoin white paper will be looked at in
| similar ways, especially if Bitcoin ends up being one
| mankind's most important inventions in addition to being a
| critically important financial asset.
| woodruffw wrote:
| As am I. The top 100 wouldn't even scratch the surface of
| _any_ scientific or non-literary domain.
| [deleted]
| nathanvanfleet wrote:
| Yeah man, how much oil has been burned so far!
| danielodievich wrote:
| This reminds me of the (encrypted) copy of Microsoft Bob shipping
| with every Windows XP CD ever https://learn.microsoft.com/en-
| us/previous-versions/technet-...
| richardfey wrote:
| Looking forward to the first serious attempt to decrypt that.
| zakki wrote:
| It will be wild if Steve Jobs is Satoshi Nakamoto.
| ruffrey wrote:
| Satoshi last seen: April 26, 2011
|
| Steve Jobs death: October 5, 2011
| toomim wrote:
| Satoshi's last message was sent on April 26, 2011. Steve Jobs
| died 6 months later, on Oct 5, 2011. So that all sounds
| feasible.
|
| (I personally think there's zero chance that they are the same
| person, but it's fun to entertain this fantasy.)
| reactspa wrote:
| [dead]
| louison11 wrote:
| It's a convenient way of backing up the document that can be used
| to re-create this impactful technology from scratch... may a
| disaster take place. Think like sending backups of human
| civilization into space. There are probably now hundreds of
| millions of copy of this file, pretty cool.
| Skyy93 wrote:
| Currently the only impact Bitcoin had is burning a large amount
| of electricity. I would not say this is a particular worthy
| technology to safe. There would be far better ideas like
| Transformers in AI or 5nm chip technology.
| neilv wrote:
| And facilitating organized crime, terrorism, and investment
| scams.
| codehalo wrote:
| And human trafficking.
| it_citizen wrote:
| And funding North Korea.
| colestantiago wrote:
| [dead]
| dingosity wrote:
| Careful. You're going to be accused of furthering an
| "ideological debate" in violation of HN's Terms of Service.
| overthrow wrote:
| https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3942181
|
| > For example, illegal transactions, scams and gambling
| together make up less than 3% of volume.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| the other 97% is bots sending small amounts of bitcoins
| back and forth to each other for no reason whatsoever
| RestlessMind wrote:
| And also to fight oppressive governments. Compiled some
| examples here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32406095
|
| Though those governments would love people like you who
| paint all the use cases as "organized crime, terrorism" etc
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| andrewfromx wrote:
| This is like a slightly better version of
| https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/the-campaign-to-erase-th...
| someone wanted to pick an example PDF and picked the bitcoin one.
| Just like in the article above back in 1973 they didn't realize
| the harm in what they were selecting as the sample photo. And
| maybe there is no harm with this PDF selection? We'll know in
| 2073!
| kolinko wrote:
| What harm was done with that photo? Was even one woman turned
| away from an industry bc of it? Absurd.
| dingosity wrote:
| Read the link.
| em-bee wrote:
| we don't know the harm, because we don't know how many women
| encountered this image and may have been made uncomfortable
| because of it.
|
| we also don't know how many men felt encouraged in their
| sexism upon encountering this image.
|
| while the image didn't make men sexist, it undoubtedly helped
| normalize that view among those coming across it during their
| work.
|
| context matters. if you read playboy at home, that's on you,
| but if it is found in the breakroom at an office then it has
| an effect on everyone working there.
| NKosmatos wrote:
| Don't mind me, I'm here just for the conspiracy theory comments
| :-)
| freitzkriesler2 wrote:
| I remember one time installing Bob on a test machine in an IT lab
| running 32 bit XP. Marvelously it ran, but frustrated my poor
| coworker who was didn't know what it was.
| websap wrote:
| [flagged]
| SllX wrote:
| Check out the actual directory. There's a bunch of stuff in there
| including a cover image that does show up in the interface of
| Image Capture. In two minutes of testing I haven't quite figured
| out where to click to get it to preview the Bitcoin white paper
| but decent chance they needed a "simple document" PDF for
| something at some point and it came down to "why not the Bitcoin
| white paper?"
| cududa wrote:
| I think this is for a unit test around scanned documents or
| something, given the rest of the directory's contents
| jaimehrubiks wrote:
| This is very likely because of this
| https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2021/06/29/uk-court-orders-...?
| paulgb wrote:
| The dates don't check out; waxy confirmed it goes back to at
| least 2019 but that story is from 2021.
| [deleted]
| eis wrote:
| How could it be that versions of MacOS released in 2019 have
| the paper due to a court case from 2021? Even ignoring the
| temporal issue I really can't see any plausible connection.
| [deleted]
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Another OS include is that Microsoft Bob was hidden in the
| Windows XP install CD, apparently as part of the copy protection
| scheme. Wonder if the Bitcoin paper has any function beyond its
| written content.
| lawxls wrote:
| This Is Good For Bitcoin
| cududa wrote:
| How does impact bitcoin in any way at all
| likecarter wrote:
| It's satire.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| I'm not convinced it is. Poe's Law
| jancsika wrote:
| There should be a Bitcoin Satire Impossibility Law. Posts
| about Bitcoin that look like satire either a) oh boy are
| they _not_ satire or b) will soon be interpreted acted on
| in earnest by Bitcoin zealots anyway.
|
| E.g., Dogecoin.
|
| Rest assured there is a gaggle of Bitcoin zealots hitting
| up reddit et al to spread the word about how good this
| discovery is for Bitcoin's bottom line!
|
| I'd make a joke about Kind Midas here, but in light of
| BSIL I'm afraid someone here would use the premise as an
| idea for a startup and end up hurting themselves (or
| others).
| m3kw9 wrote:
| It's all satire
| dang wrote:
| Please don't do this here.
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(page generated 2023-04-05 23:00 UTC)