[HN Gopher] Craig Wright said he invented Bitcoin - lawyers prov...
___________________________________________________________________
Craig Wright said he invented Bitcoin - lawyers proved him wrong
Author : guiambros
Score : 79 points
Date : 2024-09-14 14:08 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ft.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ft.com)
| move-on-by wrote:
| > ...lawyers picked apart Wright's claims that some of his
| computer documents had been typed before 2008, using evidence
| from font designers. The witnesses testified that some fonts
| "hadn't even been created until years after the alleged date of
| the document"...
|
| https://craigwright.net/
|
| Fascinating.
| churchill wrote:
| Fun fact: A Microsoft font also helped expose corruption by
| Pakistan's former PM, Nawaz Sharif [1]. Apparently, documents
| dated to 2006 were typed up using Calibri, a font that only
| went into public distribution around 2007.
|
| [1] https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/12/15961354/pakistan-
| calibri...
| esafak wrote:
| Same thing in Turkey.
| https://balyozdavasivegercekler.com/2012/10/04/dani-
| rodrik-d...
| ruthmarx wrote:
| I guess it's prudent to remember to always use Times New
| Roman when committing fraud.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| Also fonts helped discredit Dan Rather's Killian memo.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_authentici.
| ..
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| If he's not Satoshi and doesn't have Satoshi's keys the what is
| the point of saying he is Satoshi? Seems like a long way to go
| for some notoriety and no financial gain.
| brokensegue wrote:
| he did try to gain financially. he forked bitcoin into Bitcoin
| Satoshi Vision.
| hollerith wrote:
| He also started and made himself CEO of at least 3
| cryptocurrency startups. One of those startups (nChain) tried
| extract patent licensing fees from other cryptocurrency
| players.
| Tuna-Fish wrote:
| He attempted to sue Bitcoin core devs to alter the algorithm to
| hand over Satoshi's coins. On the basis that he lost the keys
| and that the maintainers have a duty to him to help him recover
| them.
|
| Every part of the lawsuit was just batshit insane. The most
| insane part was that an UK court allowed the lawsuit to be
| heard, and forced dozens of people not living in UK to pay big
| money to defend themselves.
| solarengineer wrote:
| Do the defendants have the right and the opportunity to sue
| for legal fees and damages for having to fight this vexatious
| court case?
| pavlov wrote:
| While the lawsuit was insane, it serves a good reminder that
| when Bitcoiners proudly proclaim that "governments have no
| power over them", it's not quite that simple in lots of ways.
|
| If the governments of the world really started to believe
| their fiscal powers or national currencies were threatened by
| crypto, they have an extensive repertoire of tools to shut it
| down.
| chabes wrote:
| I disagree. This lawsuit was against a single individual.
| There is nothing here that is threatening to crypto as a
| whole.
|
| One thing that will make it harder to regulate as time goes
| on is that more people will be financially involved. From
| traditional finance getting involved through funds, to the
| masses getting involved, the ecosystem has grown far beyond
| the fringe, and will continue to do so with each successive
| hype cycle. Hell, many governments themselves have skin in
| the game now.
|
| I'm curious how you think serious crippling legislation or
| enforcement would play out.
|
| EDIT: additional thought... this case protects the
| industry, not the other way around. The industry was being
| attacked by a fraudulent individual, and the government
| defended the industry.
| speerer wrote:
| This is a misunderstanding. The lawsuit was not one suit:
| it wrapped up one against Wright, but several that he
| instigated against others. This involved dozens of
| individuals and companies, sued by him for various ends
| such as control over the word "Bitcoin", control over
| bitcoins themselves, and forcible changes to the
| protocols.
|
| It was absolutely a threat to Bitcoin and other crypto.
| janandonly wrote:
| Governments can shut down the core developers, or at least
| force them into hiding and force them to use nyms (like
| they should do, as cypherpunks anyways).
|
| But stopping people from downloading and running some
| code... well on a closed eco system like Apple App Store,
| sure, you can pressure a company into compliance, but how
| are you going to stop determined people? Who download and
| share code over I2P and TOR?
|
| It's off course true that if it really came to this
| globally, the price of bitcoin would probably tumble and be
| more compatible to other currently more privacy forward
| coins like Monero .
| sgt101 wrote:
| Well, you make it a capital office, or less draconian...
| make it an offense punishable by 10 years of hard labour
| in a dire penal camp somewhere cold.
|
| In addition you make it an offense to fail to disclose
| knowledge of the use of such capabilities, and you
| institute a system of rewards to positively encourage
| disclosure.
|
| Perhaps you call it social credit.
|
| You are correct that there are a few people who would
| defy such a system, a very few.
| throw101010 wrote:
| You misunderstand the point people saying this make. They
| know governments can suppress their freedoms ultimately but
| since Bitcoin is an open and public system, the measures
| governments have to use to "kill" it force them to limit
| very fundamental freedoms (like freedom of speech to
| restrict the publishing of its source code, freedom to
| consume the energy citizens purchase and/or produce how
| they want, neutral access to Internet, etc.).
|
| These kind of measures are political suicide in Western
| democracies, hence why politicians are seen as powerless
| against Bitcoin in these places, why they "let" this market
| grow and why they just setup ways to tax it as best as they
| can (at the borders between fiat and crypto).
|
| In places where preserving such freedoms is not a burden
| for governments you already see bans flourish when it is
| convenient for the people in power... but even then, it
| just marginally stops the actual access to Bitcoin as a
| network participant (which is not limited to mining). It
| doesn't actually kills Bitcoin.
|
| But everyone knows that if governments around the world
| decided to install massive censorship, invade the privacy
| of all their citizen, and magically all were in agreement
| to do so at the same time, Bitcoin wouldn't survive... if
| you think this is a possible scenario, is Bitcoin really
| the thing your should worry about?
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _These kind of measures are political suicide in Western
| democracies_
|
| CSAM has entered the chat. ("Why do you support child
| abuse, Senator?")
| sgt101 wrote:
| The one fundamental that you have to understand about all
| government is that it is essentially a monopoly on
| violence. That monopoly enables things like taxation and
| broad social consensus and consent.
|
| But, it's there, and if Bitcoin began to chip away at the
| core of any state you can expect it to be used.
|
| Some people say that they can't take my gold. Some people
| say that they can't take my guns. But history says that
| they can and will and have.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| China banned bitcoin mining and now there's hardly any
| bitcoin mining in China. Maybe the legal wrangling would
| be more involved in western countries, but I can't see
| why enforcement would be any harder.
|
| ISPs already block bittorrent and blacklist domains. They
| could easily block bitcoin, too.
| josmar wrote:
| Ultimately _I_ can memorise 12 words representing my
| private key. And when the dictatorship finally ends, or I
| manage to flee, no government can ever freeze my money.
|
| No tax man, no dictator, and no other thief can distinguish
| someone who memorised 12 words from someone who didn't.
| chx wrote:
| Erm, no.
|
| No government can freeze your bitcoins.
|
| It's not money.
|
| You might find it ever increasingly difficult to change
| bitcoins to real money if a country -- or multiple -- is
| against it. No such thing happens currently but there are
| constant efforts to bring KYC and so forth to exchanges.
| fragmede wrote:
| > U.S. persons and entities - meaning anyone on American
| soil or any U.S. citizens abroad - are barred from
| transacting with the addresses or people added to the
| sanctions list.
|
| https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/09/14/us-treasury-
| black...
| meowfly wrote:
| It looks like the UK is considering perjury and I hope they
| follow through and are aggressive on it.
|
| We can't have incentive structures where the upside is
| becoming fabulously rich but the downside is a slap on the
| wrist.
| idunnoman1222 wrote:
| There was no potential upside of becoming fabulously rich.
| Nobody can "extract" those keys.
| pests wrote:
| No need to extract keys, the Bitcoin devs could just
| change the code. Even lock up the original and mint new
| ones for Craig. It's just code in the end.
|
| Similar to how Eth changed the code to nullify the DAO
| hack.
| greyface- wrote:
| The Ethereum DAO rollback fork was (for better or worse)
| widely supported by the community. It's not likely that a
| court-ordered fork to reassign Satoshi's coins to Wright
| would have anywhere near the same level of support.
| samtheprogram wrote:
| But if it were to happen, what are the chances a fork of
| Bitcoin (that doesn't respect this ruling) becomes more
| mainstream than Bitcoin?
|
| Less than 10%, and that's generous.
| throwaway48540 wrote:
| I see it the other way. 10% chance that the Craitoshi
| fork of BTC becomes mainstream.
| rlpb wrote:
| It only works if traders also continue to accept such
| coins as payment, which they probably wouldn't.
| wmf wrote:
| His plan was to sue everyone into using his fork.
| charlie0 wrote:
| It's my understanding that simply changing the code
| doesn't really have an effect until all the nodes in the
| system update to use it.
| hollerith wrote:
| >The most insane part was that an UK court allowed the
| lawsuit to be heard, and forced dozens of people not living
| in UK to pay big money to defend themselves.
|
| Minor correction: according to the wikipedia article on
| Wright, the Crypto Open Patent Alliance sued Wright, not the
| other way around.
|
| However, IIUC Wright's attempts over many years to
| fraudulently extract patent licensing fees and other
| undeserved benefits from the industry drove industry leaders
| to spend money to sue Wright. Those attempts included
| Wright's suing many people.
|
| I'm outraged by Wright and hope Wright is forced to stand
| trial in criminal court for perjury and forgery.
| tim333 wrote:
| I think that was a different court case. Wright has been
| involved in several.
| ruthmarx wrote:
| > forced dozens of people not living in UK to pay big money
| to defend themselves.
|
| At the risk of not being able to enjoy castles and blood
| pudding on vacation, couldn't they just ignore the suit?
| sabhiram wrote:
| We are talking about it aren't we?
| bdcravens wrote:
| He received quite a bit of financial gain, latching on to and
| being funded by Calvin Ayre (of online gambling fame)
| lawn wrote:
| He did manage to bamboozle the billionaire Calvin Ayre, who
| financially backed up Craig. Seems like a pretty fruitful scam
| to be honest.
| outsomnia wrote:
| > In one instance, the lawyers set about trying to disprove the
| legitimacy of handwritten notes. ... Sherrell's team tracked down
| the printer of the notepad in China, proving that the exact
| version of that notebook had not been released until years after
| Wright's claims.
|
| lol
| latexr wrote:
| > A legal notice on Wright's website1 now states that he is not
| Satoshi and that he has been ordered not to carry out any more
| legal proceedings based on these false claims.
|
| I can see the notice, but how does that work? Did the court order
| that specific phrasing and page? Have they seized the domain? Are
| they going to run it indefinitely? Is there anything stopping
| Craig from purchasing a new domain and using that?
|
| 1 https://craigwright.net
| diggan wrote:
| It doesn't look like a seized domain/website, then his own
| personal "logo" wouldn't be there, and it would be clear some
| agency was behind it, but seems that has been published by
| himself.
|
| Skimmed through the linked court docs but didn't find anything
| about him being forced to publish something like this, although
| that would make sense if he was.
|
| Seems weird to write in 3rd person though, but wouldn't be the
| weirdest thing that guy engaged in so who knows, diggan
| certainly doesn't.
| greyface- wrote:
| Here's one relevant court judgment:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40981612
|
| I haven't read other case documents, so it may not be the
| final word on the matter. In particular, it doesn't contain
| the actual notice text.
| speerer wrote:
| Your first guess is precisely right: the court ordered him to
| post that notice on his Twitter accounts and website. It's for
| a limited time of a few months.
| ydnaclementine wrote:
| Would be trivial to prove but he can't. Like saying you own a
| particular house but you don't have the key to the front door.
| fecal_henge wrote:
| What if you lost the key?
| Evidlo wrote:
| Wish there was more detail about the typeface and notebook
| sleuthing.
| speerer wrote:
| The expert evidence is actually available online:
| https://archive.org/details/copa-v-wright-trial-documents
| Simon_ORourke wrote:
| In fairness, anyone trying to convince me of any given fact of
| authorship could do well by leaving the bright red shirt and
| braces combo in the wardrobe.
| ionwake wrote:
| I just don't understand why the guy claiming he is the creator
| and main programmer of a cutting edge anti-establishment crypto
| asset, would present himself as a suit and tie wearing business
| man who drinks champagne.
|
| Like wtf is going on.
| akira2501 wrote:
| Sophistication arbitrage. It's a common technique of the con
| man.
| unyttigfjelltol wrote:
| So, to recap, a large global industry is built on a foundation
| that the true identity of a particular currently-anonymous person
| must never be identified and certainly not posthumously.
| tim333 wrote:
| I think the crypto industry would go on. It's just Satoshi
| would rather keep his head down.
| sroussey wrote:
| I really expected Satoshi to move his bitcoin between wallets
| during the trial.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Anything in this story that wasn't news 2-6 months ago?
|
| _Craig Wright Lied About Creating Bitcoin and Faked Evidence,
| Judge Rules_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40416629
|
| _Judge rules Craig Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39704116
|
| _Bitcoin Creator Isn 't Craig Wright, London Judge Rules_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39705642
| refulgentis wrote:
| Yeah, inter alia, this includes commentary/interview with the
| lawyers
| grahamj wrote:
| This man is a true hero
|
| ...to liars everywhere. He lied, he forged documents, he filed
| suits. Most people will never go to these lengths to back up
| their lies, no matter how big the potential windfall. You have to
| respect the dedication if nothing else.
| jamesmotherway wrote:
| It's certainly interesting, but he's not a hero.
| Levitating wrote:
| Adam Back wrote Bitcoin (as well as haschash). It's not that much
| of a mystery.
| tim333 wrote:
| Or maybe not.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| It was always sad to me that most of the people I met who
| believed him were non-native English speakers.
|
| Just my experience with his followers in person. Made me suspect
| they couldnt detect nuance or bullshit in our language.
| jamesmotherway wrote:
| It's frightening to think about the implications of this when
| generalized toward mainstream topics.
| lightweb wrote:
| Craig is still Satoshi, no matter what a court has (temporarily)
| ordered him to state. Craig has followed the legal process 100%
| for years at this point, paid every (massive) court-ordered
| payment. The majority of cases feature him as defendant because
| Bitcoin ultimately threatens the establishment and must be
| controlled at any cost. This is the true source of the negative
| sentiment and constant attacks.
|
| He just today waived privilege on X and began outlining
| accusations against his previous legal representation for not
| following his explicit instructions, and instead followed orders
| from a man who has been recently convicted in a UK court, is
| facing bankruptcy in that country, and has fled as a fugitive
| from justice. The rabbit hole goes deep.
|
| Craig and the BSV Association have worked together with AWS and
| Aerospike to conclusively prove the Bitcoin protocol is capable
| of scaling to at least 120GB sized blocks, at over 1 million
| P2PKH transactions per second. The BTC core team said this was
| impossible, yet BSVA has provided data from a public cloud
| provider, with geographically distributed nodes to prove it is.
| What's more, it's been stated that it does so at an initial cost
| that is drastically less than most anticipated. These costs are
| highly likely to be lowered through optimization.
|
| The majority of opinions expressed in this thread will most
| certainly be abandoned in time when the full body of work can no
| longer be ignored. One only needs to perform a simple patent
| search to discover the depth of research and innovation
| established on blockchain, and then realize that the sheer number
| of applications and grants are not the work of someone attempting
| to pull a con. It is true innovation, the same way Bitcoin was
| and is.
| slater wrote:
| Thanks for your input, Craig!
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-09-14 23:02 UTC)