Wired Thinks It Knows Who Satoshi Nakamoto Is (wired.com) 291
An anonymous reader writes: In a lengthy exposé, Wired lays out its case that Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto is actually Australian businessman Craig Wright. As evidence, Wired cites leaked communications and posts on Wright's blog from 2008 and 2009 establishing a connection between him and the launch of Bitcoin. Wright is also known to have amassed a significant Bitcoin fortune early on. Wired tried to contact Wright and got some perplexing responses, and they admit that it could all be a (long and extremely elaborate) hoax. But hours after publishing, Gizmodo followed up with the results of their own investigation, which came to the conclusion that Satoshi is a pseudonym for two men: Wright and Dave Kleiman, a computer forensics expert who died in 2013. After questioning (read: harassment) from both publications, Wright seems to have withdrawn from public comment. Regardless, both articles are quite detailed, and it will be interesting to see if the leaked documents turn out to be accurate.
who gives a shit? (Score:5, Insightful)
really... what does it matter who "invented" bitcoin?
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I came here to say this same thing, only I would have phrased it as 'Who cares?' or 'Who gives a fuck?'.
Re:who gives a shit? (Score:5, Interesting)
I do. BTC is gaining a lot of traction as the defacto digital currency standard, and we have no idea who's behind it.
Bitcoin is a solid design and has survived a lot of scrutiny so far, but imagine what would happen if we found out that the design was introduced by, say, the NSA.
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Fair enough. You care. The vast majority does not. Bitcoin and other 'virtual' currencies are a fad and will vanish in due time.
Re:who gives a shit? (Score:5, Interesting)
The current versions may vanish.
However it is inevitable that in near future we will have a globaly accepted and supported digital currency.
Never Going To Happen. (Score:3, Interesting)
We already do, it's called a debit card. But the fact is, there will always be a significant contingent of people who want to live off the grid, those that want something to hold and pass around more than plastic, and homeless. "Paper" money will never go away. As irrational as it is considering how governments manipulate their paper money, many people feel safer with it than some nebulous concept of concurrency that perhaps you and I understand, but guess what? We will always be in the minority.
Re:Never Going To Happen. (Score:4, Insightful)
No, no we don't.
A debit card is NOT currency. Nor is it universally accepted. And it is tied to a single currency.
I've lived and worked in multiple countries, have bank accounts in multiple countries, and have savings and investments in multiple currencies.
When travelling currency conversion fees are annoying. Even when using a debit card or credit card.
It's all a huge pain in the ass. A real pain in the ass. I can't wait for a single universal internet currency you can use everywhere and we can rid of bank fees, foreign exchange transaction fees, and other bullcrap. It's getting better but very far from ideal.
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But if you've never been anywhere in your life, and your little bubble around you in which you exist is all you know, then sure, the status quo is great.
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Transaction fees are built into bitcoin and that's how people will get paid for signing block after the new blocks reward all run out.
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"When travelling currency conversion fees are annoying. Even when using a debit card or credit card.
It's all a huge pain in the ass."
And you think it comes from the fact of currencies not being somehow "digital"?
"I can't wait for a single universal internet currency you can use everywhere"
Yes, you do. I have news for you: that's not because of currency not being "digital" but because currency is strictly controlled by governments. You already have "borders-free" money (i.e.: dollars and, to a less extent,
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It's all a huge pain in the ass. A real pain in the ass. I can't wait for a single universal internet currency you can use everywhere and we can rid of bank fees, foreign exchange transaction fees, and other bullcrap. It's getting better but very far from ideal.
The problem with your dream is that it can't exist. Any sufficiently unregulated thing will be stolen from you by someone more badass than yourself, and anything regulated with come with inconvenience and cost.
Both come with overheads, but what we have now is about as good as anyone should expect.
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Bury all your assets in a single currency and what happens when any one you want to buy anything from, says, nuh uh, you ain't stickin me with that funny money just because you want to cheat on taxes. So likely problem coming up for bitcoin, how many bitcoins do the originators have and how will that affect things, you know, ponzi scheme side of things. So how many crypto currencies are out there now, with their own creators trying to achieve the same ponzi scheme, make millions of them real easy and then
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Would $ or euro not count as a globaly accepted and digital currency? Most of the economy is 100% digital, and I think you can pay with $ digitally in 99% of all countries.
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Try to pay in USD$ in Canada. You'll be lucky if they accept your money and even luckier if they give you any exchange rate at all.
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American money is usually accepted most everywhere in Canada though most businesses will give a bad exchange rate to different degrees. Don't know where in Canada you're having problems in. The other way, Canadian money is usually only accepted close to the border and the Americans often give a worse exchange rate.
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You can't ask for currency to have perks that you like to have in open source software and hardware (or any intelectual property for that matter). Currency is a special case of ownership, usually "supported" by governments, or on the larger scale, supported by levels of trust between governments (or groups of governments) that use specific currencies, or even levels of trust between organizations whose value is tied to a given currency.
When you ask for "support" and decentralized at the same time, you're im
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thats all very exciting, but no. the bitcoin technology is more suitable for internal banking systems than public use.
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The current versions may vanish.
However it is inevitable that in near future we will have a globaly accepted and supported digital currency.
"inevitable"
"near future"
Gosh, with statements like that one would think bitcoin would be running on an IPv6 network...
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However it is inevitable that in near future we will have a globaly accepted and supported digital currency.
That's an interesting statement to make considering opposition to such a scheme by established parties and general lack of interest from the wide public. So backup your statement. Why do you think it's inevitable/
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However it is inevitable that in near future we will have a globaly accepted and supported digital currency.
"Inevitable" and "near future" are not likely to be compatible.
Keep in mind that such currencies are acceptable only at the whim of the government, if you honestly think that Bitcoin will challenge US Dollars without laws getting passed to affect it, I've got a bridge to sell you.
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You mean all those pop sci-fi novels where credits are the universal currency will come true?
The main problem with BTC at the moment is that 1 BTC is worth way too much for everyday stuff, and there is no language for talking about small fractions. Even 1 "cent" is currently worth â3.83.
I suppose it depends what the target market is, for moving money internationally and large purchases it's not a problem, but it is unlikely to take off for daily use if a coffee is BTC 0.0052.
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I wouldn't say that at all. Whether or not the currency retains a value, the whole blockchain concept (which is essentially what bitcoin is) is gaining huge momentum in the financial industry.
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Most fads do gain a lot of momentum before they fade.
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And most things which won't fade will be called mere fads by people who don't like them for whatever reason. So why do you think Bitcoin will fade?
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You don't seem to understand that "Rock 'N Roll" is (was) a "fad" and will vanish in due time. Maybe it will eventually, but before it does it will have made it's mark on the world to the tune of half a decade or more
Maybe even longer than that. ;)
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I think when all is said and done, rock n roll will have been significant for more than 5 years.
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Bitcoin is already significant. Wishful thinking won't change that.
My daughter says the same thing about Justin Bieber...
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Yeah.
Like credit cards?
What fool is going to put their money into a bank and be issued with a number they can use to add or remove funds from this "fake" virtual account as if it was real cash?
Thank God Visa and Mastercard never took off and we still have to pay Amazon in coins and notes before their same-day-delivery.
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The fool that knows that if someone steals their magic numbers and takes all their money, the bank will give their money back.
Bitcoin is not controlled by its creator (Score:5, Informative)
I do. BTC is gaining a lot of traction as the defacto digital currency standard, and we have no idea who's behind it. Bitcoin is a solid design and has survived a lot of scrutiny so far, but imagine what would happen if we found out that the design was introduced by, say, the NSA.
That would be irrelevant. Who created the Bitcoin system, be it a Satoshi or an NSA, is at best a historical piece of information. Bitcoin is an open design and its code open source, free to be analyzed by anyone who has an interest. It is not controlled by its creator.
Re:Bitcoin is not controlled by its creator (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, the creator owns a huge chunk of coins that are worth some serious money today and will only increase substantially if the network continues to have growth.
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Well, the creator owns a huge chunk of coins that are worth some serious money today and will only increase substantially if the network continues to have growth.
OK, I suppose there is gossip value in additional to historical value. :-)
Re:Bitcoin is not controlled by its creator (Score:4, Interesting)
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That and the market power if he decided to dump them all at once.
But that is not quite control. He can't move other people's coins, he can't override the community consensus on the blockchain, etc.
Even if he crashes the price many bitcoin users won't care, how the price changed since yesterday won't matter. They just use bitcoins for transfers or payments, they aren't holding bitcoins. They immediately convert to bitcoin as needed and from bitcoin immediately. Especially so for merchants, well that is their 3rd party payment processors do, the merchants never see or t
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Even if he crashes the price many bitcoin users won't care, how the price changed since yesterday won't matter. They just use bitcoins for transfers or payments, they aren't holding bitcoins. They immediately convert to bitcoin as needed and from bitcoin immediately. Especially so for merchants, well that is their 3rd party payment processors do, the merchants never see or touch a bitcoin themselves. The 3rd party converts the merchant's fiat price to bitcoin in real-time, collects the coins and pays the merchant in fiat currency immediately.
They will care if during these transactions there's some sort of "flash crash" where companies start losing money. Maybe it won't be the end users or maybe not the merchants -- but somebody is holding the coins during the transaction and making the whole thing work. If the value takes a severe enough nosedive and becomes too volatile, it makes it risky for the intermediaries to keep handling the exchanges.
Also, they will care if bitcoins become so worthless that they are no longer feasible for these sor
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It is not. Knowing who the author is might very well impact BTCs reputation and adoption though, specially if we found out some government agency is behind it.
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It is not. Knowing who the author is might very well impact BTCs reputation and adoption though, specially if we found out some government agency is behind it.
No. Given open design, open standards, open source and a peer to peer community implementing the application of the technology ... a government agency being behind blockchain theory and its use in a digital currency is irrelevant. You do realize the "internet" is largely a creation of Department of Defense research? That Tor was a creation of DOD research?
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Right. Tell me you can't see people distrusting a digital currency if we found out it was surreptitiously designed by the NSA.
Look, i like the idea of BTC and, again, i find its design sound. People more capable than me have already thoroughly dissected it, and found nothing obviously funny with it. But sadly designs and protocols live and die for much more than their technical merits. See what happened to the last TrueCrypt release after someone thought it found a hidden message referring to the NSA, even
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Right. Tell me you can't see people distrusting a digital currency if we found out it was surreptitiously designed by the NSA.
Open design, open standards, open source and a peer to peer community implementing the application of the technology restores trust.
See what happened to the last TrueCrypt release after someone thought it found a hidden message referring to the NSA, even when no evidence of foul play or backdoors where found whatsoever.
Users did nothing. The TrueCrypt developers released an update that was read-only, stated they were done, and suggested folks look elsewhere. However given that TrueCrypt was open source users and other interested parties audited the source code, found no back door or serious bug or flaw and have created new products based on the TrueCrypt source code. These new products merely
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I wish i shared your optimism.
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Maybe they would if they had a track record of pulling shit like this [wikipedia.org].
The only thing i'd distrust the US Navy with is handling a budget.
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Whoever created it is sitting on a huge, huge reserve of Bitcoin. Enough that he or she still have some significant influence over the market, if that person decides to wield it.
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I do. BTC is gaining a lot of traction as the defacto digital currency standard, and we have no idea who's behind it. Bitcoin is a solid design and has survived a lot of scrutiny so far, but imagine what would happen if we found out that the design was introduced by, say, the NSA.
That would be irrelevant. Who created the Bitcoin system, be it a Satoshi or an NSA, is at best a historical piece of information. Bitcoin is an open design and its code open source, free to be analyzed by anyone who has an interest. It is not controlled by its creator.
It matters for reputation, and when you're talking about a currency reputation is everything.
If the founder is an entrepreneur bitcoin becomes viewed as a startup, possibly a mechanism for speculation or even a ponzi scheme.
If the founder is has a checkered past people will focus on the cyber criminals using bitcoin for ransomware, arms deals, and other disreputable purposes.
If the founder is an idealist they'll think of bitcoin as a mechanism for international development, working around broken 3rd world c
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We know that the NSA has released flawed crypto systems before, and it took people a long time to notice because those guys are pretty sly and have a lot of talent working to screw us over. We know that supposedly shallow bugs in popular open source software have gone unnoticed for years.
Frustrating as it is, we have to be suspicious of anything that the NSA has had a hand in, even if it looks okay.
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I do. BTC is gaining a lot of traction as the defacto digital currency standard, and we have no idea who's behind it. Bitcoin is a solid design and has survived a lot of scrutiny so far, but imagine what would happen if we found out that the design was introduced by, say, the NSA.
That would be irrelevant. Who created the Bitcoin system, be it a Satoshi or an NSA, is at best a historical piece of information. Bitcoin is an open design and its code open source, free to be analyzed by anyone who has an interest. It is not controlled by its creator.
if the creator amassed millions of coins early on, they certainly do control it, as they control it's ultimate value through their willingness to part with it.
No. The creator has no control over bitcoins, he/they can not move anyone else's bitcoins, he/they have no way to override the community consensus of what resides in the blockchain, he/they can not take their ball and go home.
As for your tangent regarding a bitcoin's price. Only the speculators really care whether bitcoin is $1,000, $100, or $1 on a given day. Many consumers are buying only enough bitcoins for their immediate purchase/transfer needs and most merchants "accepting" bitcoins never see or to
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Prices would plummet (for a while at the very least). The BTC market, for all its current popularity, is still ridiculously small and medium to large operations can shake its value a lot; it has happened several times this year alone.
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what would happen if we found out that the design was introduced by, say, the NSA.
good ideas stay good ideas, and bad ideas stay bad ideas, totally independent from who has created them. Bitcoin is a good idea, even if it was created by kim jong un himself.
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Maybe not, but I've bought a shit-load of humble-bundles with them.
Put in a tiny amount of cash (think it was GBP20) years ago. I've since cashed out probably ten times that in actual monetary value for humble bundles (including the ones where you have to pay a minimum to get the higher-end products).
It's a viable payment system, it just hasn't gained mainstream traction yet. What would make it more viable is discovering that the creator was, say, some entrepreneur trying to make a digital currency rather
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You got lucky. You got in on the ground floor of something which took off (and up, in value). Those coming in later don't and won't see your gains, so it's perfectly reasonable for the vast majority of people to be "meh" at best with respect to bitcoins.
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I came here to say this same thing, only I would have phrased it as 'Who cares?' or 'Who gives a fuck?'.
You do because you wasted a few satoshis worth of your time to post in this discussion.. amirite ?
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Sure, because the person who invented Bitcoin is sitting on a huge pile of bitcoins, and has the ability to completely devalue the currency, perhaps taking the opportunity to enrich himself along the way.
Not really much opportunity to cash out (Score:2)
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Not meaning to be a dick, but on modern economics all prices are based on speculation. Nothing has intrinsic value.
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Let's go to the desert. I'll hold the water...
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Now let's go to Lake Superior. See how well that works for you :)
This is exactly what i'm talking about. Water, per se, has no intrinsic value - like most things economics, value is just a function of the supply/demand balance.
Re:who gives a Trump Soundbite? (Score:4, Insightful)
FWIW, if you're sitting on a big pile of bitcoins, the best thing to do would be to sell them slowly. If I were the inventor, I would:
- Remain steadfastly anonymous (unlike anyone else who creates a major new technology.) Using a pseudonym doesn't hurt. (Hey, it works for me here.)
- Mint myself a big pile at first
- Sell them slowly so as not to devalue them or draw too much attention to myself.
IIRC, Spain once had a problem where they had acquired a big pile of gold from the New World and they thought they were rich. Then, they learned that they weren't as rich as they thought because a sudden increase in the supply of any currency inevitably devalues it.
The primary selling point of gold as a currency is that it can't be created, it can only be mined at ever-increasing cost - much like Bitcoin. The sudden increase of supply from the New World was an anomalous exception to that rule. I'm sure the Bitcoin folks won't make the same mistake.
What bitcoin risk? (Score:4, Informative)
Then don't use Bitcoins if you don't accept the risk. It's super easy.
What risk? There is little risk in using bitcoins. Convert USD/EUR/etc to BTC, transfer BTC, convert BTC to USD/EUR/etc. *Use* does not have to involve risk.
Holding bitcoins does involve risk, just like holding any other speculatively priced asset. However many users of bitcoins do not hold them. For example merchants accepting bitcoins for payment. They contract with 3rd party payment processors to do real-time "currency conversion" for BTC pricing (so products and services only need to be priced by merchants in USD/EUR/etc), payment processing and delivering the originally specified USD/EUR/etc to merchants. Merchants never see or touch a bitcoin despite the buyer making payment using bitcoin.
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Merchants never see or touch a bitcoin despite the buyer making payment using bitcoin.
For a fee. So why bother?
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I would feel very safe in betting my house on many millions of people being very interested.
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The IMF need to know who to assassinate.
Re:who gives a shit? (Score:5, Interesting)
really... what does it matter who "invented" bitcoin?
Bitcoin is a bit like a pyramid scheme, in that blocks become progressively more computationally expensive to calculate over time. Thus the first blocks were very low-hanging fruit that were quick and easy to calculate. Of course those easy blocks were calculated by the creator of Bitcoin, and it is estimated Satoshi has at least 1 million bitcoins (the current value of which is over $400 million dollars). So I think many people are curious as to who holds this wealth, which is an unduly massive reward for having created a crpytocurrency. It also raises the question of whether bitcoin was created merely to enrich the creator, or if it really was for some larger purpose. The only person who knows the answer to that is Satoshi.
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So I think many people are curious as to who holds this wealth, which is an unduly massive reward for having created a crpytocurrency.
Define unduly. Is bitcoin a better thing for the world than Facebook, uber, instagram or a whole host of others?
It also raises the question of whether bitcoin was created merely to enrich the creator
Who cares what his motivation was? The entire purpose of just about every for-profit company is to enrich its creator. That doesn't make their products less useful or worthwhile.
Re:who gives a shit? (Score:5, Insightful)
It matters because 100 years from now, people will want to know in much the same way we want to know the people who gave birth to much of our present day civilisation... the Newtons, Marconis, Teslas, Edissons, Berners-Lees, Da Vincis, Graham Bells, Franklins, Einsteins, Pasteur, Curies, Wright Brothers and lots more.
Bitcoin may not still be around in 100 years, but the distributed ledger and crypto currency genies are never going back into their bottles and they will transform the world as we know it in more ways than the internet and world wide web has. The concept of centralised control over the generation, storage and transmission of tokens of value is unravelling faster than the centralised control and distribution of information and knowledge has.
It matters because 100 years from now people will want to know more than a pseudo name... they will want to know to who Nakamoto really was, where he lived, what inspired him, what he ate for breakfast, and all the other stuff that make our modern day legends more than myths.
It matters because if we do not solve this mystery in our lifetime, the genius of Nakamoto will remain a myth forever.
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The concept of centralised control over the generation, storage and transmission of tokens of value is unravelling faster than the centralised control and distribution of information and knowledge has.
While that sounds nice, it also would not be hard for the government to regulate, or outlaw the use of Bitcoins.
Oh sure, criminals could still use them, but if you can't use them at any legal reputable merchant, then they aren't going anywhere.
It is much more likely we'll see digital cash issued by governments before Bitcoin or any other digital currency gets used by anything other than the extreme fringe of society. And there are reasonable reasons for this to happen.
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It matters because if we do not solve this mystery in our lifetime, the genius of Nakamoto will remain a myth forever.
Good.
I know how we can get proof! (Score:2)
If Satoshi Nakamoto sends 50,000 bitcoins to the wallet address 18LQHMjKSCSU3g4f29TfmtfxHXUfnh7juB, we'll know it's really him!
Wright's home raided by Australian Police (Score:3, Informative)
At 1:30pm today, Australian Police raided the home of Craig Wright.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/dec/09/bitcoin-founder-craig-wrights-home-raided-by-australian-police
Police were quick to act! (Score:2, Informative)
Just an hour ago police raided his place, more than 10 officers... But rest assured people, this is only related to an ATO investigation and has nothing to do with him being suggested to be the Bitcoin master mind. The ATO always have such a strong task force in Australia, regardless of the recent massive lay offs and the fight over the rich dodging tax for years (we just passed a bill that allowed the richest Australian's to hide their tax information due to threat of kidnapping, of which our law enforceme
Re:Police were quick to act! (Score:4, Interesting)
Hmm... I can kind of, sort of, see tax information being private for individuals. Back in 2008 or so, someone doxxed me, partially, and that resulted in someone posting my tax information online. It kind of felt intrusive and sucked to have it made public. I did the only "rational" thing that I could think of and that was just to accept it and move on. Sure, they got to see that I'd donated a bunch of money and had made a few dollars but it wasn't too bad. I'd made the mistake of mentioning the parent company that bought my company and, sure enough, that information was enough to get them started.
It was just felt intrusive. I know it's public information and all that but, really, it just seemed excessive. The forum's dead but I'm sure the stuff is cached somewhere. It might not seem like much and, really, so they learned I give money to Red Cross, ACLU, Heifer International, etc... I did have some negative repercussions. I had people crawling out of the woodwork to email me and asking me to support this cause, that cause, etc. I got hate-mail (I even got some snail mail) for not donating to a few causes. (The urge to name and shame is strong but these weren't "official" things but just zealots.) I'm not entirely sure how they got all of the information but they managed to put enough together and dox me pretty well.
Now, I'm running for office in 2016 and that means I'll be subjected to more scrutiny but that's because I'm electing to do put myself in that position. I'm accepting that I'll be public information (for a very small group of people, it's a rather tiny district) and I'm okay with that. There's a big difference between that and being doxxed and having your tax information posted online. I was already in the process of moving so it wasn't too tough to change some of the information but I ended up closing a few sites, getting rid of some email addresses, and things like that.
So, I guess, I can kind of see keeping tax data private for individuals or I can at least see a reason why we might want to have that discussion as a society. I'd not done anything wrong and I didn't stress over it a whole lot but it sucked. I got some pretty crappy emails, a bunch of begging emails, regular mail, and had to clean up after that but it really felt intrusive. It did show that I paid my taxes, in full, to the letter of the law. It did show that I have some favorite charities. I can imagine that it'd be much worse if I didn't pay my taxes or if I'd been donating to causes that were harmful. I also imagine that it would have been different if I'd stressed out over it and gone on an internet rampage trying to take it all down.
Meh... It's probably cached somewhere. One could probably find it by Googling my SSN. The genie doesn't go back in the bottle. 'Snot much I can do but it still kind of sucks. So, as I said, maybe we can have that discussion but it does presuppose that the government is doing its job and collecting taxes effectively and efficiently.
Fuck Wired, Fuck Gizmoto (Score:5, Informative)
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Quote from the article:
"The police raid in Australia came hours after Wired magazine and technology website Gizmodo published articles saying that their investigations showed Wright, who they said was an Australian academic, was probably the secretive bitcoin creator."
So no he got raided for incidental reasons. The AFP don't move that quickly even when they have real solid evidence let alone one the whim of some technology magazine.
Plus they were there on behalf of the taxation office. There's nothing taxable about holding value in a non-currency form until you actually convert that form to real currency again. Even if he had a massive stash of bitcoins it would be no different from having a massive stash of shares where the only real tax implicati
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Hmm... I'm not sure where to begin and I'm not an expert in Australian tax law.
If, for instance, you sell your business you can't just stuff the money into an investment account quickly and avoid being taxed at the income tax levels. You get taxed at income tax levels and then you invest and the profits from the investments (and just the profits) are taxed as capital gains rates. If not listed and taxed (regardless of liquid status) this might be income in Australian law.
I think it's interesting because for
Re:Fuck Wired, Fuck Gizmoto (Score:4, Interesting)
The cops were already on to him. They knew who he was. The Wired story blew it open and forced the police to act. The police did not surf around and see the Wired story and say "hey we should arrest that guy! This magazine says it's him!" They already knew. They were watching and waiting.
The magazine blew away the option to keep watching. The way the police swooped in so fast means they had warrants and plans already in the works. He was going to get raided soon.
In a sense the magazines may have done him a huge favor: there cannot now be a shadowing secret raid where the key "person of interest" nobody has ever heard of simply disappears into a prison. Wired knows who he is and so do we all now. And there will be reporters all over this like lions on meat. Wright may not escape the cops, but the cops won't be able to just bury him in jail without hundreds of reporters nagging them silly about it. Wright's cover got blown AND his ass got saved at the same time.
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Very uncool.
Where can we get a list of all the domains used by Wired to add them to our (and our friends) host file pointing to 127.0.0.1 so we can ensure we don't accidentally visit those sites?
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Doubtful.
I don't know Australian law but even things like capital gains tax only take effect when you actually sell the asset. If you buy a house and it goes up in price, you don't get taxed the profit from it until you sell the house (or otherwise trade it).
And even if it was taxed, it's unlikely to be more than a pittance of the overall amount and only an idiot would try to dump the lot, rather than just cash our a bitcoin per week or whatever.
But more likely is that in all their poking, they found out t
Is this new swatting method? (Score:3)
Police Raid basically confirms it (Score:3)
Reuters is reporting Australian police have executed search warrants (or the Aussie version of such a thing) on several different locations owned or occupied by Wrights. This proves Wired and Gizmodo got it right.
It takes evidence and time to get these warrants in the US and more time to stage people an officers and make plans for this kind of raid. Again assuming Aussies work the same way, this means the cops were already onto him before the media suddenly got on the trail and tipped him off that his cover was shattered. With the media sniffing around, he probably had time to run, hide, or do something else to escape. The cops slammed the door shut the moment they saw the media coverage. Their plans to keep watching him blown. It didn't sound like he was in custody yet.
Wired's evidence seems good and solid and the dots connect nicely. This man is an idiot tripped up by the same thing that catches many people trying to hide: their own damn mouths.
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adding my own comment from another post:
In a sense the magazines may have done him a huge favor: there cannot now be a shadowy secret raid where the key "person of interest" nobody has ever heard of simply disappears into a prison. Wired knows who he is and so do we all now. And there will be reporters all over this like lions on meat. Wright may not escape the cops, but the cops won't be able to just bury him in jail without hundreds of reporters nagging them silly about it. Wright's cover got blown AND hi
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Well, yes they are, or they wouldn't be powering the Xbone and the PS4. Anyway, no, that ship has sailed. GPUs aren't economical for bitcoin mining any more. Dedicated circuitry is used.
the opposite of fiat (declaration) it's speculatio (Score:4, Interesting)
It's actually pretty much the exact opposite of fiat. Fiat means the authority declared it to be so. The government says their dollar is valid to satisfy any and all debts, and that dollars MUST be used to pay taxes, which a majority of people have to pay. In other words, you need dollars because the government ordered that you do, and they will put you in prison unless you get some dollars to pay them with. That's what a fiat is - an order, a declaration by the ruling authority.
Bitcoin is pretty much the opposite- noone requires that you use it. It's price is purely based on the hope that tomorrow someone else might buy it from you, who in turn wants it for the same reason- they hope that later someone else might be willing to pay them for it, that the ponzi will continue and someone else will treat it as valuable.
As you mentioned, neither is backed by gold. The dollar is backed by two things. As I mentioned, it's backed by guaranteed demand due to taxes - people WILL want your dollars, because they have to have dollars in order to pay their taxes. Secondly, it is backed by the US government bomd rating (credit score) which the government must maintain because they survive on debt. If the govt devalued the currency beyond expected inflation rate, that would be constructive default on their debt, which is denominated in dollars. If they did that, no-one would lend them money anymore and they'd be unable to function.
So those are the two major things backing the dollar - the fact that people will need dollars to pay taxes, and government's need to protect their ability to continue borrowing.
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they will put you in prison unless you get some dollars to pay them with
We eliminated debtor's prisons in this country, actually. While individual states and smaller jurisdictions are, recently, pushing at the borders of this principle, the Federal government still follows it. You can be jailed for cheating the IRS, but you can't actually be jailed just for owing them money.
sometimes. Lauryn Hill to prison, Willie Nelson (Score:3)
-Most- of the time, the IRS will only take your stuff because sending someone to prison costs them money. However, Lauryn Hill went to prison for failure to pay taxes and Willie Nelson nearly did. Unlike private creditors, the IRS can seize your bank account and other assets without a court hearing, and you -can- go to prison for failure to pay them.
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Bitcoin is pretty much the opposite-
BTC is pretty much the same. Instead of the authority being an established governemnt it is a bunch nof nerds who think they are saving the world. Still the same concept.
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So those are the two major things backing the dollar - the fact that people will need dollars to pay taxes, and government's need to protect their ability to continue borrowing.
You're overlooking something...
The US economy, that is really what backs the US dollar. Well, that, and the US military, our allies, and various agreements we have around the world...
We have printed over 4 trillion dollars since 2008, but the world seems to have absorbed it, which I'm actually surprised about, but given issues in other economies, it may have simply balanced out.
The Fed's books are likely very ugly, but as long as the US economy continues to function, it probably doesn't matter. At the end
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" wired.com is a fraud out to make money"
Their mandatory pop-over 25 second video ads are the most intrusive I've ever seen. Many times I just close the tab. I might have accepted this for other websites but Wired? The high S/N ratio these days makes me want to go back to links.
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There's no ads on wired.com. If you're seeing them, you are configured incorrectly. Did you accidentally disable your ublock origin? If you aren't using that, we'll make apk come by and tell you what to use instead.
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