HN Explorer

Ask HN: How has Satoshi Nakamoto been so good at opsec all this time?

22 points by CM30 ↗ HN
I don't understand it. Every other major figure online who people wanted to identify has slipped up at some time or another. Leakers like Edward Snowden? Got identified by the government. People running black market services like Dread Pirate Roberts and the guys behind AlphaBay? Identified by law enforcement. Hoaxers in the media world like JT LeRoy and the guy behind the blog 'A Gay Girl in Damascus' got identified by the public or press.

Same goes for everything from famous authors with pen names and infamous internet personalities like violentacrez from Reddit.

So how has Satoshi Nakamoto avoided all this? Has he really never made a single mistake that could give away his identity? Is he some super expert at keeping his identity secret compared to the thousands of others who've tried and been exposed.

How has Satoshi avoided having his name and personal details revealed online?

24 comments

[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 39.5 ms ] thread
vinchuco
Planning and prudence. Otherwise unknown to date.
rnhmjoj
I don't remember how The FBI initially identified The Dread Pirate Roberts but they had to set up quite an operation to find conclusive proof and arrest him, including undercover agents and months of surveillance. Probably nobody has tried that hard to find Satoshi.
amingilani
He used a personal email address in an old forum post when trying to recruit help building a censorship proof market place.
phaus
Somehow I don't think the guy that designed bitcoin is going to get caught using an email address with his real name to post programming 101 questions on stackoverflow.
mijndert
It's probable that no one looked as hard for Satoshi as for the other people you mentioned because law enforcement isn't after him/her.
AdamSC1
One of the most fun theories I've heard came from a friend of mine. He believes Satoshi hasn't been found because there isn't a Satoshi, but rather that it was a code name for a major research project.

Creating, designing and building the first version of Bitcoin is complicated and spans a number of fields of expertise.

Most of these fields of expertise only have a few truly exceptional practitioners who would be capable of the original thought.

You then have to factor in the peculiar nature of:

1) Not touching his new wealth of initial Bitcoins.

2) Disappearing into obscurity.

3) Being able to avoid being discovered (or nobody actually trying that hard to find him).

Occam's Razor principle would suggest all of that is less likely to have some altruistic single brilliant individual create Bitcoin and then leave. It's more likely a team of individuals would create it under a pseudonym, dissolve after completion of the project and then no longer have access to the accounts/keys.

Large government agencies would have the ability to bring top minds together, and less interest in liquidating the initial Satoshi Bitcoins.

Why would they want it? There are plenty of reasons governments would want a public ledger system. Unlike some of Bitcoin's spin-offs, Bitcoin isn't actually really private at all. It would be great for tracking and stopping crime.

Of course this is all a theory that sounds like it's out of a spy novel, but I think it's good fun.

The other likely possibilities is that Satoshi could have been older and passed away, or he truly is some brilliant mind who is well hidden.

the_d00d
The problem that I see with your theory is that it would be very difficult for so many people to keep this a secret.
CM30
Yeah, it falls into the problem conspiracy theories do. It's incredibly hard to keep a secret when it goes beyond one or two people, especially when what's being hidden is a major controversy or something a lot of people are interested in reading about. If it was a government project, it'd only take one leaker wanting some quick cash from the media to blow the whole thing.
borplk
If I was to bet I'd bet on it being a single exceptional individual who managed to keep it secret than a group of people keeping it secret.

Anything beyond a single person massively increases the probability of a leak.

bluesign
Because he disappeared before people looking for his identity. It is hard to keep your identity when people are looking for you.
Artlav
I suspect he is either long dead or in prison.

Another thing is, unlike people like Snowden he does not have much heat after him. He is a mystery, but that's it - looking for him is pointless, since it's not like he can do something governments want him to stop doing or have something governments want to seize from him.

It would be like going after the parents of Osama Bin Laden - it's not like they could have told him to stop terrorizing.

k__
Maybe they had an accident or something.

I mean good people die all the time, just like regular people...

KanKuSSan
Nick Szabo is one of the members of the Satoshi Nakamoto team.
[dead] sayelt
Hal Fanney was Satoshi Nakamoto.
rurban
> Edward Snowden? Got identified by the government.

No, he chose to identify himself. The government had no idea.

> Private Manning?

Got snitched by a betrayer. This should not happen. He was very naive to trust an anonymous figure head.

> Dread Pirate Roberts?

A php guy. Enough said.

> The truecrypt drug king from Rhodesia?

Good opsec, but lured to Africa. He was way too big.

Lots of good hackers have good opsec. Almost nobody got caught.

samwillis
He hasn't, law enforcement almost certainly know who he is. and there is significant evidence it's Nick Szabo and/or Hal Finney.

Most people in the community believe it's probably one or both of them. Hal Finney died in 2014. Also, it's better for Bitcoin if he is never found as the bitcoin holdings of Satoshi is so large if they were to become active it would crash the price of Bitcoin.

[deleted]
(comment deleted)
BjoernKW
Scott Adams of Dilbert fame once suggested this intriguing theory of Bitcoing being the work of a benevolent post-singularity AI: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/103051092096/how-the-robots-wil...

While perhaps not particularly likely I think he does have point. What better way to slowly but steadily as well as clandestinely introduce beneficial changes to human society than to create a decentralised currency in order to influence financial markets and the flow of capital?