Journalism has never been about the truth. It has always been about getting to as many people as possible with whatever it takes. If it means abusing the subject: so be it.
> It has always been about getting to as many people as possible with whatever it takes. If it means abusing the subject: so be it.
What about the BBC? What about the Guardian, which until recently was run by a trust? What about non-profit organisations? What about news that makes money based on quality reporting of a niche rather than general attention-grabbing?
To be hopelessly cynical is probably even worse than to be hopelessly naive.
What about the BBC? It runs stories that it knows will capture eyeballs and ears. And? The Guardian - the same?
None of these organizations survive without mass acceptances of the stories they intend to run .. whats your point? That these are altruistic organizations? I think not!
> None of these organizations survive without mass acceptances of the stories they intend to run .. whats your point? That these are altruistic organizations? I think not!
Yes, they do. The BBC relies on a license fee, which is not linked to viewing figures.
The Guardian has been loss-making for years, and is not run primarily for profit.
Also, one can argue that Bitcoin is so big that creator of Bitcoin is ipso facto a public figure.
I know this is not a popular opinion on this site, but I personally have more confidence and trust in Bitcoin, or any other cryto currency, if I knew who was behind the creation of it.
That's the real elephant in the room, it's about minority vs majority - Captain James T. Kirk would vigorously defend Dorian Nakamoto's rights for privacy.
If Dorian Nakamoto is not Satoshi Nakamoto, why did he deny he was to AP? Did he suddenly discover that he could not handle being in the public light?
You'd think the reason that the real Satoshi Nakamoto has kept himself hidden is exactly for that reason; that he is quite aware of the consequences, particularly now. Moreover, the Newsweek article doesn't provide any interest titbits about Bitcoin from its creator, only a statement that might indicate he was creator, given the right context, which the reporter maintains. But given Dorain Nakamoto's grasp of English, that might be a language barrier resulting in a confusion.
I'd argue that the Newsweek article wasn't even proved to begin with. Why would the real Satoshi Nakamoto suddenly do an interview now that he is discovered? He could simply deny having ever heard of Bitcoin, rather than 'somehow' confirming it and then denying it later.
I don't buy that conclusion. The arguments for "isn't" are pretty compelling, starting with the ridiculous idea that this secretive person would use his own name as a "pseudonym" and going from there.
The arguments for "is" are silly. The guy is a libertarian (no shortage of those in the tech community). The guy is described as "brilliant"... by his family (what an unbiased source). The guy is obsessed with money (that only describes 90% of humanity).
He paints it as this extremely improbable coincidence that this guy is named Satoshi Nakamoto and has exactly the attributes that the creator of Bitcoin would have. But it looks to me like Satoshi Nakamoto isn't a particularly uncommon name (Wikipedia comes up with quite a few famous people named Satoshi, and quite a few named Nakamoto, and the combination doesn't seem like it ought to be rare). The attributes described aren't that uncommon. What are the odds that one of the Satoshi Nakamotos in the world happens to have these fairly general attributes, purely by coincidence? Pretty high, I would say.
Yeah, maybe for a lot of people it comes down to, "have you ever met somebody who, had their name included 'Satoshi Nakamoto', would have fit the profile used by Newsweek just as well". I think a lot of people involved with technology (and especially those involved with bitcoin itself!) have met such people, but most people in the general populace probably haven't.
To say nothing of how we're supposed to take his denial of being Satoshi, as evidence of his being Satoshi.
That catch-22 (he either admits it or you take his denial as admission) would give you a false positive rate of damn near 100%.
Surely that has to be essentially written off as noise if we're going to use a probabilistic approach.
That said... while people are talking about the amazon reviews as counter-evidence, due the clear ESL attributes, that bike mirror review throws an interesting curve.
Either Dorian has a habit of dictating through someone with far more fluent (and precise) English [1] or he's far better with English than he generally lets on. [2] Which is an interesting wrinkle, but hardly enough to tip any scales.
[1] "(i.e., clear though convexed)"
[2] Which is something of a stereotype of older, professional Japanese.
I agree. It's not a lay up that Newsweek is right or wrong in their conclusions. It's definitely up for debate whether their reporting methods were crafty or immoral.
Occam's razor says it is him. I don't think Satoshi ever signed any of his messages, so why start now? Especially when the Newsweek article is so clearly based on such extraordinarily flimsy evidence, that really, his denial should be enough.
I think this could also be a watershed moment for the "war" between "real journalists" and "bloggers", where the "bloggers" have reached a tipping point where they are in many cases better at finding evidence than the "real journalists", especially as you're now required to do increasingly more Internet research to find evidence for something.
I remember a few years ago a lot of people were worried about what would happen with journalism if the "media corporations" died. As others have said in the past what matters is the "act of journalism", which can be done by anyone, not necessarily that you have a journalist diploma and badge.
We live in a time when everything is getting "democratized", i.e. "amateurs" can now do a lot of stuff only "professionals" could do in the past, and we'll see increasingly more of it and in many other industries, too.
And yes, as with all democratization processes, there will be a lot of crap, especially in the beginning, but in the end you also start getting really good stuff, out of all the crap, that rises to the top, and ends up being much better than what the traditional gate-keeping "professionals" could do, and that's how you get significant progress overall, in that industry.
Here's the thing: bloggers can only research up to the scope of what's on the internet. And the fact is, most interesting things are not on the internet. Frequent users of the internet fall into a mode of "if it's not on Google it must not exist." But you'd be shocked by the things that aren't on Google. There will always be a place for journalists that have "centralized credibility." There is a reason Snowden leaked to Glen Greenwald instead of just putting the data up on the internet for bloggers to crawl through.
Maybe in general, but many specialist bloggers know how to look up the proper records that aren't on the Internet, or are (say) personally attending court sessions that won't end up on the week for weeks. Live blogging on court cases is fascinating.
In terms of brand perception, I think Newsweek is far more concerned that people know they exist, rather than the quality of journalism. I thought they had gone out of business years ago.
The brand name was purchased by a new company (Daily Beast), then that company didn't want it either and sold the brand name to a smaller company who thought the brand name might lend them credibility (IB Times).
tl;dr this only has the name in common with the long-running weekly magazine of old.
If Satoshi wanted to post a more credible denial he could easily do so. Why not just tweet a photo of today's newspaper in front of some Japanese landmark, where Dorian Nakamoto couldn't possibly be? The fact that Satoshi posted a denial but couldn't be bothered to take the extra 5 minutes to do it in a way that proves it wasn't Dorian almost makes it seem more likely that Dorian was just posting this from his basement.
Very good point, the real creator of Bitcoin could easily do that without compromising his own physical security.
Also I think that if the creator of Bitcoin had really wanted to clear Dorian's name, he would have used something like BTProof so that we know the exact time at which it was posted. If Dorian was known to be not behind a computer at that time, it is at least a much stronger indication.
Because the newspaper, landmark, and the photo itself would all leak information that very well might point to them.
If you were the real Satoshi, and you took your anonymity seriously, why would you particularly care if the press had descended on some other fellow? If the world decides the wrong man is Satoshi, the real Satoshi(s) could breathe a lot more easily.
Satoshi sticking their neck out to keep the hunt alive would only exacerbate the side of the bitcoin story that they've been trying to avoid and downplay for quite some time.
1. A picture of a squirrel or pigeon on your campus. One close-up, one with background that shows buildings, a sign, or something to indicate you are standing on the campus.
What would that prove? Anyone with internet access and a small amount of resourcefulness and cash could easily find a willing partner in Japan to take that picture for them, while being nowhere near.
Lol, it's funny how these people all get up in arms because some reporter did in two weeks using old school methods what people so proud of their doxing skills spend years on and didn't get anywhere.
Also, the barrier of proof these people are setting is laughable. It's like sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting 'na-na-na-na-na' because you don't want to hear something.
I thought people were getting up in arms because the article leaped to conclusions on the basis of little evidence. I mean, it's easy to find somebody really quickly if you don't care about accuracy.
> Also, the barrier of proof these people are setting is laughable.
what proof? there is no hard evidence Dorian is BC Satoshi other than he said /she said. It's not journalism its gossip,there is 0 serious investigation work. But what one can expect from Newsweek?
Your comment is "laughable" if you believe that stuff.
What is not convincing? If one assumes the facts as they were presented there are actually true (which is not a stretch, they aren't that unreasonable), it's 90% as credible as an actual admission. And I have yet to see why the facts aren't as they are presented, except some generic 'media are all liars, they must by lying here as well'. The backpedaling by the guy himself, about how 'he meant something else' about what he said when he was unprepared, included. What normal person stops emailing after one mentions Bitcoin? What normal person calls the police when somebody asks about it? I'll tell you what any normal person who is not actually 'the' Satoshi would do when a bunch of reporters show up on his door: he'd sell interviews to anyone who would want one, plainly saying 'it's not me'.
What is also funny, btw, is how people call the guy 'Dorian' to make sure he seems very different from 'Satoshi'. 'It's not him, see, he's called 'Dorian'!'. Yeah, uh, except that 50 years ago he actually was called 'Satoshi'. Why are you all so emotionally invested in the guy remaining a 'mystery'?
There is exactly one relevant fact in the article. It is this quote:
> "I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it," he says, dismissing all further queries with a swat of his left hand. "It's been turned over to other people. They are in charge of it now. I no longer have any connection."
That is, essentially, an admission.
Except that it assumes a few things, namely:
1. That the quote is accurate.
2. That the quote is in context.
3. That the guy they were talking to isn't just a kook who decided it would be fun to pretend, after being heavily prompted.
Personally, I find it much more likely that there's something wrong with those assumptions than that the anonymity-obsessed creator of Bitcoin used his own name as a "pseudonym".
None of the rest of the article does anything to link this person with Bitcoin. All it does is point out a bunch of minor coincidences over vague interests shared by both this guy and the creator of Bitcoin... and by about ten million other people on the planet.
mikeash raises the right questions. In Dorian Nakamoto's lengthy interview with the AP, he says that his quote arose in a totally different context. He was explaining that he doesn't do classified work for the military any more.
Different subject. Not Bitcoin.
I've been the guy with the notepad, tape recorder, etc. for a lot of years, and I'm well aware of cases where the reporter thinks he/she is asking one question, and the source believes that he/she is hearing a different one.
If the Newsweek team had recorded the brief interview with Dorian, we'd have a way of sorting this out. But -- for reasons I can't understand -- it doesn't seem as if they bothered recording it.
A few points: You seem much more emotionally invested than me. I would absolutely be freaked out if a camera crew showed up and started asking me questions like that, and cashing in on interviews would be the furthest thing from my mind (maybe I'm not a normal person either, though, I dunno). Maybe people are calling him 'Dorian' because that is reported to be his first name (which is what we usually refer to people by).
60 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 112 ms ] threadServer: ngx_openresty/1.2.6.1
What about the BBC? What about the Guardian, which until recently was run by a trust? What about non-profit organisations? What about news that makes money based on quality reporting of a niche rather than general attention-grabbing?
To be hopelessly cynical is probably even worse than to be hopelessly naive.
None of these organizations survive without mass acceptances of the stories they intend to run .. whats your point? That these are altruistic organizations? I think not!
Yes, they do. The BBC relies on a license fee, which is not linked to viewing figures.
The Guardian has been loss-making for years, and is not run primarily for profit.
I know this is not a popular opinion on this site, but I personally have more confidence and trust in Bitcoin, or any other cryto currency, if I knew who was behind the creation of it.
Look at the man and how distressing all of this must be: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrrtA6IoR_E
You'd think the reason that the real Satoshi Nakamoto has kept himself hidden is exactly for that reason; that he is quite aware of the consequences, particularly now. Moreover, the Newsweek article doesn't provide any interest titbits about Bitcoin from its creator, only a statement that might indicate he was creator, given the right context, which the reporter maintains. But given Dorain Nakamoto's grasp of English, that might be a language barrier resulting in a confusion.
I'd argue that the Newsweek article wasn't even proved to begin with. Why would the real Satoshi Nakamoto suddenly do an interview now that he is discovered? He could simply deny having ever heard of Bitcoin, rather than 'somehow' confirming it and then denying it later.
I like his summary: Both answers ("he is Satoshi" and "he isn't Satoshi") are improbable, yet one of them must be true.
The arguments for "is" are silly. The guy is a libertarian (no shortage of those in the tech community). The guy is described as "brilliant"... by his family (what an unbiased source). The guy is obsessed with money (that only describes 90% of humanity).
He paints it as this extremely improbable coincidence that this guy is named Satoshi Nakamoto and has exactly the attributes that the creator of Bitcoin would have. But it looks to me like Satoshi Nakamoto isn't a particularly uncommon name (Wikipedia comes up with quite a few famous people named Satoshi, and quite a few named Nakamoto, and the combination doesn't seem like it ought to be rare). The attributes described aren't that uncommon. What are the odds that one of the Satoshi Nakamotos in the world happens to have these fairly general attributes, purely by coincidence? Pretty high, I would say.
That catch-22 (he either admits it or you take his denial as admission) would give you a false positive rate of damn near 100%.
Surely that has to be essentially written off as noise if we're going to use a probabilistic approach.
That said... while people are talking about the amazon reviews as counter-evidence, due the clear ESL attributes, that bike mirror review throws an interesting curve.
Either Dorian has a habit of dictating through someone with far more fluent (and precise) English [1] or he's far better with English than he generally lets on. [2] Which is an interesting wrinkle, but hardly enough to tip any scales.
[1] "(i.e., clear though convexed)"
[2] Which is something of a stereotype of older, professional Japanese.
See if he can float?
Did he ask to be in the public light when the Newsweek reporter showed up on his doorstep?
Which makes the accusation worse as it adds credibility.
I think the real Satoshi would have at least signed the message.
(I'm not trying to give a definite answer either way here.)
I remember a few years ago a lot of people were worried about what would happen with journalism if the "media corporations" died. As others have said in the past what matters is the "act of journalism", which can be done by anyone, not necessarily that you have a journalist diploma and badge.
We live in a time when everything is getting "democratized", i.e. "amateurs" can now do a lot of stuff only "professionals" could do in the past, and we'll see increasingly more of it and in many other industries, too.
And yes, as with all democratization processes, there will be a lot of crap, especially in the beginning, but in the end you also start getting really good stuff, out of all the crap, that rises to the top, and ends up being much better than what the traditional gate-keeping "professionals" could do, and that's how you get significant progress overall, in that industry.
I think this is clearly false in terms of potential. It's probably the case that too many bloggers do limit themselves to internet research.
So, I think it was a very effective tactic.
tl;dr this only has the name in common with the long-running weekly magazine of old.
Also I think that if the creator of Bitcoin had really wanted to clear Dorian's name, he would have used something like BTProof so that we know the exact time at which it was posted. If Dorian was known to be not behind a computer at that time, it is at least a much stronger indication.
BTProof: https://www.btproof.com/
Or a similar service: http://www.proofofexistence.com/
If you were the real Satoshi, and you took your anonymity seriously, why would you particularly care if the press had descended on some other fellow? If the world decides the wrong man is Satoshi, the real Satoshi(s) could breathe a lot more easily.
Satoshi sticking their neck out to keep the hunt alive would only exacerbate the side of the bitcoin story that they've been trying to avoid and downplay for quite some time.
1. A picture of a squirrel or pigeon on your campus. One close-up, one with background that shows buildings, a sign, or something to indicate you are standing on the campus.
...
Also, the barrier of proof these people are setting is laughable. It's like sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting 'na-na-na-na-na' because you don't want to hear something.
what proof? there is no hard evidence Dorian is BC Satoshi other than he said /she said. It's not journalism its gossip,there is 0 serious investigation work. But what one can expect from Newsweek?
Your comment is "laughable" if you believe that stuff.
Did what, find a Satoshi Nakamoto?
What is not convincing? If one assumes the facts as they were presented there are actually true (which is not a stretch, they aren't that unreasonable), it's 90% as credible as an actual admission. And I have yet to see why the facts aren't as they are presented, except some generic 'media are all liars, they must by lying here as well'. The backpedaling by the guy himself, about how 'he meant something else' about what he said when he was unprepared, included. What normal person stops emailing after one mentions Bitcoin? What normal person calls the police when somebody asks about it? I'll tell you what any normal person who is not actually 'the' Satoshi would do when a bunch of reporters show up on his door: he'd sell interviews to anyone who would want one, plainly saying 'it's not me'.
What is also funny, btw, is how people call the guy 'Dorian' to make sure he seems very different from 'Satoshi'. 'It's not him, see, he's called 'Dorian'!'. Yeah, uh, except that 50 years ago he actually was called 'Satoshi'. Why are you all so emotionally invested in the guy remaining a 'mystery'?
> "I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it," he says, dismissing all further queries with a swat of his left hand. "It's been turned over to other people. They are in charge of it now. I no longer have any connection."
That is, essentially, an admission.
Except that it assumes a few things, namely:
1. That the quote is accurate.
2. That the quote is in context.
3. That the guy they were talking to isn't just a kook who decided it would be fun to pretend, after being heavily prompted.
Personally, I find it much more likely that there's something wrong with those assumptions than that the anonymity-obsessed creator of Bitcoin used his own name as a "pseudonym".
None of the rest of the article does anything to link this person with Bitcoin. All it does is point out a bunch of minor coincidences over vague interests shared by both this guy and the creator of Bitcoin... and by about ten million other people on the planet.
Different subject. Not Bitcoin.
I've been the guy with the notepad, tape recorder, etc. for a lot of years, and I'm well aware of cases where the reporter thinks he/she is asking one question, and the source believes that he/she is hearing a different one.
If the Newsweek team had recorded the brief interview with Dorian, we'd have a way of sorting this out. But -- for reasons I can't understand -- it doesn't seem as if they bothered recording it.
How so? I don't see why, or moreover, why it would be "of course" (as if it goes without question).