1. The signature was created using a private key that corresponds to the address "1Q2TWHE3GMdB6BZKafqwxXtWAWgFt5Jvm3".<p>2. 1Q2TWHE3GMdB6BZKafqwxXtWAWgFt5Jvm3 is Hal Finney's (Not Satoshi's) address.<p>3. Hal Finney passed away in 2014.<p>4. Some coins that belonged to that address were spent in 2017. [1]<p>It appears that someone else (definitely not Hal) has the private key to that address.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/70ec308460a38f6de25f89c6ed84bf68160c27834f13d17d5a713602e3a4786b" rel="nofollow">https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/70ec308460a38f6de25f89c6ed...</a>
Hal Finney passed away in 2014. But the address has been active since: <a href="https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1Q2TWHE3GMdB6BZKafqwxXtWAWgFt5Jvm3" rel="nofollow">https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1Q2TWHE3GMdB6BZKafqwx...</a><p>I see four possibilities:<p>* An absurdly elaborate conspiracy. (This is <i>always</i> a possibility.)<p>* Ghosts can do cryptography.<p>* ECDSA is cracked.<p>* Someone else has a copy Finney's key.<p>Occam's razor: spectral signatures!
Can someone who knows more than me about the internals of bitcoin help me understand:<p>1) Is there a place on a blockchain explorer somewhere where I could find the signature that Shkreli has posted? I tried looking up the wallet address and found the transaction from Jan 2009, but I don't see that signature anywhere.<p>2) The reason I ask the first question is that I believe that if the private key is compromised, then whoever has it could have generated a new signature corresponding to that wallet address and any arbitrary message, correct? So if Shkreli is in possession of the private key, he could just be banking on people not actually verifying that the signature he posted appears on the blockchain?
Related:<p><i>Paul Le Roux</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25177556" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25177556</a> - Nov 2020 (2 comments)<p><i>New Evidence Suggests Satoshi Nakamoto Is Paul Le Roux</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20115607" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20115607</a> - June 2019 (146 comments)<p><i>The Mastermind: The Next Big Deal</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11594606" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11594606</a> - April 2016 (6 comments)<p><i>The Mastermind, Episode 7: The Next Big Deal</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11591274" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11591274</a> - April 2016 (12 comments)<p><i>Eyes Everywhere: Encryption programmer Paul Le Roux and his commando kill squad</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11541971" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11541971</a> - April 2016 (58 comments)<p><i>He Got Greedy: How the U.S. Government Hunted Encryption Programmer Paul Le Roux</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11496782" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11496782</a> - April 2016 (115 comments)<p><i>The Strange Origins of TrueCrypt</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11395220" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11395220</a> - March 2016 (10 comments)<p><i>He Always Had a Dark Side</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11381625" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11381625</a> - March 2016 (351 comments)
> Paul Le Roux operated under numerous pseudonyms:<p>> Paul Solotshi Calder Le Roux, backed with a Congolese diplomatic passport[4]<p>Interesting... Solotshi<p>This is a good read: <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/was-bitcoin-created-by-this-international-drug-dealer-maybe/" rel="nofollow">https://www.wired.com/story/was-bitcoin-created-by-this-inte...</a>
If this is true, wow.<p>I've read about Paul Le Roux before as he is likely the person behind Trucrypt.<p>While he's a criminal, if he really created Truecrypt and Bitcoin and also ran an international drug/gun running operation...I'm impressed. I think this dude's story could make a awesome book/movie some day...
After some digging I found this:<p>1) The address that was used to send this message is not the first address that the genesis(the first "mined") block sent money to.<p>2) The "genesis"/Satoshi address has been used through the years a lot<p>3) The "Paul le Roux" address is far less active<p>4) this transaction was made 9 days after the first block was mined<p>My conclusion here is: Paul le Roux _MIGHT_ be Satoshi, but unlikely, more like very early adopter who either knew Finney, Satoshi or both. But neither can be said with 100% certainty.
In case you wonder who Paul Le Roux is, here’s the Wikipedia page [0] and what I believe is the original investigation by Evan Ratliff [1].<p>[0]: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Le_Roux" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Le_Roux</a><p>[1]: <a href="https://magazine.atavist.com/the-mastermind/" rel="nofollow">https://magazine.atavist.com/the-mastermind/</a>
This just feels like another entry in a long list of supposed proofs of who Satoshi is, which is missing detail (almost certainly by design) and which could have many other plausible explanations. The most obvious of which is that a private key leaked.
Can someone independently verify the decryption claim here?<p>Should I interpret this to mean that either bitcoin signatures can be attacked via hash collisions, or that they're not actually cryptographically secure, given enough time and computing resources? Either seems bad.
Would also explain why Satoshi went silent since the guy is sitting in federal prison.<p>When is he getting out? I would sell my BTC before he can move all those coins.<p>It would be in the interest of the Bitcoin community to agree on a fork to start burning those large wallets that are know to belong to Satoshi ensuring future stability.
<i>1. 1Q2TWHE3GMdB6BZKafqwxXtWAWgFt5Jvm3 is Hal's address, so that means the message was written by someone with Hal's private key (not from Satoshi's).<p>2. Hal died 2014, that address last sent btc in 2017, so someone else (estate?) had access to the private key. I wouldn't be surprised if the private key got leaked (maybe even sold), so it's entirely possible that someone else signed that message (and recently at that).<p>3. Not sure if there's evidence that Hal even knew who satoshi was<p>But yeah, crazy... I verified the message too, I just don't think it's conclusive evidence of who satoshi is/was</i><p>Interesting and important note from playerTwo in the comments.
Block 170 is not the Block Satoshi Nakamoto used to send the first txn to Hal. Block 181 shows the actual txn. In it we see the send back feature of change to Satoshi Nakamoto that was unique to their wallet. In wallet 1cbq... Block 181 10 coins left in wallet went to Hal & sent 30 back to the origination wallet. This wallet was special & Hal wanted to keep it special. In the letter to Hal that morning at 12:00 Satoshi Nakamoto sender tells Hal coins were sent & the senders initials were in the wallet used to send it. That was 1-12-09 1:02am after the attempt to first test send of a txn in Block 170 was made. In the letter to Hal, Satoshi sends their regards on the morning of the Jan 12.<p><a href="https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/12cbQLTFMXRnSzktFkuoG3eHoMeFtpTu3S" rel="nofollow">https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/12cbQLTFMXRnSzktFkuoG...</a> See for yourself. We are not uncertain & our source is very reliable.
Per the link, the signature corresponding to the address and message is valid. The address belongs to Hal Finney, and the message implies Satoshi (who sent him the initial btc) is Paul Le Roux. Any insights?
Summary: a private key associated with the very first non-coinbase transaction in Bitcoin appears to have signed a message making the claim in the title.<p>For those downplaying the claim based on the source, this is irrelevant. The signature and the public key are all that are needed. The author is irrelevant to verification, although he probably has an interesting story to tell about how he came about this message and signature.<p>The payment was locked to this address:<p>1Q2TWHE3GMdB6BZKafqwxXtWAWgFt5Jvm3<p>The first payment can be viewed here:<p><a href="https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/f4184fc596403b9d638783cf57adfe4c75c605f6356fbc91338530e9831e9e16" rel="nofollow">https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/f4184fc596403b9d638783cf57...</a><p>You can see that this payment was included in block 170. The network produces ~144 blocks/day. So this transaction occurred almost at the launch of the network.<p>Hal Finney has claimed, without proof AFAIK, that this payment was made by Satoshi to him:<p><a href="https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155054.0" rel="nofollow">https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155054.0</a><p>The implication is that a private key known by Finney signed the message claiming that Satoshi was Paul Le Roux. The latter was the subject of a piece speculating that he was Satsoshi:<p><a href="https://www.wired.com/story/was-bitcoin-created-by-this-international-drug-dealer-maybe/" rel="nofollow">https://www.wired.com/story/was-bitcoin-created-by-this-inte...</a><p>This doesn't necessarily mean that Finney was involved. You can browse the transaction history associated with the address here:<p><a href="https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1Q2TWHE3GMdB6BZKafqwxXtWAWgFt5Jvm3" rel="nofollow">https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1Q2TWHE3GMdB6BZKafqwx...</a><p>As you can see, a signed transaction was published as late as ~2018~ 2017. Finney died in 2014.<p>So there are a few possibilities for what's going on, including:<p>1. Finney is not dead.<p>2. Finney's private key was leaked to someone who signed the message.<p>3. secp256k1 cryptography (the kind used for Bitcoin signatures) is now broken.<p>4. Finney signed the message sometime before he died.<p>Given that few outside of Bitcoin know about Finney's legendary status, (3) seems unlikely because the attacker could have just signed with the private key for the genesis block.<p>This leaves (1) and (2), and (4). I'm doubtful about (1). Finney suffered from a horrible, fatal disease and it was obvious in the interviews he gave.<p>The most likely explanations are (2) and (4) IMO. The presence of the transactions signed after Finney's death is consistent with (2).<p>When a Bitcoin payment is spent, the private key often has little monetary value (but a lot of privacy value). So the cryptographic material encoding it might be treated in ways allowing it to be used by others.<p>Then again, it's possible that Finney signed the message, later died, and his private key was leaked.<p>However, you slice it, this is not clear cut. There are various kinds of evidence that would make it more so, but AFAICT, they have not yet surfaced.<p>Edit: Maybe Finney signed the 2017 transaction before he died and then it was later published. This kind of thing might be done for estate planning (although not a good idea). The transaction:<p><a href="https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/70ec308460a38f6de25f89c6ed84bf68160c27834f13d17d5a713602e3a4786b" rel="nofollow">https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/70ec308460a38f6de25f89c6ed...</a><p>spends three coins locked to the 1Q2 address and is dated 2017-09-05. However, one of the coins was only appeared in 2017. This raises the question of where that coin came from and whether it could have been minted before Finney's death.
The most credible candidate is someone who was very familiar with and keen on its technology yet did not engage publicly in the first few years [1].<p>[1] <a href="https://chainbulletin.com/the-unmasking-satoshi-aftermath" rel="nofollow">https://chainbulletin.com/the-unmasking-satoshi-aftermath</a>
previous HN discussion :
New Evidence Suggests Satoshi Nakamoto Is Paul Le Roux - June 6, 2019
<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20115607" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20115607</a>
Could someone please clarify the connection between the wallet:<p>1Q2TWHE3GMdB6BZKafqwxXtWAWgFt5Jvm3<p>And the signature:<p>HM7vpPSUbNsfDHRX6gv8xxWcVNHEc/3pOk0YrVehaGoUdbWizznfzOdELkLd1EjSXsW1oE5vHAkNAPzrAVzhuoI=<p><i>how do we know that the two are connected?</i> (I'm guessing one of them hashes to the other.)