I had a GMX account years ago that was hacked and my password was pretty hard. (I generate my passwords with Keypass)<p>I suspect that this is not Satoshis fault, but that GMX security is really bad.
Is there any proof that any of this is real?<p>Since we don't know who Satoshi Nakamoto is, there is no way to prove whether identity theft occurred to this person.<p>Whoever has control of certain accounts <i>is</i>, for all intents and purposes, Satoshi Nakamoto.<p>Someone who jumps up and down claiming that <i>he</i> is the real Satoshi who has been locked out from those accounts and subject to extortion could be the real one, or could be a liar.<p>There is no way to know whether the incident took place at all, or if it did take place, which of the two people are the real one.<p>It could be a complete hoax perpetrated by a single person, or two people, any of whom may or may not be Satoshi Nakamoto. The real Satoshi Nakamoto could also be a group of people to begin with. Or a very clever dog.
If I gain access to such an account, I change the password to something that no one will ever break. Maybe besides the rightful owner by some account recovery mechanism I am unable to disable. But multiple people having access seems a very unlikely scenario to me. Why would you share the credentials (and risk getting locked out yourself)?
I think we've passed the point where even if the original Satoshi steps forward with a PGP signed autobiography nobody will believe it's really him. We like our legends I guess.
GMX has pretty bad security policies, so it's not that surprising to me that someone got access. Last I checked they didn't even require HTTPS.
What a degenerate display of "hacking." Some man (or a group, whatever) gives the Internet something remarkable and a bit historic, but wishes to remain anonymous.<p>So instead of respecting that wish we have people like this, also wishing to remain anonymous, attempting to hunt this man to shake him down for payment using that man's own creation!<p>That's closer to repugnance than to irony in my book.
I've always thought that most people "in the know" know that Nick Szabo (well the guy going under that name) had something to do with bitcoin in it's early days. If you read his blog from 1999 onward, I think you will come to the same conclusion. I think the whole "who is Satoshi Nakamoto" legend really masks a lot of the facts
Assuming what's in the article is true, I suppose it's only a matter of time before a torrent of the mailbox shows up. I have to admit that if I had access to that account, I wouldn't be able to resist the urge to clone it via POP3/IMAP – it seems strange that if "multiple people" have access to it none of them have done this.
If you really found the identity of Satoshi, wouldn't it make far more sense to contact him privately and blackmail him? He's got, what, one and a half million bitcoins?
It no longer really matters who Satoshi is. He doesn't participate in Bitcoin development. He isn't that wealthy, yet at least.<p>Nor his character assassination can affect Bitcoin much, while it could a few years ago. He was pretty smart staying anonymous, he realized he would be targeted and smeared.
As the article states, if this person had really wanted to profit, a far easier method would have been to use Satoshi's identity to manipulate the price of Bitcoin. Either he didn't, in fact, realize that opportunity (despite his claims), or he has other motives besides simply profiting from the hack. (Or something more complicated is going on.)