Proof Craig Wright Isn't Satoshi Nakamoto and Doesn't Understand the Limitations of Cryptographic Verification

in #bitcoin8 years ago (edited)

Craig Wright's narrative still holds some of the rational thinkers in the bitcoin community hostage. Some people feel there are some convincing aspects to his story. But there is a problem, and it's going to separate out some of the readers of this article (irrational readers).

There is a LIMITATION to cryptography in regard to proving one's identity. Put another way, cryptography is not very good at proving identities which is in a certain sense is exactly why it is helpful for anonymity (pseudo-anonymity etc.).

So when Wright told the world on major media stations that he was going to prove he was Satoshi by moving Satoshi's coins, a LOT of cryptography and security experts laughed and rolled their eyes.

You CAN'T prove you are Satoshi by moving Satoshi's coins because someone could have stolen or some procured Satoshi's private keys that control the coins.

Some people argue that's a moot point, and those people are not cryptography and security experts, they are bitcoin enthusiasts.

Some people says things like, “Well if he moves the coins, that's good enough for me.” And that's silly and they are not cryptography and security experts either.

So in the eyes of rational players that believe Wright is a possible candidate they really only have one leg to stand on: Wright tricked us into thinking he is too dumb to be Satoshi. In other words, the narrative is that Wright made this claim so that cryptographers and security experts would never believe he could be smart enough to be Satoshi.

But now we have proof, beyond reasonable doubt, for rational thinkers, that Wright ACTUALLY doesn't understand the limits of cryptographic verification:

At ~3mins into this video Wright gives his idea for a recycling program in which the buyer of a can receives a payment automatically to their phone if they put the can in the recycling bin. Conversely, he says if the can doesn't go into the recycling bin, then we know who to SHAME.

This is an ass-backwards understanding of cryptographic verification. It is absolutely NOT NECESSARILY the buyer's fault if the can doesn't make it to recycling. And it's standard in many places to donate cans and bottles to charity drives, or homeless people, and this would become very difficult.

Craig is making the same logical error that he made when he claimed that he could prove he was Satoshi by moving his keys (he also claims that these refunds would be micropayments and at 5 or 10 cents a can this would be a RIDICULOUS statement that wholly misunderstands the term “micropayments”).

The person with the private key that bought the can is not at all necessarily the person responsible for the can's fate, throughout its lifetime just like 'the person that holds Satoshi's keys' is not at all necessarily Satoshi.

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