Did the real Satoshi Nakamoto just say Newsweek has wrong guy?
A cryptic post on a forum that appears to be from the account used by the real bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto said Newsweek has the wrong guy.
“I am not Dorian Nakamoto,” the post says.
The comment is on the P2P Foundation website where Nakamoto used to post about his idea for bitcoin and discussed its development. It’s at the bottom of a post Nakamoto made in February 2009 called: “Bitcoin open source implementation of P2P currency.”
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The post was immediately spotted by folks on Reddit, where it sparked a discussion about whether this was a denial from the real guy, or whether someone had hijacked his account. Some were hoping the person behind the post would sign it with some sort of digital encryption key that would provide additional confirmation of his identity.
Josef Davies-Coates, who helps administer the P2P site, confirmed that the post came from someone using the same email account as the original Nakamoto:
proof reg’d email of #SatoshiNakamoto on @P2P_Foundation @Ning same as one in #bitcoin paper https://t.co/5WFdE087x1 pic.twitter.com/kNkaEtdcDq— Josef Davies-Coates (@jdaviescoates) March 7, 2014
Of course, it’s possible that Dorian Satoshi Nakamato of Temple City, who was named by Newsweek, went home Thursday night and posted the comment to throw people off the trail. If, that is, he is the real bitcoin creator.
@obrien I guess we don’t.— Josef Davies-Coates (@jdaviescoates) March 7, 2014
Meanwhile, reporter Leah McGrath Goodman, who wrote the Newsweek story, appeared on “CBS This Morning” to defend her article, which has come under increasing scrutiny since it first appeared Thursday morning. She was asked about Dorian Satoshi Nakamato’s denial that he is the bitcoin guy.
According to a transcript from CBS, host Charlie Rose said, “Leah McGrath Goodman wrote the Newsweek article. Welcome. You heard what he said, ‘I don’t know the company, I have nothing to do with this.’ Why are you so sure?”
McGrath replied: “I have to say that based on the conversation I had with him, that was the clincher for me. Seeing him flee a scene and now deny it, I have to say it’s mystifying to me. His family, and that’s part of why I’d written it into the story, had told me that they predicted he would be either cagey or deny it. But with me he definitely acknowledged Bitcoin. I think at this point now he’s saying he was confused by the conversation, but I’ve also heard varying stories -- he’s told people that he was confused now about it being a question about confidentiality.”
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