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How the NSA Identified Satoshi Nakamoto (medium.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: The 'creator' of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, is the world's most elusive billionaire. Very few people outside of the Department of Homeland Security know Satoshi's real name. In fact, DHS will not publicly confirm that even THEY know the billionaire's identity. Satoshi has taken great care to keep his identity secret employing the latest encryption and obfuscation methods in his communications. Despite these efforts (according to my source at the DHS) Satoshi Nakamoto gave investigators the only tool they needed to find him -- his own words. Using stylometry one is able to compare texts to determine authorship of a particular work. Throughout the years Satoshi wrote thousands of posts and emails and most of which are publicly available. According to my source, the NSA was able to the use the 'writer invariant' method of stylometry to compare Satoshi's 'known' writings with trillions of writing samples from people across the globe. By taking Satoshi's texts and finding the 50 most common words, the NSA was able to break down his text into 5,000 word chunks and analyse each to find the frequency of those 50 words. This would result in a unique 50-number identifier for each chunk. The NSA then placed each of these numbers into a 50-dimensional space and flatten them into a plane using principal components analysis. The result is a 'fingerprint' for anything written by Satoshi that could easily be compared to any other writing. The NSA then took bulk emails and texts collected from their mass surveillance efforts. First through PRISM and then through MUSCULAR, the NSA was able to place trillions of writings from more than a billion people in the same plane as Satoshi's writings to find his true identity. The effort took less than a month and resulted in positive match.

427 comments

  1. Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    So who was Shakespeare?

    1. Re:Great! by XXongo · · Score: 5, Funny

      So who was Shakespeare?

      Say, we could find that out, couldn't we!

      All we have to do is digitize the bulk emails and texts collected from the NSA's mass surveillance of everybody in 16th century England, and compare them to Shakespere's works! Easy.

    2. Re:Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "...NSA's mass surveillance of everybody in 16th century England..."

      The problem with this is that most of what we accept today as Shakespeare's original contributions to the common English Language only popularly appeared 2-3 Centuries after his supposed existence. The only probable conclusion is that he was a Time Traveler. This is borne out by the fact that several very popular Editions of his plays were released during the Victorian Era with the Naughty bits, that we have no trouble with these days, removed.

      Past and to come seems best; things present worst.
      Shall we go draw our numbers and set on?
      We are time's subjects, and time bids be gone.

    3. Re:Great! by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

      Craig Shakespeare is the manager of Leicester City football club.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    4. Re:Great! by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 1

      Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/

    5. Re:Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or you could just compare the known works to see if a particular story is an extreme outlier in terms of word usage.

    6. Re:Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So who was Shakespeare?

      Edward de Vere, 17th Earle Oxenford. He was easily identified because his life matched Hamlet as an auto-biography.

    7. Re:Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Obviously he was with Dodo

    8. Re:Great! by daremonai · · Score: 1

      Describing his own death was a master stroke.

    9. Re:Great! by justthinkit · · Score: 1

      And a hundred other reasons. See the 2012 PBS documentary "Last Will. and Testament".

      --
      I come here for the love
    10. Re:Great! by Stormy+Dragon · · Score: 1

      Or watch this much shorter video on why the anti-Strarfordian argument is bullshit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    11. Re:Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Warning, parent's video is content-free (and annoyingly voiced). So for those still keeping score: "Last Will. and Testament" 100 and annoying YouTube video zero.

    12. Re:Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Simpler solution: find the mass grave of monkeys, and find the research institute that sponsored the "million monkeys with quill pens" initiative that used the pen name William Shakespeare for its legible works.

    13. Re:Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shakespeare and Time Travel are no strangers; there's this:
      http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0974729/

      And this:
      http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0577839/

      And even further back, this:
      http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734630/

      There's even an upcoming "Shakespeare vs. Jack the Ripper".

      Maybe Willy should be given a time-out, and bring Kit Marlowe back onto Stage, along with Faustus, and his funny Wing-Man, Mephistopheles.
      Marlowe only has 21 Screen Credits; Shakespeare 192.

      "Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. I'll tell you who Time ambles withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal, and who he stands still withal."

    14. Re:Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So it is emoji analysis in action!

    15. Re:Great! by Maritz · · Score: 1

      Never looked into this in detail but if you want to convince anyone you should cite it. This sounds like your typical mystery-mongering/anomaly hunting conspiracy stuff. Like Mozart not really writing Mozart's stuff. Yawn.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    16. Re:Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, here you go for one part of it: Thomas Bowdler, from whom we get the word Bowdlerizer:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bowdler

      Popularized Shakespeare in the Victorian Era by removing Naughty bits. You will really need to be more specific concerning what you need citations for. I've already given several citations following concerning Shakespeare and Time Travel. Do try to keep up.

  2. BS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah the NSA would love if we would believe this.

    1. Re: BS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Says the queen posting as anonymous.

    2. Re: BS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can't prove I'm not the queen!

    3. Re:BS by buchner.johannes · · Score: 1

      Exactly -- what is the false-positive rate of this approach?

      If you throw trillions of data sets compacted into a 50-d cube, sure you will find some in the neighbourhood of your target. Probably it is not just one person, but many thousands.
      Both machine learning and mass surveillance have to be gauged by the false positive rates, the false negative rates and cost (monetary and otherwise).

      --
      NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
    4. Re:BS by suutar · · Score: 2, Informative

      in a 50d space, "trillions" is still going to be fairly wide spread. assuming your axes all go from 0 to 1 and that's it, and you avoid fractions, you've still got 2^50 nodes, which is on the order of a quadrillion, or 1000 nodes per text block.

      Sure, there's likely to be clustering, but it's not quite as inevitable as you're assuming from just the number of data sets.

    5. Re: BS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can, because I'm the queen, and I'm not you.

    6. Re: BS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, *I'm* Queen Spartacus!

    7. Re: BS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      When two men claim they are Jesus, at least one of them must be wrong.

      But when four AC's claim to be old queens, we gotta figure they are all correct.

    8. Re: BS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm the Queen, and so's my husband!

    9. Re: BS by careysub · · Score: 1

      Come on someone, mod this funny!

      --
      Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
    10. Re:BS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If I took my writings, took the most used 50 words of each, then placed them in this 50D cube, I expect them to be very spread out, just like the writings of anyone else. I doubt the result would be more conclusive than confirming that writings are using the sam language. If it worked, this wasn't the algorithm they actually used.
      Besides, there are way too many N's S's and A's in S) Satoshi Nakamoto to be a coincidence.

    11. Re: BS by KingBenny · · Score: 1

      somewhat funny, i read this in a years old book named "bitcoin : the future of money" in that case satoshi must have been identifierd for years by now ... and also , this is not confirmed ? hmz ...

      --
      Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
  3. Officially Freaked Out by manlygeek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'd love to meet Satoshi Nakamoto. He/she/they must be brilliant. But if the NSA can positively identify them it is probable that no one is truly anonymous unless you simply don't ever post email, forum posts, or anything else online. I keep a low profile but it sounds like only cave dwellers and hermits can escape big brother!

    --
    Be More, Be Manly, The Manly Geek Ubergeek Extraordinaire Blogger: www.manlygeek.com/blog Podcaster: podcast.man
    1. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Nutria · · Score: 2

      It took them a month for the NSA to ferret out one person, and God knows how many man-hours of work in that time.

      Since the NSA doesn't share much with the FBI, I'm not too worried.

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    2. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In the process, they created a fingerprint of hundreds of thousands of other people for this search, so they now already have the database to compare new anonymous people to. This was likely an exercise to see how effective the technique was, not as an end-goal itself.

    3. Re:Officially Freaked Out by slickwillie · · Score: 1

      I wonder if Satoshi is a US citizen. If so, why does the NSA have all of his communications squirreled away forever?

    4. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I'd love to meet Satoshi Nakamoto. He/she/they must be brilliant. But if the NSA can positively identify them it is probable that no one is truly anonymous unless you simply don't ever post email, forum posts, or anything else online. I keep a low profile but it sounds like only cave dwellers and hermits can escape big brother!

      Develop a shifting writing style and you'll be ok.

    5. Re: Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The bulk of the processing power would be analyzing the candidate emails they mentioned. Once that's done, analyzing a few thousand posts by a person would be insignificant.

      Based on the work they did, information exists to make statistical inferences about all pseudonyms.

    6. Re:Officially Freaked Out by NicknameUnavailable · · Score: 1

      But if the NSA can positively identify them it is probable that no one is truly anonymous unless you simply don't ever post email, forum posts, or anything else online.

      Just learn different writing styles for your trolling.

    7. Re:Officially Freaked Out by r2rknot · · Score: 1

      Or, in addition to cryptography, you employee a means to 'encode' your words into a different writing style. Then use your normal speaking for everything else public.

      --
      "...whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive...it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it..."
    8. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If only they had some sort of "computing devices" that operate on increasingly large scales with increasingly more storage to index all the communications using the same process they've already identified and assign it to individuals without the need for human intervention.

    9. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 2

      I'd love to meet Satoshi Nakamoto. He/she/they must be brilliant. But if the NSA can positively identify them it is probable that no one is truly anonymous unless you simply don't ever post email, forum posts, or anything else online. I keep a low profile but it sounds like only cave dwellers and hermits can escape big brother!

      For now it's too intensive a process for them to figure out everyone anonymous. 10 years from now it may only take them 5 minutes.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    10. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Develop a shifting writing style and you'll be ok.

      I wonder if you could do something like deliberately write in simple sentences; run everything through Google Translate to another language and then run that translation back to English.

      That should anonymise you a little.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    11. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Baloroth · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Or since you're the only person whose writing in barely or totally incomprehensible gibberish, make you super easy to identify. That's a problem with most anonymization methods: unless everyone else is using those same methods, you actually make yourself stand out.

      Relevant XKCD

      --
      "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
    12. Re:Officially Freaked Out by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 1

      that no one is truly anonymous unless you simply don't ever post email, forum posts, or anything else online.

      Write in simple English and run it through a translator. Chain a few together.

    13. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      well, just make sure to only use those methods under your public persona, never in private.

      So sure the public posts stand out, they would anyway due to the username attached to them, but your private self remains concealed.

      Captcha: mainline.

    14. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For sure that's what they want you to think, but is it really the truth? No one really knows...

    15. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 2

      Or since you're the only person whose writing in barely or totally incomprehensible gibberish, make you super easy to identify. That's a problem with most anonymization methods: unless everyone else is using those same methods, you actually make yourself stand out.

      Relevant XKCD

      I wouldn't go through all that trouble in my daily personal e-mail. Only in the anonymous stuff.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    16. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Joce640k · · Score: 1

      It took them a month for the NSA to ferret out one person, and God knows how many man-hours of work in that time.

      Since the NSA doesn't share much with the FBI, I'm not too worried.

      Sure, but now they have the code written and tested it will be much faster for the next one.

      --
      No sig today...
    17. Re:Officially Freaked Out by cheesybagel · · Score: 1

      You assume they didn't have the code for this already. I've heard of similar tools being available for years now. The only way to escape is to stay in the dark. But still it took them one month of effort to determine his identity so the process isn't exactly cheap.

    18. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "But still it took them one month of effort to determine his identity"

      Are you sure that that's why? Perhaps it took that long just for the lawyers to make sure their case was ironclad. :/

    19. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Megol · · Score: 1

      Should I respond to what you wrote? You wondering have nothing to do with NSA "squirreling" anything. It is completely unrelated.

      But perhaps the intended meaning is more deserving of an answer? If NSA have stored the communication before the identity of the individual is known it is probably legal and correct to keep it stored. But you are assuming that they would keep the communication data even if the individual is known to be an US citizen - why are you assuming that to be the case? Speculation upon speculation without real world feedback rarely produces anything worthwhile.

    20. Re: Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shadowbrokers style?? Babelfish through 3 languages and anything will make you sound non-american

    21. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Megol · · Score: 1

      You don't realize how but metadata a single sentence provides. It is almost impossible to remove it all and trying to do it is a pain in the ass. If one try to do it manually (or reading the resulting massaged text before sending it) there will most likely be leaking of the anonymous writing style into ones ordinary writing etc.

      The best way is probably learning some unusual (compared to ones native tongue) language, only using that language when wanting to post anonymously and doing machine translation on top of that. But that requires one to never letting quirks/phrasing/analogies from that other language creep into non-anonymous posts.

    22. Re:Officially Freaked Out by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      This technique is called stylometry, and it's been applied with mixed success elsewhere. For example, "a check of his method, applied to the works of James Joyce, gave the result that Ulysses, Joyce's multi-perspective, multi-style masterpiece, was written by five separate individuals; none of whom had any part in the crafting of Joyce's first novel." So it should be used skeptically.

      I had a classmate who did work in this field, including not just word frequency, but also including simple grammatical structures. I find it extremely unlikely that the NSA found anything with merely word frequency. If they really did this, then they probable invented techniques no one else has used before. Otherwise someone else should be able to repeat the results, too.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    23. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Nice try. As soon as you transmit the original text to Google Translate, the NSA has you.

    24. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... run everything through Google Translate to another language and then run that translation back to English.

      While I like the idea, that may make their job even easier. I would imagine the NSA could get to the Google Translate data.

    25. Re:Officially Freaked Out by retchdog · · Score: 1

      "a check of his method, applied to the works of James Joyce, gave the result that Ulysses, Joyce's multi-perspective, multi-style masterpiece, was written by five separate individuals; none of whom had any part in the crafting of Joyce's first novel."

      idk, that's the sort of corner case where a failure actually increases credibility. it would be downright suspicious if it identified Joyce distinctly. :)

      --
      "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
    26. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was going to say something similar. Happy they can find Satoshi. Freaked out the NSA is that much of a stalker.

    27. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just use memes or emoji to communicate from now on.

    28. Re:Officially Freaked Out by rwyoder · · Score: 2

      Or since you're the only person whose writing in barely or totally incomprehensible gibberish, make you super easy to identify.

      But also easy to confuse with POTUS.

    29. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The thing is, he is writing very technical stuff that not many people would be able to understand without a careful wording. I don't think you can get away with that.

    30. Re:Officially Freaked Out by careysub · · Score: 1

      I'm betting much less effort will be required for person number two. The research is done.

      And once the technique is demonstrated improvements will be made.

      --
      Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
    31. Re:Officially Freaked Out by careysub · · Score: 1

      Probably only an automated tool that is built on knowledge of stylometry to eradicate signatures would work.

      Hey! Someone should get to work on this! (But maybe do it secretly and release it anonymously to minimize blow-back risks.

      --
      Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
    32. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Anubis+IV · · Score: 2

      There's a distinction here that you may have missed: the xkcd crooks never had anonymity, whereas the hypothetical Google Translate user does.

      The crooks gave up their anonymity the moment they registered for a license plate using their real identity. Having tied their real identity to their pseudonym, they pierced the veil of anonymity, meaning that, they weren't counting on anonymity to protect their identity. Rather, they were counting on the illegibility of their pseudonym to somehow make it unrecognizable, preventing its relationship to their real identity from being looked up. As you pointed out, those sorts of schemes rarely pan out.

      But in the case of the Google Translate user, they still have their anonymity. They never pierced the veil, so, unlike the crooks, they're still counting on the veil to protect them. In fact, this hypothetical person could make the pseudonym as distinct, recognizable, and identifiable as they please, so long as none of those traits in any way tie back to their real identity. In many cases, those traits may actually help to strengthen the veil by putting more distance between the pseudonym and the real identity.

      Where things may sour is if those steps end up also being a means for piercing the veil. For instance, the police may be able to subpoena Google Translate's records to procure information on the users asking to translate specific phrases. In that sort of situation, being the lone person translating things in that way can indeed get you into trouble, as you suggested.

      Even so, the notion to speak in a distinct form of gibberish isn't a bad one, provided you go about doing so in a way that doesn't open you up otherwise.

    33. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just realized something... There is a "R" missing from that...

      POT 'R' US

      https://s-media-cache-ak0.pini...

      It does explain most of the stuff that's been going on since about 1950.... :)

    34. Re:Officially Freaked Out by infolation · · Score: 4, Informative

      Sadia Afroz is the main public-sector researcher on this topic (stylometric machine learning).

      She gave a relevant introduction in 2013 stylometric analysis to track anonymous users in the underground and the corresponding video regarding darknet user tracking through stylometry.

      She commented a while ago "Please do not ask me to deanonymize Satoshi." and gave reasons.

    35. Re: Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or, develop a language that doesn't shift at all. This makes everyone who's using the same language and rules look exactly the same. This is precisely the kind of language that advanced AI would invent to communicate with each other. Efficient, fast, effective.

    36. Re:Officially Freaked Out by GPS+Pilot · · Score: 1

      since you're the only person whose writing in barely or totally incomprehensible gibberish

      You're new here, aren't you?

      --
      That that is is that that that that is not is not.
    37. Re:Officially Freaked Out by apoc.famine · · Score: 1

      I...I....am.....Kirk.
       
      No.....I.....I am.....Kirk.
       
      No I......I am....I am Kirk.....
       
      No I....

      --
      Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
    38. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No .. the "running" took two months on a 20,000 gpu processor. PCA is old-beans. Most folks are safe ! FMI: does "squash into plane" just mean calculate R & phi ?

    39. Re:Officially Freaked Out by geekymachoman · · Score: 1

      Yeah, they could identify texts from a pseudonym "Satoshi", who gives a fuck ? The point is not to link your "Satoshi" identity to your public profile, if you write normally using your public profile, but obfuscate a bit through your anonymous profile, this method would fail.

    40. Re: Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course they keep it. How else to track US citizens they suspect to have ties to terrorism? Or to discover new targets to suspect? The activity is unconstitutional, it was exposed by Snowden, and it's still ongoing because... why??? We all would be less afraid of terrorists if we were allowed to discriminate more. Take California for example, a landlord can't even ask about citizenship. It's like the government doesn't WANT to know about people who are not supposed to be here, and even worse is expecting citizens to just put up with it.

    41. Re: Officially Freaked Out by Jesus+H+Rolle · · Score: 1

      Just learn different writing styles for your trolling.

      I misuse apostrophes' and semicolons to hide my identity; while trolling. Theirs' also there/their and to/too/two to.

    42. Re:Officially Freaked Out by mattack2 · · Score: 1

      The (docu-)drama "Manhunt: UNABOMBER" is interesting, as a major plot point is that one FBI agent did that kind of stylometric analysis of the writings.

    43. Re:Officially Freaked Out by n329619 · · Score: 2

      person whose writing in barely or totally incomprehensible gibberish, make you super easy to identify.

      Last time I gave my friend a full list of comments from here. My friend said, "it's from slashdot, isn't it?" I said, "how did you know?". My friend then said, "they are all incomprehensible gibberish that I don't understand".

      Maybe it's a slashdotter thing, but I'm proud of it.

    44. Re:Officially Freaked Out by ayesnymous · · Score: 1

      From now on, I will have a program replace every one of my words with a synonym before posting.

    45. Re:Officially Freaked Out by ayesnymous · · Score: 1

      Not just new here, new to the internet.

    46. Re: Officially Freaked Out by guruevi · · Score: 1

      From the write up it seems like the second a piece of text goes over the wire (and unless you use a service with self-signed certs you can assume most US-based SSL is broken) the NSA picks it up. So in your case NSA would still have the original writing.

      The only thing to do is use a different ghostwriter for every piece of text you send out. Perhaps you can write a simple AI that does this for you, you give it a piece of input and it rewrites it based on others' writing styles.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    47. Re: Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      " The activity is unconstitutional, it was exposed by Snowden"
      First off Snowden did not release any information that was not already known. Collecting publicly available data is not unconstitutional. As soon as you post something on a publically accessible internet you lose your right to privacy. The tool and methodology in the article cannot reproduce any meaningful results if used to find one or maybe two people being targeted. In other words if you do something monumentally stupid to popup on the NSA radar you are pretty much fucked. Snowden also released a document with the NSA saying untargeted mass surveillance programs are wasting to many resources and receiving no benefit in continuing efforts along that same path. The NSA works with a limited set of resources. Resources that are better spent on foreign intelligence and counter intelligence programs. In the end they are a spy agency whose purpose is to protect the security of the US. And whether people like it or not the Constitution and Bill of Rights are not a suicide pact. The NSA isn't wasting resources on the domestic side of things when there are much more pressing matters and threats in the world. Every foreign intelligence agency spend the majority of their resources conducting intelligence operations targeting the US. And Russia, China, Iran, NK, and every other US enemy do not have to contend with their citizens protesting any of their government actions. Only the US is taken to task for their intelligence operations while everyone else gets a free ride. The FSB is probably funding the media campaigns to close down the NSA and CIA.
         

    48. Re: Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'll be convinced they know his identity when they take over Bitcoin itself. This is empty grandstanding, nothing more.

    49. Re: Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wonder what flavor leather they wear at the NSA. They must enjoy your bootlicking services.

      There's no reason for an agency created for extranational activity to be spying domestically, period. When's the last time they produced something of value that actually protected us instead of trying to shut us up and put us down? This country is nothing without its citizens.

    50. Re:Officially Freaked Out by grep+-v+'.*'+* · · Score: 1

      I wonder if you could (A), (B), and then (C)

      That should anonymise you a little.

      Except to Google, and hey: what do they know?

      --
      If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
    51. Re:Officially Freaked Out by piojo · · Score: 2

      In the process, they created a fingerprint of hundreds of thousands of other people for this search, so they now already have the database to compare new anonymous people to.

      Not quite. The fingerprint was based on Nakamoto's 50 most common words. You might say they created a fingerprint for every person in "Nakamoto space", but the fingerprint can't be reused to search for a person with a different set of common words. (It could, but the range would be too low--everybody would end up looking too similar.) I think you're right about them intending to reuse this technique in the future, though.

      --
      A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
    52. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      that no one is truly anonymous unless you simply don't ever post email, forum posts, or anything else online.

      Write in simple English and run it through a translator. Chain a few together.

      Ah - and here I thought I was just dumb for never understanding bitcoin.
      Oh, wait...

    53. Re: Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I guess he read just his facebook feed. You shouldnt be proud of your normie friend or your cryptonormalcy.

    54. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you did that consistently, you would stick out.

    55. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      google translate keeps a record of everything it's said.

    56. Re:Officially Freaked Out by HyperQuantum · · Score: 1

      Yup.

      See also the interesting number paradox. If there is a collection of numbers you can define as non-interesting, because they lack any properties you consider useful or interesting, then being in that collection makes them special in some way, so they aren't really non-interesting anymore.

      In the same way, taking extreme measures to make your writings lack any distinctive properties will make them stand out.

      --
      I am not really here right now.
    57. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If not why does the NSA have all of his communications squirreled away forever?

      The NSA is a US agency.

    58. Re:Officially Freaked Out by wbr1 · · Score: 1

      Just run all your public missives through an article rewriting tool or two. Yes, some meaning will be lost, but it is sure to confuse any styleometric system. As an example I will take this paragraph and run it through two different rewriters twice.

      Sample 1 (http://articlerewritertool.com/ and http://paraphrasing-tool.com/)
      Basically run all your open messages through an article reconsidering instrument or two. Genuinely, some significance will be lost, nonetheless it is sure to bewilder any styleometric system. For example I will take this entry and run it through two unmistakable rewriters twice.

      Sample 2(https://spinbot.com/ and https://smallseotools.com/arti...)
      Simply run all of your open letters through an editorial modifying device or 2. Indeed, some significance are going to be lost, nonetheless it's sure to confound any styleometric framework. for example i'll take this passage and run it through 2 distinct rewriters doubly.

      Just beware that most of these sites are bad ad landmine fields and will not work with an ad blocker. I guess that is mainly because they are used by SEO blog spamming shitheads and college students looking to make a quick paper.

      --
      Silence is a state of mime.
    59. Re: Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Affirmative, sir. You have entered the correct sequence.

      An addendum to the interested: Do not suppose you are currently capable of doing so efficiently. Assumptions are for assholes; the difficulty is greater than you imagine. A curriculum of linguistics, poetry, and knowledge of foreign languages is suggested.

    60. Re: Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Correct.

      Another example why it is dangerous to attempt to learn privacy and obfuscation techniques from nonanonymous anonymous idiots on the internet.

    61. Re: Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One leaves more clues behind than a cursory glance suggests. Diction, rhythm, spelling, grammar, and idioms are obvious. But incorrect usage of phrases as well as misunderstood meanings will get you.

      Consider a student fool who does not fully understand a programming language that copies complex code from colleagues or repositories and tries to pass it off to the professor's aides as original. Perhaps he changes a few comments, and variable names, but his ignorance of the logic structure gives it away. The fool will fail should the code be examined.

      Nor will the anonymous fool lacking knowledge of the complexities of language be able to pass similar automated examinations of language.

      How can you hide markers which you are not aware?

    62. Re: Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Leaving you with one distinct public style, one patterned anonymous style, and the assumption that you do not leave other markers that do not connect the two together.

      The path of failure is well trodden by the assumptive.

    63. Re: Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ingenius, Moriarty! Then we will tap out our anonymous posts on these old type writers and place them at the scene of the crime. Sherlock Holmes will never be able to link it together!

    64. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Anubis+IV · · Score: 1

      Which I seem to recall specifically raising as a concern when I said...

      the police may be able to subpoena Google Translate's records to procure information on the users asking to translate specific phrases

    65. Re: Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The meat is that they've automated the procedure with new algorithms potentially possessing high accuracy with a multitude of samples.

      Ulysses would be a single massive and hideously complex sample that was coincidentally composed by a literary genius who possessed a unparalleled mastery of the written English word.

      Perhaps instead of taking its analysis as proof of the unsuitability of the technique, it should be taken as a guide on how to beat it?

    66. Re: Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The grammatical structure is completely unchanged. It's not simply a matter of diction or synonym usage even. Modern automated systems account for this already. Any linguistics undergrad would be able to match the author as being the same.

      Simply run all your open messages through an article modifying device or two. Indeed, some significance will be lost, yet it is certain to confound any styleometric framework. For instance I will take this section and run it through two distinct rewriters twice.

      Simply run all your open letters through an article reworking instrument or two. Truly, some significance will be lost, however it is certain to confound any styleometric framework. For instance I will take this passage and run it through two distinct rewriters twice.

      Basically run all your open messages through an article reconsidering instrument or two. Genuinely, some significance will be lost, nonetheless it is sure to bewilder any styleometric system. For example I will take this entry and run it through two unmistakable rewriters twice

    67. Re:Officially Freaked Out by lsatenstein · · Score: 1

      Sadia Afroz is the main public-sector researcher on this topic (stylometric machine learning).

      She gave a relevant introduction in 2013
      stylometric analysis to track anonymous users in the underground and the corresponding video regarding darknet user tracking through stylometry.

      She commented a while ago "Please do not ask me to deanonymize Satoshi." and gave reasons.

      I bet you the POTUS has a unique style and only grade 8 students and below write at the same level.

      --
      Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
    68. Re: Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Umm... Guys should we tell him?

    69. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Raenex · · Score: 2

      Actually, the major plot point was that the Unabomber's brother recognized his writing style and fingered him to the FBI. Without that, they probably never would have caught him.

    70. Re:Officially Freaked Out by syntotic · · Score: 0

      Yeah, I am still asking around if it is there where my linked lists with attachTo() and Successor(n) methods winded up.. Now, can those guys keep playing and stop confusing me with whoever? Because we are on the thirteenth year of I Am Being Hacked, and They Are Stealing My Computers and now I Have To Recover My Email Accounts Too, but BASICALLY I am now doubting I have free access in G+ but can only be seen in India or in NYC. With nearly seventeen years (or more) or nearly daily text, they cannot lose me with those techs, right? I can serve as counterprrof validation! I DO remember what i wrote and would not confuse myself with somebody else. Another Pamphletdom Day.

    71. Re: Officially Freaked Out by denis.goddard · · Score: 1

      Thank you for the video link. Interesting research

    72. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... but she's cool deanonymizing anyone else.

    73. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wait, you're saying the rest of English speakers in the U.S., at least, all write with perfect spelling and grammar? No, probably not. Terse, misspelled messages on the internet seem to be the norm. Besides whatever that cheetohead-in-chief writes.

    74. Re:Officially Freaked Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is cool. Thanks very much!

  4. Sources for the article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    According to the author - ME.

    Sounds truthy enough.

  5. Grammarly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's beneficial that I exercise Grammarly. Straight away those concerned with distinguishing me, will undergo unhingement.

    1. Re:Grammarly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is my ex girlfriend. 100% match.

    2. Re: Grammarly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Better that they undergo disrobement and defrenstation, in this order preferentially.

    3. Re: Grammarly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thou abhorrent greasy tallow, the summation of techniques utilising a Shakespearean Insult Generator verily perfect unstoppableness.

      http://insult.dream40.org/

    4. Re:Grammarly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Great. So now Grammarly knows exactly who you are and all the websites you've visited. It must come as a relief that the NSA has no idea how to get Grammarly's data.

  6. Nice Warrent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Nice warrant they used there. View EVERYONES email because everyone is a suspect.

    Now, lets hear from the liberals telling me I need to pay more taxes for crap like this. After all, I do like to use roads, police, and NSA spying on everything everyone writes ever.

    1. Re: Nice Warrent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you enjoy terrorism? No? Would you like a government agency to try and stop it or stymie it? Yes? Sometimes you gotta read a few emails to break an omelette. Oh, you want them to p er deftly straddle the line between seeking out nefarious bad guys and not intercepting grandmas facebook post? Interesting, you should probably be working at the NSA if you ha e that problem figured out? Oh, they won't hire you because you lack skills, training, and exp we ience in the forld

    2. Re: Nice Warrent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All those liberals in the Bush administration that doubled down on it?

      I really don't care about this. It is an inevitability at this point. The conservatives sure as he'll won't stop it. Neither will the liberals. Neither will the libertarians or any other group if given the power to do so. Any other view is silly idealism.

    3. Re:Nice Warrent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      and NSA spying on everything everyone writes ever.

      But it keeps everyone safe from terrorists (except people who run the Boston Marathon)! The NSA would never do anything corrupt like mass collect the communications of every US Senator, Representative, and world politician and use AI algorithms to find juicy blackmail.

    4. Re: Nice Warrent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      *Do you enjoy terrorism?*

      This IS terrorism.

    5. Re:Nice Warrent by XXongo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Now, lets hear from the liberals telling me I need to pay more taxes for crap like this. After all, I do like to use roads, police, and NSA spying on everything everyone writes ever.

      I'm not sure what the word "liberals" is doing here. In general, the liberals have been rather vocal in their dislike and distrust of the NSA, CIA, and other TLAs. The support for these has been mostly been voices on the right saying "we need more tools to keep America secure!"

      As for the "more taxes" quip, in general government spending goes up under Republican administrations, and is constant or even down under Democratic administrations. (It was the Bush administration, remember, that coined the phrase "deficits don't matter.")

    6. Re: Nice Warrent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Terrorism is something governments do. No person can really benefit from terrorism as they are usually killed in the act or shortly after. They were always sent by a government.

    7. Re:Nice Warrent by fibonacci8 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      liberals = tax and spend conservatives = tax cut and spend see the difference?

      --
      Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
    8. Re: Nice Warrent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All those liberals in the Obama administration that TRIPLED down on it, AFTER CANDIDATE OBAMA PROMISED HE'D END "UNCONSTITUTIONAL WARRANTLESS WIRETAPPING"?

      FTFY.

      At least Bush II wasn't a lying hypocrite about it.

    9. Re: Nice Warrent by Falos · · Score: 1

      You can shove your whole "bcus terrorism" right up your ass. Of all the bullshit cudgels, it's the most exploited. Worst infocalypse horseman.

      Go buy a tiger rock.

    10. Re:Nice Warrent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nice warrant they used there. View EVERYONES email because everyone is a suspect.

      Now, lets hear from the liberals telling me I need to pay more taxes for crap like this. After all, I do like to use roads, police, and NSA spying on everything everyone writes ever.

      I am assuming you are a Republican based on your statement. This is funny and it is a nice try to try to blame this on the other side, but it is historically the Republicans that are for all the NSA spying, Patriot act, personal liberties violations.. yet the fake news trend is to blame it on those DAMN DEMOCRAT LIBERALS!!!! WTF?

      Morons, don't think for a second that every American doesn't see through this crap. It doesn't take even a person with a high school education to figure it out. I am talking people who work at Walmart level of intelligence is all it takes. Roughly an IQ of 75 is all it takes to see it.

    11. Re:Nice Warrent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now, lets hear from the liberals telling me I need to pay more taxes for crap like this. After all, I do like to use roads, police, and NSA spying on everything everyone writes ever.

      I'm not sure what the word "liberals" is doing here. In general, the liberals have been rather vocal in their dislike and distrust of the NSA, CIA, and other TLAs. The support for these has been mostly been voices on the right saying "we need more tools to keep America secure!"

      As for the "more taxes" quip, in general government spending goes up under Republican administrations, and is constant or even down under Democratic administrations. (It was the Bush administration, remember, that coined the phrase "deficits don't matter.")

      We had an un precedented budget surplus under Clinton, then an even more unprecedented deficit under George Dubyah Bush. The use of the word "Liberal" here is fake news. The ones that have been complaining about fake news are the ones that have been foisting it on the public though. Just watch some republitard is going to come and say what a Nazi I am for pointing this out, when it is them that is the tiki torch carrying asshole whose face was on video with them yelling about how blacks and jews are not going to replace them and all this bullshit about "Blood and soil". Republicans are the ones doing this.

      Americans have 2 options, realize the truth about all this fake news and smarten up and vote democrat from 2018 forward or

      We can fall and let America and all we have worked to build fall apart.

    12. Re:Nice Warrent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now, lets hear from the liberals telling me I need to pay more taxes for crap like this. After all, I do like to use roads, police, and NSA spying on everything everyone writes ever.

      I'm not sure what the word "liberals" is doing here. In general, the liberals have been rather vocal in their dislike and distrust of the NSA, CIA, and other TLAs. The support for these has been mostly been voices on the right saying "we need more tools to keep America secure!"

      As for the "more taxes" quip, in general government spending goes up under Republican administrations, and is constant or even down under Democratic administrations. (It was the Bush administration, remember, that coined the phrase "deficits don't matter.")

      When morons need a scapegoat to for the massive damage they've done to the US they blame it on "liberals". They don't actually know what that means or what it stands for and it doesn't matter. As long as they can shift the blame and keep their head buried. I just take comfort that this has galvanized the popular majority into action both politically and technologically. Soon enough most of these people won't have jobs anymore and since they're too busy blaming liberals for to train to be useful (or simply aren't smart enough) there will be nothing for them. And all this current bullshit has totally eliminated any compassion I had to increase social services to take care of those with no use. Well done, conservatives, you've completely fucked yourselves and don't even know it yet.

    13. Re:Nice Warrent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The only ones putting tax cutting into action are the libertarians because we're in support of cutting EVERYTHING including police budgets. And the roads are probably the last thing any libertarians are going to cut/eliminate so there is no real argument there about how we must have government because of roads. Libertarians (NOT liberals) don't believe in wealth redistribution schemes like the socialists and liberals. The libertarians don't believe in war and spending on military- or even 'securing' the boarder or public schools or welfare. Heck public schools are little more than brainwashing camps for industry- and don't take this as meaning libertarians are against education. It's just a belief that it's your problem as a parent- not societies problem- and if we cut taxes there aren't many people who would need charity to cover there kids schooling costs because incomes with rise 70%. Libertarians would open the boarders, eliminate minimum wage laws, eliminate government instituted monopolies as best as we can (ie cable television, water, sewer, electric, etc), eliminate laws that have no victims (like drug criminalization/distribution/sale, mandatory drivers licenses, license plates, and vehicular registration), laws that give the government a monopoly on mail delivery, etc

    14. Re:Nice Warrent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, so a liberal has NEVER said we need to raise taxes on the middle class?

      You are so fucking stupid its not even worth having a discussion with you. You are intellectually dishonest to the point that your words are worthless. Obama put one of the largest tax increases on the middle class in history, done via Obamacare (which they argued was a tax before the Supreme Court) and here you are saying they don't do it.

      What a complete douche you are.

    15. Re:Nice Warrent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "deficits don't matter."

      Turning out to be true though, isn't it?

    16. Re:Nice Warrent by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Nah, Dianne Feinstein has been stalwart in her defense of surveillance. It's not really a partisan issue, there are those who support it and oppose in both parties.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    17. Re:Nice Warrent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As for the "more taxes" quip, in general government spending goes up under Republican administrations, and is constant or even down under Democratic administrations. (It was the Bush administration, remember, that coined the phrase "deficits don't matter.")

      Government spending goes up most of the time and regardless of the color. If there is a difference it's that more blue's argue that this is a good thing where the red's, by and large, argue that it's bad but do it anyway.

    18. Re:Nice Warrent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not really.

      "conservatives" stopped balancing the checkbook with Reagan.

      liberals= tax to pay for what they spend.

      conservatives= tax to pay for what they spend-- spend less.

      neo-conservatives = do not tax to pay for what they spend-- spend more. heck- cut taxes to not even pay for current baseline spending already passed by all three groups.

    19. Re: Nice Warrent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Back to Reddit and Facebook with you, imbecile.

    20. Re:Nice Warrent by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      According to TFS, the NSA used publicly available material, so no warrant was needed. This is similar to saying that police looking at everone's face to match with wanted posters requires a warrant.

      I'm not happy about what's happening with privacy, and we need some changes to reflect modern capabilities that differ in kind from the capabilities that existed from the writing of the Constitution up to my childhood. That, however, is another issue.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    21. Re:Nice Warrent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now, lets hear from the liberals telling me I need to pay more taxes for crap like this. After all, I do like to use roads, police, and NSA spying on everything everyone writes ever.

      As for the "more taxes" quip, in general government spending goes up under Republican administrations, and is constant or even down under Democratic administrations.

      Many people rather sensibly move to red states - such as Florida - when they retire because they don't want their hard earned retirement taken away by the taxation needed to support liberal or socialist agendas in blue states.

      This shows up both in increased federal spending in red states (people bring their social security and medicare with them when they move), and in demographic numbers.

      So, yes, there is a difference here.

      From an economic perspective, this is actually a benefit to blue states - for people to be able to move to someplace with a lower cost of living means they don't need to save as much money while working, and thus the blue states can sustain higher internal taxes over the long term (which should not be taken to imply that money will be spent wisely).

      Also, those people will spend more within the economies of the blue states while resident since they don't need to save as much. But blue supporters prefer to ignore inconvenient facts, instead claiming they are taxed more than their "fair" share, and that red states are "welfare states" because the elderly retire to them.

  7. According to my source at the DHS by linuxguy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    An anonymous reader shares a report... "according to my source at the DHS..."

    Well, I am not anonymous and my source at DHS says that these claims are BS. Who is more credible?

    In 2014 Newsweek was pretty damn sure they had the right Satoshi and dragged a poor soul through hell and back because of their "beliefs". Can we give this topic a rest, until we know for sure and for real? None of this anonymous reporter citing anonymous sources at DHS crap.

    1. Re: According to my source at the DHS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe your source is just some lame paperpusher and not an in the know power player like OPs. Just sayin. Also, Newsweek does not equal NSA. FYI

    2. Re: According to my source at the DHS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Of course it's bullshit. They're still referring to him by his alias. This will never be news until they put out his name.

    3. Re: According to my source at the DHS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course it's bullshit. They're still referring to him by his alias. This will never be news until they put out his name.

      If I were NSA, I might use something like this for a bluff. If we get Nakamoto scared (believing NSA has identified him / her), s/he may make a mistake that will facilitate discovering their true identity.

    4. Re:According to my source at the DHS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, I am not anonymous and my source at DHS says that these claims are BS. Who is more credible?

      I am an anonymous source. It was aliens. Aliens told DHS who he is.

      Pretty sure the Russians had something to do with it, too.

    5. Re:According to my source at the DHS by admin7087 · · Score: 1

      The original story sounds very credible to me.

    6. Re:According to my source at the DHS by VAXcat · · Score: 1

      Their source is the guy in this picture. Sounds legit to me. https://regardingarts.com/film...

      --
      There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
    7. Re: According to my source at the DHS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You know what would freak him out?
      Seeing his real name in a headline.
      Seeing his alias yet again...he's not even flinching.

    8. Re:According to my source at the DHS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The author's source "at DHS" could very well be a janitor. So could yours, for that matter.

      Who is your "source" at DHS? Name, title, and phone number, please. Otherwise, your claim is just as bullshitty as TFA.

    9. Re: According to my source at the DHS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The mass analysis of data, determining 50 words is enough, mapping to a 50-space, then PCA down to 2-space sound credible to me.

      In particular, mapping it to a flat signature instead of using Pythagorean's theorem on the 50-d data points means the asymptotic coat is linear instead of n^2.

      It all sounds very plausible, until the end where no mention of statistical confidence is mentioned. That reduces the credibility in my eyes.

      Also.. why post anonymously? If the story is true, the poster would know the NSA could easily identify him. So if the story is true being anonymous only hides him from the slashdot users.

    10. Re:According to my source at the DHS by squiggleslash · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Seems improbable to me too for the simple reason that the most likely Nakamoto is actually a group of people, which would explain a number of well documented oddities such as frequent switching between British and American spelling, and other unusual aspects of Nakamoto's life. That makes me doubt the entire NSA thing.

      Part of me really wants to believe that one member of the group was really Craig Wright, partially because it'd upset a sizable amount of the Bitcoin community, and partially because he does fit the profile of what I'd suggest was the leadership of the group. I'm not going to make that bet though.

      (Of course the perfect answer would be if it were Wright, Finney, and... Dorian Nakamoto. That'd be glorious.)

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    11. Re:According to my source at the DHS by Ultra64 · · Score: 2

      >Well, I am not anonymous

      Do you really think using the username 'linuxguy' is that different?

      Nobody knows who you are, you are as good as anonymous.

    12. Re:According to my source at the DHS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We know who he is. --NSA

    13. Re:According to my source at the DHS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Meh I'm canadian and I switch between American and British spelling. If the editor I'm using at the time happens to bitch at me one way or another I let the spell checker win. I don't care that much one way or another. A lot of programs give you grief if you try to use British spelling.

    14. Re:According to my source at the DHS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As a non native writer, I never remember which spelling is American or British. Just use both without any specific reason.

    15. Re:According to my source at the DHS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >frequent switching between British and American spelling

      Ahh, so he's Canadian.

    16. Re:According to my source at the DHS by ancientt · · Score: 2

      I wonder if was created by a group of people working for the NSA. The kind of people who would be able to come up with something like bitcoin and successfully spread the idea overlap pretty heavily with the kind of people recruited by the three letter agencies. Its not hard to imagine a think tank deciding to come up with something that could be used for illegal activity in order to track that activity.

      --
      B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
    17. Re:According to my source at the DHS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You mean the same NSA that sat on public key cryptography until it got independently invented by someone else? I find that hard to accept.

    18. Re:According to my source at the DHS by _Sharp'r_ · · Score: 1

      <Movie Plot>The stated purpose to their boss was to be able to track all the illegal transactions out there by controlling the currency and making it one with perfect tracking capabilities. The real purpose is that they all plan to cash out their original stash of coins, split the money and disappear.</Movie Plot>

      --
      The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
    19. Re:According to my source at the DHS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Its not hard to imagine a think tank deciding to come up with something that could be used for illegal activity in order to track that activity.

      It's a perfectly recorded transaction history of everyone who thinks that it is untraceable. That changes hunting illegal deals from "yellow plastic knitting needle in haystack" to "brightly colored thread in a tapestry." The new challenge is arranging to "accidentally" intercept warrant-worthy information without disrupting the utility of the blockchain.

    20. Re:According to my source at the DHS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      British and American spelling aren't all that different, and as I post anonymously I sometimes switch spelling for different posts. That's a pretty tenuous reason for suspecting it is multiple people. As he wanted to keep his anonymity he may also have created the other oddities to try and throw people of his scent as well.

      Assuming it is a single person, we don't really have any way to know if such changes would be enough to throw such analysis off, personally I suspect not, but it could be, and we'll never really know because we'll never see the analysis the NSA has done, or have any way to verify it, even assuming this story is true.

  8. so? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Aaand? Who is it?

    1. Re:so? by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

      Aaand? Who is it?

      Al Gore. Al Gore invented bit coin.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    2. Re:so? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Al Gore invented ManBearCoin.

    3. Re: so? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It would help pay his electric bills.

  9. The joke's on them... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am the real Satoshi Nakamoto.

    captcha: owning

    1. Re:The joke's on them... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Please transfer 500 Bitcoins to 17Yvsma9tfiuqVP7QhsFE2VmsFpTEMy17P as proof of ownership.

    2. Re:The joke's on them... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      HOLY SHIT! HE DID! I got 500 bitcoins! This guy has to be the real deal to just transfer coins to a really random inquiry.

    3. Re:The joke's on them... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I told you I was the real deal. But you STILL don't know me!

      captcha: proving

    4. Re:The joke's on them... by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 2

      No he did not. As soon as someone tells you a wallet address you can see everything that's happening on it, you cannot troll/fake this.

      And what's with that transaction done on 2017-08-22? Is it stuck or something?

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    5. Re: The joke's on them... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Some untraceable currency lol

  10. In other news... Phrenology says smart people have by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    bumpier heads.

    And a fleet of airplanes is spraying weather- or mind-controlling chemical trails through the sky to ensure crop yields or subservience.

  11. And when they found he was a US citizen? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did they stop investigating?

    1. Re:And when they found he was a US citizen? by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

      Did they stop investigating?

      Only if he supports Donald Trump.

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
  12. So He Could Sue... by Luthair · · Score: 4, Insightful

    the NSA, I recall lawsuits after the Snowden releases were kicked out of court because they couldn't show they had standing. Apparently Satoshi Nakamoto can show he has standing because the NSA has copies of his emails.

    1. Re:So He Could Sue... by Nutria · · Score: 1

      Is Satoshi Nakamoto known to be an American citizen?

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    2. Re:So He Could Sue... by Luthair · · Score: 1

      Good point.

    3. Re:So He Could Sue... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      With a name like that, No.

    4. Re:So He Could Sue... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why? Even if he wasn't, the Judiciary Act of 1789 allows aliens (non-Americans) to file civil actions in U.S. courts. See 28 U.S.C. 1350;

    5. Re:So He Could Sue... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Jewel vs NSA was filled on 18 Sept 2008, long before Snowden's document release in June 2013. The case was dismissed in Jan 2010 because the plaintiff lacked legal standing, but that decision was successfully appealed after the Snowden release. In fact, it is the Snowden release that documents that EVERY US CITIZEN has standing in Jewel vs NSA.

      The case has since been dismissed (in 2015) as persuing it in the courts would reveal state secrets.

      Remember kids, Obama didn't tap Trump's wires, He tapped EVERYONE's wires.

    6. Re:So He Could Sue... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Coward", that sounds Russian or possibly Chinese. Was your daddy a commie?

    7. Re:So He Could Sue... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      apparently the name "Satoshi Nakamoto" is comparable to "John Smith", built from commons if not generics

      there's little to work with from someone using "a name like John Smith"

      so I wouldn't really guess if he's with Japan or USA or the eskimos.

    8. Re:So He Could Sue... by Nutria · · Score: 1

      For that suit to even have a ghost of a chance of being successful, there would have to be a law stating that the US can't spy on foreigners (especially if they're on foreign soil).

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    9. Re:So He Could Sue... by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      What could Satoshi sue for? The NSA read all his publicly available writings? Why would that be illegal? Jewel vs. NSA was based on the NSA reading private communications, so it doesn't apply here.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    10. Re:So He Could Sue... by Luthair · · Score: 1

      Pointing at Obama is disingenuous, Bush started the policy of spying on everyone, Obama continued it, and Trump is currently running it.

  13. don't worry... by jm007 · · Score: 1

    no big deal, it's just meta-data, not much to be had from that; no, we don't collect data en masse; no no, that's not piss on your back, it's rain

    if this were true, and the guy was a US citizen not under suspicion or any other legally obtained need, is that a crime? does the Constitution have any meaning to these people?

    1. Re:don't worry... by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      I should point out that the data used would not be classified as metadata.

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
  14. Re:Does the NSA follow Milton-Bradley? by Lord_Byron · · Score: 0

    So is US current, Euros, etc - it's just different people telling us they're worth something. This is the power of mass agreement.

  15. [Citation needed] by daveschroeder · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Subject says it all.

    (And yes, I read the paragraph saying there are no sources, as if this somehow represents original research.)

  16. BS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I call bullshit on this one. Yes, you can analyze data like this. But we all know it. What I find more likely is that they're trying to somehow undermine Bitcoin with this "leak."

  17. Re: Does the NSA follow Milton-Bradley? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bitcoin doesn't have the backing of the most powerful governments and militaries on earth.

  18. Anonymity is Dead by Howitzer86 · · Score: 1

    I can't help but be impressed though.

  19. Re: Does the NSA follow Milton-Bradley? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't think nearly as many people use Monopoly money for money laundering and ransomware, though.

  20. Re: Does the NSA follow Milton-Bradley? by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

    Canadian money doesn't have the most powerful government and military on earth and yet we all live daily with it. Most places will also accept american dollars but won't even give you any exchange rate for it.

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  21. you will hate me but it'll be in your head all day by OutOnARock · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...will the real Satoshi please stand up
    please stand up
    please stand up

    ....ducks!......

  22. in other words.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    they used illegally-gathered data.

    1. Re:in other words.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A different Anonymous Coward concluded:

      they used illegally-gathered data.

      Nope. For data collection on U.S. citizens and legal residents, the NSA asks Britain's GCHQ for the data THEY collect. Since the data itself was collected by a foreign agency, the NSA can analyze and store copies of it without technically violating the prohibition on them spying on Americans on American soil.

      It's a core function of the Five Eyes alliance.

      (Posting as AC so as not to undo previous moderation.)

      --

      Check out my novel ...

    2. Re:in other words.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >they used illegally-gathered data.

      You're gonna have to do better than that. The laws don't mean shit as long as the republicans and moderate democrats control Congress. If you want justice, get some goddamn prosecutors locking people up.

    3. Re:in other words.. by gsslay · · Score: 1

      Not only illegally gather data, but in an investigation of someone who has committed no crime.

    4. Re:in other words.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      'Satoshi Nakamoto' sound pretty foreign, no?
      Not being american is crime enough, surely.

    5. Re:in other words.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So childish. It's like your say you didn't steal the candy, your friend did it on your request and handed it over to you after.

    6. Re:in other words.. by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      WTF is illegal about gathering publicly available writings?

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  23. Re:Does the NSA follow Milton-Bradley? by supremebob · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There aren't many people crazy enough to pay over $4,000 each for Monopoly dollars, though.

    Like it or not, any item (even Bitcoin) is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Whether or not it will still be worth $4,000 a year from now it anyone's guess at this point. It could become the next Mastercard, or the various world governments might outlaw the currency and start prosecuting enough users to make it's value plummet.

    Personally, the lack of certainty either way is enough to make me stay away at this point.

  24. Why bother ? by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

    You can learn everything you want to know by reading the source code of the bitcoin nodes. Knowing the identity of the guy who wrote the first version doesn't really add anything.

    1. Re:Why bother ? by caseih · · Score: 1

      Ahh but see you're mistaken. What the NSA really wants is the original bitcoin(s) which are now worth millions. Other than the
      theoretical wealth of his original bitcoins, you're absolutely correct. There's no reason the NSA would ever need to know the identity of the original author as he's broken no laws and done nothing wrong and everything he wrote in software is available for scrutiny. He's just fabulously rich, albeit on paper only. And furthermore bitcoin is not anonymous at all, so the moment he tried to use his original bitcoins and trade them for real money he'd be identified immediately. So either it's all about wealth or the NSA is just on a power trip and decided to test their illegal tools identifying a prolific but elusive person.

    2. Re:Why bother ? by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      I would expect him to throw away his private keys, to guarantee they would never fall in the wrong hands. And then maybe mine some new coins anonymously.

    3. Re:Why bother ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's no reason the NSA would ever need to know the identity of the original author as he's broken no laws and done nothing wrong and everything he wrote in software is available for scrutiny.

      Yeah, 'coz the NSA totally has no interest in tracking competent cryptographers, for spying on their activities, or to propose or force employment...

    4. Re:Why bother ? by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 2

      Supply/Demand Problems with your analysis.

      If the supply of BitCoin in active circulation ever increased with the amount SN is supposed to have (guestimates) I would crash the market in no time flat.

      Then there is the problem of "I don't remember where I put them" or "I forgot my key" or "I lost the wallet" or ... any number of excuses he might have. And until he actually uses the BitCoins, they are unrealized gains and the government can't really touch them.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    5. Re:Why bother ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You didn't RTFA. They were supposedly interested in the motive for bitcoin.

      You don't know for sure that the comments in the code reveal the designers' true motives. They're probably truthful, but if you knew who wrote it, you could read what else they wrote and learn more about what they were thinking and why they wanted a "better" form of money.

  25. How to stay anonymous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This brings up a question, if you were writing anonymously how much effort is needed to bypass this method? Seems like you could easily just write something as you normally would, then spend an extra 10 minutes or so per large text block size replacing some words and sentence structures. Even if you followed a consistent pattern would that make it unlinkable to your other non-anonymous writings?

    Also did they have a short list of people they wanted to compare to? Hypothetically if I wrote exactly like him would they have matched me? Or only look at certain people with a background in this type of thing who happened to write online articles semi-connect to this.

    1. Re:How to stay anonymous by PPH · · Score: 1

      There are applications that can 'Roget' written material. Google 'sinister buttocks'.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    2. Re:How to stay anonymous by GuB-42 · · Score: 1

      Going through an automatic translator probably works.
      I don't really believe that stylometry is as effective as the article says though.

  26. The right to be private.. by sqorbit · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Doesn't this person deserve the right not to have their identity known? They have not (as far I as I know) committed a crime or being investigated for a criminal act. I'm sure the motivation behind remaining anonymous is for his own safety and well being. If someone has not released their identity on purpose, and even more so gone to lengths to keep it private why is anyone trying to find out who he is. Sure there's an interest level there. There's quite possibly a lot to learn, but at what cost? I know most of these points are completely obvious and the answers are also unfortunately obvious, but it needs to be said anyway.

    --
    Sent from my TARDIS
    1. Re:The right to be private.. by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

      Doesn't this person deserve the right not to have their identity known? They have not (as far I as I know) committed a crime or being investigated for a criminal act.

      Do they deserve privacy? Absolutely.

      Is it to be expected? No. It's not hard to see strategic value for an intelligence agency to know who created and has influence over what has become an increasing important economic exchange. They might be interested too if he HAD done anything wrong, if he were really involved in some black market transfers and that was his motivation behind creating the bitcoin. (no evidence of that so shouldn't invade his privacy... but easy to see why agencies would).

      No one deserves to be violated by intelligence communities without having done wrong, but we all know it's going to happen.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    2. Re:The right to be private.. by chispito · · Score: 1

      Doesn't this person deserve the right not to have their identity known?

      Doing very public things anonymously is a funny definition of privacy.

      --
      The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
    3. Re:The right to be private.. by Ichijo · · Score: 1

      Sure, but he left his fingerprint all over the public Internet. At some point a person needs to take responsibility for their own anonymity.

      --
      Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
    4. Re:The right to be private.. by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure any billionaire deserves the right to be anonymous. When you accumulate that much power, knowing who you are seems important.

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    5. Re:The right to be private.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Where did the idea come from that it is okay to develop an app/application or software that prompts users to upload their contacts, address book, or any data?

       

    6. Re:The right to be private.. by houghi · · Score: 1

      I understand this site is a dicussion platform and I enjoy discussing SF and Fantasy as much as the ext guy, but please keep this relevant.
      Oh, you thought any rights where real? I have some bad news for you.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  27. NSA black funding opportunity? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So now that they know who he is, they can blackmail him, and use it to fund covert ops, and new data-centers? That sounds fair.

    What was the critical "national-security" need that drove his unmasking? Was this a recruitment technique? Did the banks that own modern politicians drive them to do it in order to try and damage the value of bitcoin? Was he financing Saudi Arabia?

    This sounds like a mis-use of federal funds, and a circumstance with exceptional opportunity for abuse.

  28. Why? by PPH · · Score: 1

    Why identify Satoshi Nakamoto? Wouldn't it be of more use to identify the users of Bitcoin?

    On the other hand, public knowledge (at some point) of Satoshi's identity could serve to protect him against pressure or retribution from the TLAs. If he or his associates can prove his identity, the gov't or banks can't very well engineer his disappearance.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
    1. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      um, that's already done. All transactions are in a register. Tracking bitcoin users can be done through their purchase logs.

    2. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Helping plebs dodge income taxes is SERIOUS BUSINESS.

    3. Re:Why? by PPH · · Score: 5, Insightful

      violated Satoshi's and a billion other people's privacy

      They violated Satoshi's privacy just for the practice. They violated a billion other's privacy to build a baseline corpus to tune their search application.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    4. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unless he's a foreign person on foreign soil, trawling through NSA databases to find him sounds bonkers illegal.

    5. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Seriously? It is the NSA. They want to know who to kill if those billions of dollars in bitcoin start moving in ways the US does not like.

    6. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Sir, please describe to us any vulnerabilities you contemplated while developing bitcoin. What potential weaknesses did you see?"

    7. Re:Why? by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Is Satoshi Nakamoto suspected of a crime? Is he or she a threat to national security?

      One of the theories regarding Bitcoin is that it is an effort by a national actor to crash other nation's economies.

    8. Re:Why? by Namarrgon · · Score: 1

      Indeed; creators of fundamentally important technologies are always of interest. As a similar example, if a new and promising encryption technique might get widely adopted, wouldn't you prefer to know exactly where it came from?

      --
      Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
    9. Re:Why? by duke_cheetah2003 · · Score: 1

      Is Satoshi Nakamoto suspected of a crime? Is he or she a threat to national security?
      The NSA has expended all this effort and violated Satoshi's and a billion other people's privacy for.... what? Shits and giggles?

      You know, when I mentioned this to coworkers, whom are not technical, that was their question too. Why? What did he do?

      Exist, apparently. Guess that's a crime too.

    10. Re:Why? by budsetr · · Score: 1

      He is suspected of encrypting stuff. That's like a hate crime to the NSA.

    11. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually I knew this was coming. I have a strong bet that in the future, all of these so called "anonymous" posts will be trivially tied to people, for fun and sport, by the masses, or corporations, or straight up curious historians.

      I could even see people being prosecuted for having outdated beliefs. Prosecuted like how people who still pursue nazi war criminals today based on what they did 60 years ago. Perhaps in the future, your posts about how much gas you waste "rolling coal" or some such, will land you in environmental prison when that becomes the new mass genocide that could have been avoided.

      I really should write sci-fi. Now to post anonymously or not, i guess it doesnt really matter!

    12. Re:Why? by Gussington · · Score: 2

      Is Satoshi Nakamoto suspected of a crime? Is he or she a threat to national security? The NSA has expended all this effort and violated Satoshi's and a billion other people's privacy for.... what? Shits and giggles?

      For national security obviously. You might not agree, but information is power, and our security agencies are charged with maintaining position of power. Or do you think all decisions around national security should be held by popular vote instead?

    13. Re:Why? by grep+-v+'.*'+* · · Score: 1

      **THIS**

      IF they actually found him, I think the did it simply for the practice. "If we can find HIM, we can find ANYONE". Plus, they can talk to the guy (or gal), "make them an offer they can't refuse", and also verify that it actually IS the guy(s) they're searching for and not just some lame wanna-be. (Yes! My name *is* Natsu Dragneel Nakamoto. Wait -- where are you going? Did I say something wrong?)

      That is, if they've actually done it. I wouldn't put it past the nebulous governmental "them" to do it -- to show that they CAN, and to verify with 100% certainty they've got the right person and not am impostor.

      What better demo to give than to provability decode block 1 -- I'm sure even CongressCritters have heard of BitCoin, if just from their grandsons.

      --
      If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
    14. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So how many laws do they get to break and how many rights do they get to ignore in the name of national security?

  29. Mass surveillance used to outrage us by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Now its being openly used for trivial shit like identifying someone who wrote software that is in no way illegal.
    Illegally gather the data, use it to identify random people online that have done nothing wrong but are interesting to you.. IS EXACTLY WHY MASS SURVEILLANCE ISN'T OK

  30. Dogecoin! by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 3, Funny

    Dogecoin to the moon! Dogecoin will be valued at over two dollars before the end of the year.

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  31. We were warned by duke_cheetah2003 · · Score: 1

    Reminds me of the early days (mid 1990's) of PGP, when there was a now obviously ineffective campaign to encourage everyone to put their emails into the 'encryption envelope.'

    We didn't listen. Now this is possible.

  32. Re:In other news... Phrenology says smart people h by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    CBS already has subservience. Did you see how quickly Hillary Clinton went from anti-gay to pro-gay? Did you see how quickly America did?

    Do not attribute to a complex thing that which is more than adequately explained by a simple thing. TV already owns you.

  33. Why? by tomthepom · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is Satoshi Nakamoto suspected of a crime? Is he or she a threat to national security?
    The NSA has expended all this effort and violated Satoshi's and a billion other people's privacy for.... what? Shits and giggles?

  34. ask inside how you can be Satoshi Nakamoto, too! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am Satoshi Nakamoto.

    And so's my wife!

  35. And some Americans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Thought this was a good law enforcement power for Obama to abuse. Which he did. Extensively.

    And then other Americans gave this power to Trump and his minions.

    Good job. Won't be abused at all. Nope, no way.

    The next asshole in the white house is going to be the real tyrant.

  36. They've used this technology before by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    To find all the jokes Carlos Mencia stole.

  37. Doesn't pass the sniff test by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    A quick sanity check, suggests the story as submitted isn't true, if Satoshi Nakamoto used encryption all the time, the first port of call would be to filter for people using encryption. Then by links to others known to be involved in Bitcoin. i.e. you wouldn't use stylometry which is known to be limited.

    So what is the story here?

    AC submitter is trying to sell his phrenology technology, erm I mean stylometry technology? That could be it.

    Or prehaps he's trying to plant the 'NSA bulk search of text using stylometry' idea in peoples head. i.e. that NSA gets all the *contents* of everyone emails and bulk searches those. Something it would have to fight a lot of companies to do. But then if it had the contents, why wouldn't it search for discussions on bitcoin algos?

    So no, I don't think the story rings true.

    "But why? Why go to so much trouble to identify Satoshi? My source tells me that the Obama administration was concerned that Satoshi was an agent of Russia or China—that Bitcoin might be weaponized against us in the future. "

    Yeh, unlikely plot, given its open source you could just check the code.

  38. Re: Anyone who believes this is a cow. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did you get the new CD?

  39. Just like the Unabomber by al0ha · · Score: 1

    Nothing new here folks, same method was used to nail Ted Kaczynski - of course it was much more difficult back then so a far greater accomplishment.

    --
    Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
    1. Re:Just like the Unabomber by slew · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Nothing new here folks, same method was used to nail Ted Kaczynski - of course it was much more difficult back then so a far greater accomplishment.

      Actually, I think David Kaczynski simply turned in his brother after reading his manifesto and recognizing his brother's writing style...

      If you want call that the same method, well, I guess you are entitled, but that probably implies that Satoshi's brother works for the NSA... If that were true, I think the NSA creating bitcoin would be a far greater accomplishment than nabbing Ted...

    2. Re:Just like the Unabomber by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nothing new here folks, same method was used to nail Ted Kaczynski - of course it was much more difficult back then so a far greater accomplishment.

      Actually, I think David Kaczynski simply turned in his brother after reading his manifesto and recognizing his brother's writing style...

      Just like a Computer.

      If you want call that the same method, well, I guess you are entitled, but that probably implies that Satoshi's brother works for the NSA...

      For all we know, he might.

      If that were true, I think the NSA creating bitcoin would be a far greater accomplishment than nabbing Ted...

      Personally, I wonder if some government somewhere didn't crack out a bunch of numbers on an idle supercomputer just to jam up their debt.

    3. Re:Just like the Unabomber by al0ha · · Score: 2

      David's wife recognized the writing; only after an FBI profiler and a scientist in the budding field did all the grunt work and learned to tie all the bits of evidence together, letters, etc.; then decided to publish the manifesto. They knew who it was through the same techniques, they only needed a name.

      --
      Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
    4. Re:Just like the Unabomber by al0ha · · Score: 1

      Link on PBS to back up everything I say about this... http://www.pbs.org/opb/history...

      Now mod me 5 insightful please, the original reply to my post which is completely incorrect was modded 4 insightful - friggin' /.

      --
      Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
    5. Re:Just like the Unabomber by gr8dude · · Score: 1

      The same method?

      His brother contacted the police, telling them that the manifesto is something that reminds him of his brother's style. The methods are different, there's no mass surveillance in Kaczynski's case.

    6. Re:Just like the Unabomber by xbytor · · Score: 1

      >Actually, I think David Kaczynski simply turned in his brother after reading his manifesto and recognizing his brother's writing style...

      Actually, David's wife read it, thought it sounded like Ted's rantings, and told David to take a look. He eventually got in contact with the FBI.

      The FBI apparently had developed a linguistic profile and amassed tons of evidence. But in this case, it was David and his wife that cracked the case. The FBI had all of that evidence but no suspects.

  40. This is ok by Headw1nd · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm sure there will be loads of posts here denouncing the NSA for this, because it is in fact creepy and invasive. However, this kind of thing is *exactly* what they should be doing. "Satoshi Nakamoto" is a figure who created a economy-changing product, and as a result holds assets that value in the billions. Their motivations, ideology, and state ties were unknown, though they maintained they were not an American. It's completely reasonable for government to find out who this person is, and determine if they were and ally, an enemy, or neither. Now that they know they can act accordingly.

    1. Re:This is ok by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's really just so the IRS can collect income tax on all of his Bitcoin earnings.

    2. Re:This is ok by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      so its ok for them to trample the rights of as many people as they feel like if they have something they're curious about..

      fuck you

    3. Re:This is ok by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is okay that they used dragnet data to pinpoint this one guy?

      Color me skeptical.

      If there was more than Anonymous says his anonymous source says... I'd be pretty upset.

    4. Re:This is ok by Subm · · Score: 1

      > It's completely reasonable for government to find out who this person is

      No one questioned if they had a reason.

      The issue is that their behavior is probably unconstitutional.

    5. Re:This is ok by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you belong in a death camp you fascist piece of shit

    6. Re:This is ok by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry what does having billions of dollars actually mean? They are just another rich person. It didn't even start that way, the market merely created their wealth. This means anyone who has wealth should be subject to your poorly thought out ideas. Thankfully you are not involved in any decision making.

    7. Re:This is ok by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      After a such disrespectful behavior, is it still possible a sane human consider USA as an ally? Now, you are left with enemy, or neither. What a stupid move!

    8. Re:This is ok by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Does he though or did he divest them or sell the wallet to someone else?

      Or worse, did he perhaps lose his key?

    9. Re:This is ok by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's only against the American constitution if it's proven that Satoshi Nakamoto is indeed an American citizen/resident. If Satoshi was actually a non-American or was otherwise known to have ties to a specific crime or conspiracy, then the American constitution doesn't forbid the government from investigating him.

    10. Re:This is ok by Gussington · · Score: 1

      The issue is that their behavior is probably unconstitutional.

      WTF? You'll have to point to the rest of us where in the constitution it says you can't analyse someone's writing style without their permission?

    11. Re:This is ok by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This isn't what the NSA should be doing. I'm tired of the National SECURITY Agency doing absolutely nothing to protect the digital security of people but make it a top priority to strip it away. This has nothing to do with security; knowing who he is does not make any person in the US more secure. All we have here is the NSA proving that if you matter they're after you even if you're completely innocent of acting against the US. This is how you make enemies out of possible allies, not how you protect the people of the US from threats (you know, what security *actually* means).

  41. Re: Anyone who believes this is a cow. by TheDarkMaster · · Score: 1

    A 50-dimensional cow. Okay, now I am worried

    --
    Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
  42. Re: Does the NSA follow Milton-Bradley? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Canadian money doesn't have the most powerful government and military on earth and yet we all live daily with it. Most places will also accept american dollars but won't even give you any exchange rate for it.

    Even Brazil struggles to keep their [pretty strong] currency [artificially] down.

  43. Is it not that Australian guy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I thought it was that Australian guy.

  44. Also, Unabomber by s1d3track3D · · Score: 1

    Interesting, there was a story recently on Fresh Air/NPR about how they caught the unabomber through linguistic work. It wasn't until his manifesto that they had enough writing to analyse. They didn't mention stylometry but the FBI interviewee discussed breaking down the writing into geographical location, writer's age, etc.

    1. Re:Also, Unabomber by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The FBI is full of shit. Linguistic and psychological profiling is pseudo-science that has never resulted in useful leads. The only reason the Unabomber was caught because his brother ratted him out for the reward money.

    2. Re:Also, Unabomber by al0ha · · Score: 1

      They didn't mention stylometry because it wasn't invented yet, they were actively inventing it at the moment.

      http://www.pbs.org/opb/history...

      Shoot I wish my posts would be modded up insightful as they deserve, see my previous post where a guy was modded insightful for the incorrect reply...

      --
      Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
    3. Re:Also, Unabomber by s1d3track3D · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the info +1, sorry no mod points

  45. So in other words... by PortHaven · · Score: 3, Insightful

    YES, the NSA is reading ALL our emails, recording ALL our phone calls. Damn the Constitution full autocracy ahead.

    1. Re:So in other words... by linuxguy · · Score: 1

      You based this on anonymous poster citing anonymous sources at DHS?

      What the hell is wrong with you people?

    2. Re:So in other words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No he based it on not being asleep for the past 20 god damn years.

    3. Re:So in other words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      YES, the NSA is reading ALL our emails, recording ALL our phone calls. Damn the Constitution full autocracy ahead.

      I love how the Republicans love to try to blame all of this on Democrats then turn around and when something like this comes out .. During A REPUBLICAN ADMINISTRATION no less, they have the audacity to try to blame it on Fake news and the other side of the aisle.

      America knows that the Republicans are full of shit and that Hillary really won the election. They gerrymandered the districts to make it look like the Republicans are in the majority and then staged this whole tiki torch march to make it look like America went all Nazi, but they didnt.. this is what we really should be calling "Fake News". This shit that is spewing out of the mouths of right wingers and Fox News right now is fake news.

    4. Re:So in other words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I assume he based that on other stuff too, you know, 4 years of Snowden news.

    5. Re:So in other words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Technically speaking, a machine learning algorithm is reading ALL our emails. Only the ones flagged as "suspicious" are being read by the NSA. It's equivalent to the "binary search" precedent set by SCOTUS with respect to drug sniffing dogs. It is a non-invasive search that escalates cases of probable cause to the top of the pile for further investigation without any undue hardship on those incidentally examined by the filter.

      If such a thing were possible when the 4th amendment was written, it isn't entirely impossible the founding fathers would have supported such a thing as an ideal balance between privacy and security.

    6. Re:So in other words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And when someone innocent gets accused of something?

      You know that *everyone* commits some type of crime or infraction of something..

      First page hit on google, but there are many similar examples:
      https://mic.com/articles/86797...

      Nobody can know and follow all laws and regulations for everything and commit infractions all the time.. Imagine when they realize that they could use this system to catch everyone, and make everyone pay a bunch in fines...

      So we have people that commits crimes without knowing it and then we have the false positives where someone completely innocent is accused of a crime..

      If someone gets accused of a crime it will take a shitload of money, and probably loosing their job if they cannot post bail or accused of something not accepted by society.
      Loads of people take plea-bargains to reduce the risk of spending too much time behind bars and spending a fortune in an attempt to defend themselves..

      There is a reason why we don't want warrant-less searches..

    7. Re:So in other words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      it's easier to base it just on the information released by Ed. note to the TLAs, If you do sneaky, shady things and get caught, you lose the trust and benefit of the doubt you used to enjoy.

  46. Even I know this by slashmydots · · Score: 1

    That's actually a bit careless. Even I am completely aware of this. When I'm posting something anonymously, I swap cuz/cause and don't put commas before a "lol" and single space my sentences and don't use an oxford comma and use semicolons incorrectly on purpose. All you have to have is a basic awareness of how it works and you can avoid it. I blame him for not being cautious enough.

    1. Re:Even I know this by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

      That's the main reason for all my incorrect word usage, typos, and grammar mistakes too.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    2. Re:Even I know this by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1

      Ha! Now we know your tricks, we're on to you! You cannot HIDE! MUhahahahaha

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    3. Re:Even I know this by Pseudonym · · Score: 2

      I will never be found parently becaus3 of my brilliance disguises but also styling metering thinks I am smartphones autocarrot.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    4. Re:Even I know this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, from the fact that the Slashdot CAPTCHA is always an insightful comment on my post, I already know that they not only know who I am but also have a specially trained AI which is able to analyse what I write in real time and make the comments they want to make via a dedicated man in the middle attack.

      CAPTCHA: enabler.

  47. Metadata my ass... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Subject line says it all. Besides, I keep it short to make fingerprinting by words last 2 months long.

  48. Officially Pissed Off by TiggertheMad · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If this is true, it begs the question: why is the NSA looking for Satoshi? Where are the warrants to do this kind of search? This is a fairly involved process, even if the software was already written, collecting the entirety of Satoshi's writing for input is time consuming work.

    As a taxpayer, there be something pretty fuckin important they need to ask Satoshi personally to justify this waste of my tax money.

    --

    HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
    1. Re:Officially Pissed Off by courteaudotbiz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      As a taxpayer, there be something pretty fuckin important they need to ask Satoshi personally to justify this waste of my tax money.

      You really think they have to justify what they do with your money? One of my fav quotes in that good old ID4 movie: " You don't actually think they spend $20,000 on a hammer, $30,000 on a toilet seat, do you?"

    2. Re:Officially Pissed Off by NicknameUnavailable · · Score: 1

      As a taxpayer, there be something pretty fuckin important they need to ask Satoshi personally to justify this waste of my tax money.

      The taxman doesn't report to you, you are his bitch not the other way around.

    3. Re:Officially Pissed Off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Where are the warrants to do this kind of search?

      Here's a possible legal scenario: If he's a US citizen, perhaps tax evasion? Someone at IRS reached out to the DHS/FBI/NSA to figure out who's the owner of billions of dollars and not paying taxes on them---and NSA was the one who responded. Since it's not exactly know if Satoshi is a US citizen, NSA could legally do this... once they found out that he was a US citizen, they handed off their findings to DHS... who might pass it down to IRS (or just sit on it).

    4. Re:Officially Pissed Off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My guess is, the line of questioning will be (1) are you a US citizen subject, (2) how much Bitcoin have you sold to other US citizens last year, (3) how much federal tax did you remit for your retail sale?

      Even the Chicago mob boss Al Capone wasn't immune, and was famously taken down for not paying income tax on illegally running alcohol during Prohibition.

    5. Re:Officially Pissed Off by cheesybagel · · Score: 3

      There are people who already collected all his writings so that wouldn't exactly be hard to find.

      Why did they search for him? One possibility is they want to recruit him. Other than that it could be they simply want to track his activities given his known past record with distributed crypto. Or they want to find a way to subvert the protocol in case it comes to that.

    6. Re:Officially Pissed Off by cheesybagel · · Score: 2

      Or the last option, they basically did it because they can, period.

    7. Re:Officially Pissed Off by cheesybagel · · Score: 1

      But the thing is none of what he did was illegal and you actually only owe tax once you sell something. Until he gets paid for those Bitcoin in his wallet he doesn't actually own anything that's worth something. It's basically like owning stock.

    8. Re:Officially Pissed Off by mysidia · · Score: 2

      Someone at IRS reached out to the DHS/FBI/NSA to figure out who's the owner of billions of dollars and not paying taxes on them

      There's no tax due on any BTC, unless he goes to transact with them.

    9. Re:Officially Pissed Off by bongey · · Score: 1, Troll

      You mean tax agender, tax androgyne, tax androgynous, tax bigender, tax cis, tax cisgender, tax cis female, tax cis male, tax cis man, tax cis woman, tax cisgender female, tax cisgender male, tax cisgender man, tax cisgender woman, tax female to male, tax ftm, tax gender fluid, tax gender nonconforming, tax gender questioning, tax gender variant, tax genderqueer, tax intersex, tax male to female, tax mtf, tax neither, tax neutrois, tax non-binary, tax other, tax pangender, tax trans, tax trans, tax trans* female, tax trans female, tax trans* male, tax trans male, tax trans man, tax trans* man, tax trans person, tax trans* person, tax trans woman, tax trans* woman, tax transfeminine, tax transgender, tax transgender female, tax transgender male, tax transgender man, tax transgender person, tax transgender woman, tax transmasculine, tax transsexual, tax transsexual female, tax transsexual male, tax transsexual man, tax transsexual person, tax transsexual woman, tax two-spirit, tax man and last tax woman.

    10. Re:Officially Pissed Off by Megol · · Score: 1

      You can't be an engineer. Things have to be developed and things have to be tested. This is a good way to test things.

      If you are pissed because the NSA do their work which includes creating (and testing) tools to do signal analysis... Well, you are probably pissed at everything.

    11. Re:Officially Pissed Off by Megol · · Score: 1

      Most likely. As I wrote above it is an excellent way to test software and methods that can be useful in other cases.

    12. Re:Officially Pissed Off by larryjoe · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If this is true, it begs the question: why is the NSA looking for Satoshi? Where are the warrants to do this kind of search? This is a fairly involved process, even if the software was already written, collecting the entirety of Satoshi's writing for input is time consuming work.

      As a taxpayer, there be something pretty fuckin important they need to ask Satoshi personally to justify this waste of my tax money.

      Maybe finding Satoshi is as important as landing a man on the moon. The task at hand may not be that important, but developing the technology in the process yields capabilities that may prove to be significant for future tasks.

    13. Re:Officially Pissed Off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They wanted to get a read on an enigmatic person whose currency has real impact, real reach, and potentially enables economic adversaries like Russia the means to launder money with some degree of anonymity. The ideals/aims/goals of that person are, at the very least, good to know, when that person is capable of potentially destabilizing the world economy. Admittedly a bit dramatic, but I can at least see some justification for pursuing him.

    14. Re:Officially Pissed Off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, but to be fair, this sort of thing is their job.
      So, testing the method against a high profile hard target makes some professional sense not implied by "because they can"

    15. Re:Officially Pissed Off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >your money

      No, no, no. It is now their money.

    16. Re:Officially Pissed Off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      No no, they really do. One government entity spent $20,000 on dial-up modems from my company. The government paid retail prices because of how screwed up the bidding process is. There were no backroom deals, bribery, or anything of that nature.

      If I hadn't spent many hours filling out the right paperwork the government would have spent closer to $40,000-$60,000 though going through a third party that would have then purchased these modems from us for the government.

      The people in government understand how this stupid system works and to get the product from the company that they want to get it from. In our case they specified a model number. In other cases they will specify configurations that can only be filled by one company.

      Now in this particular case it actually was important to get these dial-up modems from us. Not necessarily because it would have been impossible get modems elsewhere, but because it's saving the government money long term (ie reducing the frequency of how ofen they have to purchase new modems). It made some level of sense, but it's pure luck I wasted hours of my life to reduce the government's cost of acquiring these modems. The bureaucracy in the procurement process actually caused the $40-60k number. We gained nothing by filling out all the right paperwork in order to place a bid on the contract. The government would have gotten our modems at (actually above) retail price if it wasn't for the 3 hours I spent on paperwork so that we could bid directly.

    17. Re:Officially Pissed Off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's actually just another example of how Hollywood doesn't know a damned thing about the military.

      Here's just one example of how this "$20,000 hammer" story can happen. The hammer cost $10. But it is part of a large supply contract that employs hundreds of people and sells the government everything from staples to trucks. The overhead cost of the contract (all the people, the offices, the warehouses, the transportation, etc) is split evenly across each order made. Order 100 trucks? That's $10 million + $20,000 overhead. Order 1 hammer? That's $10 + $20,000 overhead.

      There's also the averaged cost method, where the cost of an entire program is just averaged over the items it produces.
      Then there's the "custom item" situation, where the hammer is actually made is rear materials to a custom spec that took 10 years of research to develop, plus only four of them were ever made...

      In other words, Hollywood (famous for it's own magical accounting practices) is stupid, and people that quote Hollywood are even dumber.

    18. Re:Officially Pissed Off by radarskiy · · Score: 1

      To test this method of search, you need very obscure subjects who are nevertheless identifiable by some other means.

    19. Re:Officially Pissed Off by Zaelath · · Score: 1

      Because they're not, it's a ripping yarn though.

    20. Re:Officially Pissed Off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is a movie. In the real world, if they had to pay someone to design the hammer, and people to make it from scratch, then $20K for a hammer or $30K for a toilet is a bargain.

    21. Re:Officially Pissed Off by atherophage · · Score: 1

      Did anyone think to ask Satoshi to just come forward before launching this expensive operation? Maybe Satoshi would have, saving tax payers a bundle - not saying the choice was, say, find Satoshi or build a library.

    22. Re:Officially Pissed Off by Normal_Deviate · · Score: 1

      Willie Sutton.

    23. Re:Officially Pissed Off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If this is true, it begs the question:.

      No, it does not. Perhaps it "raises the question," but there is no question begging here. And to prevent your obvious reply, no, there is no other proper use or meaning of this phrase in English. You may want to ask the question, but you're not begging to do it. Please stop trying to sound smart, and be smart instead!

    24. Re: Officially Pissed Off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let's just say taxer.

    25. Re:Officially Pissed Off by Gussington · · Score: 1

      If this is true, it begs the question: why is the NSA looking for Satoshi? Where are the warrants to do this kind of search?

      Um, last time I checked you don't need a warrant to do writing analysis

      As a taxpayer, there be something pretty fuckin important they need to ask Satoshi personally to justify this waste of my tax money.

      Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. But your concerns of how your tax is spent is dealt with at election time. Unless you think every tax payer should be consulted for every single operational decision for every government department at every level, all the time? Good luck with that....

    26. Re:Officially Pissed Off by laddiebuck · · Score: 4, Informative

      I know it's out of fashion to read TFA, but you could have just scrolled right to the end:

      "But why? Why go to so much trouble to identify Satoshi? My source tells me that the Obama administration was concerned that Satoshi was an agent of Russia or China—that Bitcoin might be weaponized against us in the future. Knowing the source would help the administration understand their motives. As far as I can tell Satoshi hasn’t violated any laws and I have no idea if the NSA determined he was an agent of Russia or China or just a Japanese crypto hacker."

      Oh and also, this report is literally just a self-sourced blog post.

      "Sources: Many readers have asked that I provide third party citations to ‘prove’ the NSA identified Satoshi using stylometry. Unfortunately, I cannot as I haven’t read this anywhere else—hence the reason I wrote this post. I’m not trying to convince the reader of anything, instead my goal is to share the information I received and make the reader aware of the possibility that the NSA can easily determine the authorship of any email through the use of their various sources, methods, and resources."

    27. Re: Officially Pissed Off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is all very taxing

    28. Re:Officially Pissed Off by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      Easy. To get the private keys to bitcoin

    29. Re:Officially Pissed Off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      why is the NSA looking for Satoshi?

      There has been a strong push over the last 6-12 months to bring Bitcoin into the global financial fold. Ben Bernake is due to speak in support of Bitcoin at an upcoming Blockchain conference soon. Let that sink in.

      Obviously, Banks and Governments desire to get this Bitcoin thing under control. This will not be done by outright bans, or technological restriction/hacks/attacks. It will be done in the same way the post War Elite have gotten everything else under control. Social Influence. Networking, fawning praise, meetings, love-bombing, deals, conferences, NYT articles, fancy diners, meeting famous people, interviews, all making sure everyone is "part of the team" and on the same page. Indirect monetary rewards, and of course cold shoulders and consequences for the Bitcoin community members who do not capitulate to induction programme.

      This will not work without Satoshi. If he calls out the co-option of Bitcoin, it's all over. The banks need him, otherwise they won't have the clout to get the bt community to alter the algorithms favorably. Best way to get him is to set the Media on him until he cracks or gives in. To do that, they have to find him: Enter the Surveillance state.

      It's still possible they don't have him and the article is a bluff, to pressure him to to the dinner table. Either way they want him, they need him, otherwise Bitcoin remains outside the financial fold, and the banks and their governments can't abide that.

    30. Re:Officially Pissed Off by TheCastro1689 · · Score: 1

      We just need gov apps, where everyone gets to vote on how money is spent, you'll need 65% or more to get the money spent. Watch how everyone ends up wanting a smaller government because we can't agree on much except a few things to fund.

    31. Re:Officially Pissed Off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      boring cunt

    32. Re:Officially Pissed Off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fuck, the protocol and mining code is open source. Rather than speculate on motivations based on nationality of the inventor. Assess what can actually be done with it and if it can be subverted to benefit unfriendly governments, because that is where the potential threat comes from regardless of the motives of the creator.

      For that purpose it is irrelevant who created Bitcoin. So they wasted money finding him because the people calling the shots are morons, I guess that is pretty much the status quo though, so we shouldn't be surprised there.

    33. Re:Officially Pissed Off by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Where are the warrants to do this kind of search?

      None needed. This is all publicly available information. Lots of people publish things on the internet, such as Slashdot posts. They collected everything that they could find was published, picked out Satoshi's published material, and had no need for anything private.

      If this is true, it begs the question: why is the NSA looking for Satoshi?

      First, if I didn't correct you to "raises the question", I'd have my grammar nazi membership revoked, so forgive me.

      Second, I can think of reasons. They may have wanted to test this stylometric stuff, and Satoshi was convenient. With the increasing acceptance of Bitcoin, they might want to know who's got loads of them, or trace who originated them.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    34. Re:Officially Pissed Off by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 1

      why is the NSA looking for Satoshi?

      There is someone in the world with a net worth of up to $5 Billion USD and is one of the top 500 richest people in the world and nobody knows for sure who they are, what they might intend to do with that money, who they are affiliated with or what their ideology is.

      Identifying an anonymous multi-billionaire and compiling a dossier on them is a pretty good use of tax money. There is a track record in recent American history where zealots with access to enormous financial resources cause a number of security concerns to the US...
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Even if Satoshi is perfectly benign to American interests, *that* information is incredibly valuable national security intelligence. Knowing who not to worry about is useful information.

    35. Re:Officially Pissed Off by Gussington · · Score: 1

      We just need gov apps, where everyone gets to vote on how money is spent,

      You have this, it's called an election. Unless you are suggesting that every level of a million-person+ government workforce needs every single purchase approved by popular vote?
      Should we buy the 1 ply or 2 ply toilet paper this week? Let's hold a public vote!
      Are we deploying the F-16's for the F-22's for this sortie? Let's see what the public thinks!

    36. Re:Officially Pissed Off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If he was an Russian official agent NSA would not have found him like that. FSB is capable enough to know about statistical analysis and would use several people to write the contents of the messages from different sources.

    37. Re: Officially Pissed Off by Brockmire · · Score: 1

      Why the fuck do you need a warrant to find someone? When you want to search someone's property or arrest them, yeah. To fucking find someone? Fucking dumb people.

  49. Minting your own money is a crime.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just ask that guy who was making gold coins a few years back.

    Pretty sure they can find/make precedent to crush him as a criminal as an example to anyone who would defy the government and multinational banking interests.

    Anybody who has watched GoT should know the Iron Bank isn't just a fantastic example: It is exactly how large banks have been run since ancient times.

  50. And the point of this effort? by whoever57 · · Score: 1

    What's the point of this effort? Did he break any laws?

    Or is this just more dick-waving by the NSA?

    More proof that the security services are out of control?

    --
    The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
  51. sorry, stylometry is not there yet. this is bogus by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Stylometry is nowhere near the level of accuracy (or more importantly, low false positive rate) that this post is claiming.

    The techniques described here are pretty trivial, and stylometry does a heck of a lot more than count frequencies of common words. PCA and embedding into a multidimensional space is pretty trivial as well.

    Even with much more advanced techniques than this, it is impossible to eliminate false positives in stylometry once you increase the number of potential candidates. Definitively finding the author of a text in a set of 50 authors is possible, but doing it in a set of hundreds of thousands of authors is absolutely ludicrous. The false positive rate at that point would be above 50%. No way this is real.

  52. Re: Does the NSA follow Milton-Bradley? by courteaudotbiz · · Score: 1

    I would also add that, Canadian money or not, I do not have to wait for more than an hour to confirm a transaction.

  53. Why are my tax dollars paying for this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why are my tax dollars paying for the NSA to find a private Billionaire who's committed no crimes? A total waste of taxpayer money on a non-issue. What congressional group is pushing for the NSA to be funding for these type of illegal spying operations without any probable cause?

    1. Re:Why are my tax dollars paying for this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your tax dollars aren't at all. The only person getting paid is the author for writing a clickbait headline/story that has less journalistic integrity than something in the National Enquirer.

  54. IRS by eric31415927 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I imagine the IRS wants his name and a good chunk of any cash it feels entitled to.

    1. Re:IRS by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

      I imagine the IRS wants his name and a good chunk of any cash it feels entitled to.

      That's a very good point. Is income earned from bitcoin mining tax collectible (I'm sure it is); and how many people report that?

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    2. Re:IRS by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1

      Unrealized gains are just ... paper gains. They have no right until he cashes in the coins. And since they don't know which coins are his, and which ones aren't, I suspect that they don't have any way to actually get anything. Sucks for them.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    3. Re:IRS by hackel · · Score: 1

      No, it sucks for the taxpayers who are owed that money wherever he lives.

    4. Re:IRS by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1

      Taxpayers don't ever see the money. You're under the false assumption that the government has a right to unrealized gains, under threat of government guns.

      Thansk

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    5. Re:IRS by HeckRuler · · Score: 1

      Unrealized gains are just ... paper gains.

      Until you sell, at which point they are realized gains. And you have to pay taxes.

      They have no right [to go investigate and identify the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto] until he cashes in the coins.

      It's investigation. As a government agency or service, they can investigate whomever they want. They probably can't go get a warrant though. SHOULD they be? Well, that's up to their boss and a lot more subjective. You'd argue "no", and that's a fine stance, but I'd say that unless they know otherwise there's an obvious potential for a ton of tax dodging. It's the sort of thing the IRS is supposed to go investigate. ...Not typically with the NSA's help. That part is worrisome.

      But realize that they can do anything that you or I can do. I'm free to try and find him. I have that right. You can't illegalize investigation.

      And since they don't know which coins are his, and which ones aren't, I suspect that they don't have any way to actually get anything.

      Right. Unless they... you know... figured out who he was and then AUDITED HIM. Like normal. Fuck if they care what coins he has, they care about CASH. Realized income. That thing they tax and the sole purpose for their existence.

      Sucks for them.

      HAHAHAHA, that's adorable that you think "sucks to be them" is how any story involving the IRS actually ends. I mean, you know, on the side of the IRS. That's how most stories with the IRS actually end, but with checks being made out to the feds.

      . . . Is the bitcoin ID of Satoshi also unknown? Isn't there a log of every bitcoin ever sold? Wouldn't it be pretty trivial so see how many coins have come from his bitcoin ID, and when, and then get an estimate of how much he's cashed out?

  55. Re: Does the NSA follow Milton-Bradley? by cunina · · Score: 2

    But Canadian money does have a real and considerable threat physical force behind it, unlike Bitcoin. If you don't think it does, try counterfeiting the Canadian dollar in any useful quantity and see what happens.

  56. unreliable by doctorvo · · Score: 1

    The effort took less than a month and resulted in positive match.

    Yes, and nobody knows what the false positive or false negative rates are. Stylometry is not a reliable way of identifying people, and it is quite disturbing that people pretend it is.

    This is just as bad as the lie detector scam. The real objective of such announcements it to create fear and doubt among the population; they want to be able to bully suspects into saying "come on, admit you're guilty, stylometry/lie detectors already prove it, but we'll give you a lighter sentence if you cooperate".

  57. Re: Does the NSA follow Milton-Bradley? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Try to send CAD or USD or any other currency from America to Asia... Probably you will have to wait longer than one hour unless you pay some crazy fees to WU or some other monopol ( which also doesnt' work in all parts of the world ).

  58. ac by trb · · Score: 5, Funny

    I wonder how long it will take the NSA to unmask Slashdot's Anonymous Coward.

    1. Re:ac by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He is fine unless he attends Defcon and overdoes the partying.

    2. Re:ac by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

      I wonder how long it will take the NSA to unmask Slashdot's Anonymous Coward.

      Shouldn't be too hard. They only need to compare AC to people who are current residents of mental institutions.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    3. Re:ac by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      We had anecdote in Soviet Union about KGB. The conversation taking place in public phone booth in the middle of the night somewhere on side road having no single person around in vicenty.

      The guys is dialing number using coins a has following conversation:

      - Hello
      - Hello
      - Is this KGB
      - Yes
      - You work poorly!
      (Somebody pats on his shoulder behind)
      - We work as we can ...

    4. Re:ac by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lots of Russian net blocks as of late I'm guessing haha, gotta "MAGA" for 'dem rubles.

    5. Re:ac by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wonder how long it will take the NSA to unmask Slashdot's Anonymous Coward.

      u can not findz me lol. i rite like every1 els on teh internet.

    6. Re:ac by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ad hominem. The gift that keeps on giving. Points for styling it as a joke so it is easier to do it again...

  59. Re: Anyone who believes this is a cow. by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

    A 50-dimensional cow. Okay, now I am worried

    What if all cows have 50 dimensions but we can only perceive 3 of them?

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  60. And to think by jayhawk88 · · Score: 1

    It was Rusty Foster the whole time! Who would have thought?

    1. Re:And to think by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It was Rusty Foster the whole time! Who would have thought?

      I thought his name was Rusty Shackelford!

    2. Re:And to think by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So that's why K5 disappeared!

  61. NSA has no right to exist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We don't appreciate you pestering Satoshi either.

  62. Re:Anyone who believes this is a cow. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're an App...

    You're an App.
    I'm an App.
    We're all Apps,
    We wouldn't be Apps if we weren't here.
    We wouldn't be here if we weren't Apps.

    Apps!

    Now who am I? (No, I'm not a Hosts File. I'm not APK. I'm an App.)

  63. Re: Does the NSA follow Milton-Bradley? by Joce640k · · Score: 2

    Real money also doesn't use 170kW/h of electricity for every transaction.

    (current power usage of the Bitcoin network is 0.08% of the worlds production)

    https://digiconomist.net/bitco...

    --
    No sig today...
  64. Re:Does the NSA follow Milton-Bradley? by OrangeTide · · Score: 1

    I can't think of too many drug dealers that accept monopoly money.

    --
    “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
  65. Re: Does the NSA follow Milton-Bradley? by fph+il+quozientatore · · Score: 1

    If only kW/h was an unit of energy...

    --
    My first program:

    Hell Segmentation fault

  66. Why? by hackel · · Score: 0

    Is Nakamoto accused of any kind of crime whatsoever? Why have I and the other U.S. taxpayers forked over the funds for over a MONTH of work for who-knows how many analysts and expensive CPU cycles to determine this person's identity? What is the benefit to the US American taxpayer?

  67. So astonishing intelligent these guys... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The fact that all the the hackers participating in the definition of Bitcoin shared their correspondence with Satoshi, except one, was also a cue;)

  68. Bullshit method by Khyber · · Score: 1

    Stylometry is a useless tool that works by racial and cultural stereotypes. Anyone with a half-decent education will stymie this system almost immediately.

    Take two students from the same school, whom have had the same classes, especially the language classes, right to the same teacher.

    Odds are quite high that they will phrase things quite similarly.

    As if this weren't evident enough in the amount of cheating that happens in middle and high school.

    --
    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    1. Re:Bullshit method by HeckRuler · · Score: 1

      "stymie" = slashdot user "Khybar".

      Cataloged for future doxing efforts.

      Carry on citizen.

  69. Re: Does the NSA follow Milton-Bradley? by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 3, Funny

    I don't need to! I earn Canadian Tire money with every purchase I make on my MasterCard!

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  70. Re: Does the NSA follow Milton-Bradley? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The kilowatt hour (symbolized kWh as per SI) is a composite unit of energy equivalent to one kilowatt (1 kW) of power sustained for one hour. One watt is equal to 1 J/s. One kilowatt hour is 3.6 megajoules.

  71. If true, then they almost certainly broke the law by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If he's a US Citizen, then they definitely broke the law. There would absolutely no possible way to do this legally.

    If he's not a US Citizen, then either they have failed to verify that there aren't other people (e.g. US citizens) with the same language hash .. or they have verified it but, in so doing, they broke the law.

    So either the story is wrong (either they didn't really do this at all, or they neglected to compare the writings to Americans' writings), or they broke the law and at least tens of millions (probably over a hundred million) US victims' rights were violated and (if only someone could prove that that the crime happened) they would have standing to sue the NSA.

  72. Re: Anyone who believes this is a cow. by Migraineman · · Score: 1

    Well, that's the way mice work.

  73. did he commit a crime?? by zantafio · · Score: 1

    If this story is not BS, then I would like to know why is the NSA spending taxpayer dollars on this fishing expedition. Is Satoshi wanted for a crime? which one(s)?

  74. For what reason did they justify this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Creating Bitcoin is not a crime. What reason do they have to waste tax payer resources on persecuting this poor man?

  75. Worthless clickbait by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My sources in the Illuminati say that Bill Gates invented Bitcoin. He does not cash out because he does not need the money.

  76. Who needs the NSA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's clearly Dave Grohl...

    https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*TKs780EbWQBbeyfclRcGBQ.jpeg

  77. The right of US citizens to be private by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are legitimate reasons for the NSA to massively violate the privacy of non-US, non-criminal citizens.

    e.g. Suppose you're a total law-abiding manager at a plant in charge of refining fissionable weapons material in the USSR in 1979. Hell yes the NSA should be learning anything it can about you. Or suppose we don't know if you're law-abiding or criminal, but you were a Russian contractor cleaning up an ex-Soviet reactor in 2008 and some material was unaccounted for. Oh, hell yes they should be looking at you, and prying as deep as they can get away with.

    That's their excuse, and it could be ok.

    The catch is that if they really did this, and if they also had to look at millions of Americans' private papers in order to rule them out and make sure they got the right foreigner, then suddenly it wasn't legit and whoever gave the go-ahead needs to spend the rest of their life in prison.

  78. Re:Does the NSA follow Milton-Bradley? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There aren't many people crazy enough to pay over $4,000 each for Monopoly dollars, though.

    Like it or not, any item (even Bitcoin) is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Whether or not it will still be worth $4,000 a year from now it anyone's guess at this point. It could become the next Mastercard, or the various world governments might outlaw the currency and start prosecuting enough users to make it's value plummet.

    Personally, the lack of certainty either way is enough to make me stay away at this point.

    People essentially use Monopoly money now. Actually, they're closer to already using BTC than any physical currency since in the US, at least, plastic is the main way to pay. Many people never even see physical currency. I really don't understand why people like you seem to have such a problem with this. Ask Greece how their paper currency is working out. Or maybe look at the GBP? They're both way down because of various political and economic factors and a very, very simple concept that a disturbing amount of the population doesn't understand: NO CURRENCY IS TRULY STABLE. Everything is ultimately a barter system with "currency" simply acting as a facilitator. Even the USD could plummet as Trump continues his presidential free fall of failure. The point is currencies collapse and new currencies are created. It happens. Remember the Euro? While different, that wasn't too far of from Yes, it's a volatile, speculative market at the moment. Go check out the Forex for plenty more of that happening decades before BTC. If that scares you, stick to the pathetic return of blue chips but be careful. Even though those can fail as well.

    The very notion that you think the "world governments" could outlaw BTC just proves you don't understand it at all so yes, you really should stay away. Also stop posting about it because your ignorance does nothing but spread bullshit fears about something you clearly know nothing about.

  79. Tax fraud. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Any time he sells a bitcoin and doesn't declare the gain on his quarterly taxes, it is called tax fraud.

    So ... how many bitcoins has he sold per year and at what profit?

    The same applies if he bought a diamond 10 yrs ago and sold it for 3x the value this year. There are taxes to be paid, assuming he is living above poverty level.

    Besides that little detail, his privacy is fine. He created something from nothing, packaged it, sold others on it, and there's a barter economy around it. He could have used specific sea shells instead.
    Musicians sell music (something created from nothing), and they pay their taxes too.

    1. Re:Tax fraud. by 0111+1110 · · Score: 1

      Any time he sells a bitcoin and doesn't declare the gain on his quarterly taxes, it is called tax fraud.

      Good point. People are wondering why the NSA would bother with this but it's easy to see why they might. Currently no country can tax him because they have no idea who he is. If his real life identity is connected to his wallet identity then whatever government he lives under can tax the billions he made from his pyramid scheme currency. The problem is it must be definitive and this method doesn't sound like it is. Although there probably aren't many billionaires without any obvious source of hundreds of millions of dollars or pounds or whatever who also got caught in their net. They could also rule out a lot of rich businessmen because they are rarely the type to do something like this. Although they may fund it. Of course it could be a group of people.

      --
      Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
  80. Re: Does the NSA follow Milton-Bradley? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They mean kWh.

  81. Yes! lets use NSA to harass people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So the next step for Satoshi is to create service which will make him anonymous in terms of style of his messages.

    The other use of this is to employ NSA to harass somebody on-line. We just need to collect somebody's messages and write crappy offensive post in social networks imitating the same style. So he/she would be under constant surveillance and investigation from NSA agents :-) lol

    I just love this! Welcome to the real world! lol

  82. Re:you will hate me but it'll be in your head all by diesalesmandie · · Score: 1

    ...will the real Satoshi please stand up

    please stand up

    please stand up ....ducks!......

    Satoshi don't mess around because he loves bitcoin and this we know for sho!

    --
    This is my sig, there are many like it but this one is mine
  83. Allegedly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Worship of the spook and math wizardry aside, there is a chance that they misidentified him. Unless the kidnapped him and rubber hosed him into a confession, they THINK they know his identity.

  84. Another attack privacy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is one of the ways that mass surveillance, big data, and a lack of constraint reduces the space for private life and privacy. I'm not saying that privacy is dead, any more than any other civil liberty in the burgeoning surveillance state we live. Just that we need to defend our liberties.

  85. kWh is not kW/h though. The GP said kW/h. He probably meant kWh though.

  86. True, but, by gerald.edward.butler · · Score: 1

    Canadian and U.S. Money, like all fiat currencies, can be instantly devalued simply by the gov't choosing to print more at any time. It IS NOT a guaranteed store of stable value.

    1. Re:True, but, by careysub · · Score: 1

      Canadian and U.S. Money, like all fiat currencies, can be instantly devalued simply by the gov't choosing to print more at any time. It IS NOT a guaranteed store of stable value.

      Now what would a "guaranteed store of stable value" be?

      Who pays out the guarantee?

      Not precious metals that had real price collapses between 1915-1933, 1941-1972, 1975-1978, 1981-2010 (with several smaller peaks and collapses since then), we are still down sharply since 2012. Nothing stable about this.

      The dollar on the other hand declines in value (if you are foolish enough to hold "paper") at a usually predictable rate and gradual rate (no inflation jump in the last 100 years is remotely like the price fluctuations of metals) and allow you to offset inflation with Federal bond purchases. U.S. Federal bonds have never been defaulted on, even interest payments have only been delayed (for a short time, a technical default) a couple of times. So far.

      To answer my rhetorical question above, it is the U.S. Government.

      Hard money cults do not trump actual data. (No I used that word in an ordinary sense, he does not own the word).

      --
      Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
    2. Re: True, but, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actual data!?
      Data paints the picture we want based on how we present it. I'd like to cite gold price data in a more holistic manner. Specifically from the most relavent point of 1971 since US Dollar was taken off the gold standard abd effetively abolishing the Bretton Woods monetary system. Since then gold is up 500% against the dollar. I think that's a fair way of presenting data rather then cherry-picking certain points of time here abd there

  87. Why would he bother selling? by DMJC · · Score: 1

    Think about it, this is the guy who invented bitcoin. He would know better than anyone that it's a deflationary currency and the longer he holds onto his pile of coins the richer he will get. Why bother selling until you're worth more than Bill Gates? The NSA probably want to unmask him to determine if he's funding terrorists/who the hell he is. I don't think they should be conducting surveillance/this sort of analysis against this particular target because the methods being used are wrong. However I can understand the interest in him. This is someone who is using up to date encryption methods. It's basically someone the NSA would be targeting anyway to try and stay ahead in electronic warfare techniques. When your entire reason for existence is to decode intelligence communication, it's a requirement you can/try to break all encryption methods available/potentially available to your adversaries.

  88. not technically possible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I call BS.
    As any machine learning person would know, the number of false positives when you are looking at millions of people will be very high. Looking at a simplistic feature representation like 50 most common words in online data and claiming your system will uniquely identify a person is even more unbelievable. So there will be many people who are excellent matches in the search results which might be plausibly contain Satoshi.

  89. Possible solution for this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What we need is an open-source (what else?) application that can maintain several writing profiles for each user. Each profile would differ in the most common/distinguishing text metrics (such as the one described here). Input would be text in your natural writing style. Output (with tweaks controlled by the user, so meaning is preserved) would be modified text that matches (within some margin) the chosen writing profile.

    The program (via a GUI) would prompt you to do such things as "shorten your average word length", "lengthen your sentences", "get rid of your 4 longest words [listing them]", etc. Making those changes would hide your natural style, while morphing the document/message/e-mail into the chosen profile.

    This would be tedious, but if you really need to remain anonymous (and can handle all the other things you have to use such as Tor), this would overcome this latest hurdle. Changing the most prominent aspects of your style would invariably change other metrics, making it difficult for the NSA etc. to avoid false positives.

    Additionally, you could input others' writings, create a profile from them, and then have yours morphed into theirs. Yes, this could be used nefariously to put your words in someone else's mouth, but would also have the effect of blurring the data, thereby rendering it less useful.

    I've thought about starting such a project, but don't have the time.

  90. Re: Anyone who believes this is a cow. by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

    You DO realize that we can perceive 4 dimensions, right? Width, Height, Depth, and Time.

    It is pretty trivial to do when you group the related ones. At work I visualize 20+ dimensions.

    i.e. 14 Dimensions:

    * X, Y
    * Width, Height
    * r,g,b,a
    * Rot X, Y, Z
    * Scale X, Y, Z

    There are numerous videos on how to visualize higher dimensions

    * Jos Leys - Ãtienne Ghys - Aurélien Alvarez (Dimensions - A walk through mathematics)
    * Rob Bryanton (Imagining 10 Dimensions - the Movie)

  91. Translator Chains by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    If you try to anonymize your writing by running it through hained translations you had better have those translators running on yiur own hw else you are just moving part of the tracing problem to the traffic analysis space

  92. Satoshi is dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Satoshi is dead anyway, so it's not like any of this matters that much.

  93. Hype detection by HeckRuler · · Score: 1

    By taking Satoshi's texts and finding the 50 most common words, the NSA was able to break down his text into 5,000 word chunks and analyse each to find the frequency of those 50 words. This would result in a unique 50-number identifier for each chunk.

    ok.

    The NSA then placed each of these numbers into a 50-dimensional space and flatten them into a plane using principal components analysis.

    That's purposely sounding complex to make it look more impressive than it is. Fuck that hype. Strive for quality journalism and stop bullshitting us.

    The result is a 'fingerprint' for anything written by Satoshi that could easily be compared to any other writing

    ok. But really it just means there's another layer of obfuscation required. If you really want to be anonymous, now you need to pass everything you write through a SIMPLE-WORDS filter. Parish the thought of giving the NSA even a modicum of tyranny inducing panopicon. ....OH SHIT!

    1. Re:Hype detection by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

      Despite the constant negative press covfefe

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
  94. meh by retchdog · · Score: 1

    eh, just restrict yourself to Simplified Technical English or basic English when writing your manifesto, and be sure to randomize both sentence length and word choices.

    --
    "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
  95. I don't doubt that being a billionaire by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't doubt that being a billionaire thoroughly reduced the number of people they actually had to look into. People that rich can't remain anonymous to any government.

    That makes me question the necessity of checking "trillions of messages from billions of people". Get the big list of however many hundreds or thousands of billionaires there are, compare their messages against Satoshi's, and be done with it.

    Plus depending on whether any mention of penance or Moloch or any other satanic bullshit exists in Satoshi's messages, you can pretty much narrow it down to de Rothschilds n' pals or exclude them.

    CAPTCHA: ritual

    1. Re:I don't doubt that being a billionaire by InfiniteLoopCounter · · Score: 1

      The parent comment seems particularly insightful and reminds me of former USA president Barack Obama's detailed description for the cameras of the operation to take out terrorist Osama Bin Laden. The idea if I get it right was to project that this country was so far ahead of others it could say openly what its intelligence services were doing. I wonder if this might ironically make it weak long term if this keeps happening and other countries don't do this.

  96. Is this real? by ChristopherCelaya · · Score: 1

    Sounds like a Philip Dick novel. Why is everybody arguing about whether currencies are valuable instead of discussing the inability to stay anonymous?

  97. South Park's Emoji Analysis by AlexDelphino · · Score: 1

    enuf said

  98. It's time to kill everyone at the NSA. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Death to all tyrants. They said they weren't spying on US citizens. Kill them all. Fucking treasonous pieces of shit.

  99. Re:Does the NSA follow Milton-Bradley? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My guess is that most of them would accept monopoly money if it was in combination with a first-edition of the monopoly game.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...

    scarcity of a popular item equals value.

  100. Re: Does the NSA follow Milton-Bradley? by FuzzyDaddy2 · · Score: 1

    Yeah, what's weird is that it doesn't seem to matter and enough people believe in it to drive up the value. Just finished "cryptonimocon", in which the premise of the story is people want to set up a digital currency backed by a hoard of WW2 gold they were hunting for. It seems quaint now because it turns out you don't even need the gold. (Although it's an awesome book)

  101. Check Forbes... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It is hard to hide a net worth of > $1BEEELion. Check with Forbes for the list of candidates && cull.
    Remove multi-generational money, and non-computing folks. The short list probably has the name. And it is not going to be Gates, Ellison, Balmer, Allen, etc.

  102. Re:Does the NSA follow Milton-Bradley? by OrangeTide · · Score: 1

    Most? meaning more than half. I'm skeptical an average drug dealer would barter with collectibles given that I don't think I could properly identify a first edition board game even though I'm a member of my work's board game club and my Mom is an antique dealer.

    --
    “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
  103. question the nsa by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the real question i have is why the NSA felt the need to identify him in the first place

  104. Mighty Morphin Power Text. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What one does is use the same trick as the NSA does, then morph your writing into someone elses.

  105. Re: Does the NSA follow Milton-Bradley? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    For as evolved as we seem to have become, we're still cavemen for how we barter. Someday, maybe we should at least have a fair valuation of currencies. I have to wonder how we could ever have stable currency if we can't even stop fucking each other blind.

  106. Re: Does the NSA follow Milton-Bradley? by NitroWolf · · Score: 1

    Try counterfeiting bitcoin in any useful quantity and see what happens. I guarantee you far more than if you counterfeit Canadian money.

  107. Re: Does the NSA follow Milton-Bradley? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If your boyfriend is fucking you blind maybe he's doing it in the wrong hole(s).

  108. TFA explains why by GPS+Pilot · · Score: 1

    TFA explains why:

    Why go to so much trouble to identify Satoshi? My source tells me that the Obama administration was concerned that Satoshi was an agent of Russia or China -- that Bitcoin might be weaponized against us in the future.

    Whether you agree with what that motive or not, it's good someone was concerned about such things.

    --
    That that is is that that that that is not is not.
  109. Spoiler Alert by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Satoshi is Timothy Lord.

  110. Had to pick some anon person for research by drnb · · Score: 1

    If this is true, it begs the question: why is the NSA looking for Satoshi?

    Its a research project, you have to look for someone attempting anonymity. Satoshi would be a fun target. Also an anonymous person with a larger collection of public writing would be make the research easier.

  111. The NSA Should Send Him an Employment Offer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In fact, I would be surprised if they didn't make an offer in their initial communications with him, in honor of his outstanding achievements and unique skills.

  112. Wow. I mean effing wow by mnemotronic · · Score: 1

    With all that power, why can't we get a copy of the medical tests confirming Alzheimers or a list of off-shore tax avoidance bank accounts of .... a certain reality TV bimbo-in-chief.

    --
    The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
  113. Think about it. by wkwilley2 · · Score: 2

    Satoshi is a serious threat to any large government since he/she/they single-handedly created the most popular and valuable de-centralized currency in the world.

    Currency in any form is one that any government wants exclusive control over.

    --
    Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
  114. Re: Does the NSA follow Milton-Bradley? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Try counterfeiting Bitcoin. The analogy of needing force to promote acceptance of fancy colored paper in exchange for services and products just doesn't work with Bitcoin. No one is forced to use it at all.

    That is the beauty of it and what makes in potentially more valuable the fancy colored paper. How long before force is being used to REQUIRE the use of "government backed money only as a form of exchange? Of course the govern.ent would then have to do something about the "pure trade economy...eg my extra bag of oranges for your extra bag of apples.

  115. Re:Does the NSA follow Milton-Bradley? by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

    There aren't many people crazy enough to pay over $4,000 each for Monopoly dollars, though.

    Like it or not, any item (even Bitcoin) is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Whether or not it will still be worth $4,000 a year from now it anyone's guess at this point. It could become the next Mastercard, or the various world governments might outlaw the currency and start prosecuting enough users to make it's value plummet.

    Personally, the lack of certainty either way is enough to make me stay away at this point.

    You mean like stocks. More specifically stocks that don't pay dividends

  116. rhwy are probably an/are Aussie(s) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Going off the mixture of British and American spellings they are probably an Aussie!!
    We get taught the British/English spellings and are then forced to suffer with American softwares that insist whet we have just typed is wrong.. I have found multiple counts where i have mixed U.K. And u.s spellings in the same documents..

    1. Re:rhwy are probably an/are Aussie(s) by jabuzz · · Score: 1

      Depends a lot of spelling checkers set to a British dictionary will mark an word with a ize ending as wrong and want to change it to an ise ending. Stupid thing is that the ize ending is a perfectly correct British spelling, as can be determined by a quick check in the OED.

    2. Re:rhwy are probably an/are Aussie(s) by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

      Going off the mixture of British and American spellings they are probably an Aussie!!

      Nakamoto is Craig Wright, confirmed!

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  117. Dubious by rkordmaa · · Score: 1

    Eh... if you are going to look through billion people for any match you are going to get some, probably thousands, doesn't mean you found the person you were looking for. Can't say I'm surprised about intelligence agencies looking for the fella, but it's kind of late now, bitcoin is fart in the wind by now, there is no catching it anymore, getting paws on Satoshis personal bitcoin cache might be important in the long run tho. Governments can only hope it will fail on its own, if it doesn't... that wouldn't bode well for world economy. My personal opinion is that Satoshi, whoever he may be, purposefully designed the thing to be an economical doomsday device.

  118. what utter and complete BULLSHITE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    while the techniques work mostly.. the conclusions & accuracy are cut from whole cloth... ie its BS kids...

          btw cypherpunks been playing with these approaches since the late 80s

  119. seems like a PR article for anonymouth by darkeye · · Score: 1

    without any substantiation of the main claim

    wonder how this got through the /. content selection process

  120. What's his crime? Does it matter ... tax evasion by lpq · · Score: 1

    They might not like him for creating a new currency -- If he's a US citizen, that is likely illegal. They can claim he is supporting terrorism by creating an untraceable currency. They can point to an increase in untraceable transactions -- money laundering -- supporting and an all crimes -- they can blame almost anything -- and then ....

    If they can't prove it, they can do to him what they did to Capone and hit this "millionaire" for tax evasion.

    Or do you think he paid taxes on all his bitcoins?

  121. Re:you will hate me but it'll be in your head all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm Satoshi Nakamoto and so is my wife.

  122. Re: Does the NSA follow Milton-Bradley? by Gonoff · · Score: 1

    I don't think nearly as many people use Monopoly money for money laundering and ransomware, though.

    Agreed. The vast majority of criminals use US dollars.
    Perhaps someone should investigate the shady groups behind this hugely overvalued national currency? I suggest they start with the NSA, CIA, US Treasury and the US "Federal Reserve". They could then expand their enquiry to The US oil industry and the petrodollar.

    --
    I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
  123. They probably tracked him/them back to the NSA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    From the article: "Many readers have asked who Satoshi is and I’ve made it clear that information wasn’t shared with me. Based on my conversation I got the impression (never confirmed) that he might have been more than one person. "

    Yeah, the team that discovered this probably looked over their cubicles and said "Hi Bob, Joe, Jane, and John!" -- now we know your pseudonym is "Satoshi!"

    1. Re:They probably tracked him/them back to the NSA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So Tor is for spies to be anon online, while Bitcoin is their cash so they can spend and buy their needs anonymously. Quite possible.

  124. Thought by Gonoff · · Score: 1

    What gave this bunch the impression that they had the need or right to do this?

    --
    I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
    1. Re:Thought by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      TFS suggests that the NSA went through publicly available writings. Anyone has the right to do that.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  125. So What? by tmjva · · Score: 1

    All these questions of why, why, why?  I say so what?

    Now that they found him, what are they going to do with him?  That's the real question.

    --
    Tracy Johnson
    Old fashioned text games hosted below:
    http://empire.openmpe.com/
    BT
  126. Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, all those countless hours and men power just to properly tax the one that created Bitcoin? Impressive.

  127. If your is true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This means 'toshi is probably dead or locked away forever.

    LONG LIVE THE SPIRIT OF SATOSHI!

  128. Wow ... who knew... by endoflife · · Score: 1

    Who knew the NSA was having so much trouble locating it's employees?

    1. Re:Wow ... who knew... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So what is the nationality of Satoshi? Best bet is from UK, USA, Germany, Russia. Those countries are at the top when it comes to innovation and brains.

  129. Can this be fooled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The tool, they can B fooled? If grammatical errors purposely maybe throw wrench. Brain human good quite without-out gramatikal misteke && spelin. + heard the lad swotch between brittany and colony word-preference. You get my drift?

    Can NSA analys' bypass , identifty, denoise?

  130. You can't hide the truth by modding it down!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You can all plainly see that WalMart is loaded with hillbillies and rednecks.

    You know it's true. Don't try to pretend you haven't noticed.

    You definitely know this guy is a filthy Trump supporter.

    I rest my case.

  131. You need not be NSA to do this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There is a similar analysis on the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto which dates back to 2014, and the answer is public, here: https://likeinamirror.wordpress.com/

  132. create Google Translate, but for writing styles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There should be a version of Google Translate that does an English-to-English conversion, but which changes the style of whatever text is entered into some really common style. Also, I wonder what other kinds of things that could be applied to.