The personal attacks on Gavin Andresen are reprehensible

[Steve Sokolowski]

The news published on Monday morning of Craig Wright's claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto was shocking to everyone, including to me. I was disappointed in early April when Wright did not come forward, because I stated in December that Nakamoto's coming forward is the only action that could save bitcoin from the coming halving crisis. Now that he has come forward, it appears that if Wright is Nakamoto, by the time he gets to the point the halving event will already be upon us anyway.

Wright's weird blog posts do not prove that he created bitcoin. Certainly, if a financial decision needed to be made based upon whether he is telling the truth, I wouldn't bet on it without the proof he says he is going to provide later. However, the circumstantial evidence for Wright's involvement is overwhelming. Nobody has yet to offer a reasonable alternate scenario that explains away all the other information that media sources have unearthed over the past six months. Wright himself says he will reveal more information over the coming week. This is important to note, because a large number of people made an immediate conclusion within an hour or two that some piece of evidence or other disproves Wright's claim. There exists no evidence at this time to disprove that Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto. The real world does not move at "Internet time," and most people do not spend their entire days pressing F5, getting impatient after an hour with no new news.

Immediately, the uproar by many users across the community was vicious. Neutral forums were plastered with posts criticizing Wright and demanding an immediate explanation. Anyone who urged caution and avoiding a jump to conclusions was berated. Personal attacks flew everywhere. While many media sources took a more measured view by asking Wright for more information, others ran headlines calling Wright a "fraud," a "scammer," and more.

Several technical figures were, however, convinced by Wright's demonstration. One of these people is Gavin Andresen, who is perhaps bitcoin's earliest developer. And it is towards him that the behavior of many users has been awful. Despite having used the Internet for 20 years, with the exception of well-known politicians, I have never seen worse behavior directed towards a single individual than Andresen has experienced over the past 24 hours. Users with no morals or ethics are slinging mud at him regardless of whether their criticisms have anything to do with bitcoin, or whether they contain any shred of truth or not.

Users are claiming that Andresen was hacked or that he was duped at his face-to-face meeting with Wright. I was obviously not present at the demonstration between Andresen and Wright; however, I do know enough about computers to know that the sorts of attack vectors being described, like someone intercepting wallet software over a hotel wi-fi network, secretly replacing messages on a USB key, or modifying an unopened computer and resealing it, are incredibly difficult to pull off. These are not things that are easy enough or which have a high enough probability of success that most people would consider them as highly likely in real time. Even in the unlikely event that someone did hack the firmware of the hotel's wi-fi router, for example, failure to recognize this while still accounting for the 100 other possible attack vectors (like bringing the clean USB drive and providing a message of his own choice) does not indicate the sort of gross incompetence that is being claimed. Many of these attacks require a significant amount of technology working perfectly together so that the hacked user is unaware of the duplicity.

The saddest part of this entire event are the actions that the Core has taken towards Andresen. With the help of forum administrator theymos (who stickied a post with his own personal opinion to thousands of readers), they have fueled a new narrative that Andresen is incompetent. After the Core disabled Andresen's access to the Core repository by stating that he was hacked and that fact was proven false, Core developer Peter Todd now advocates the removal of Andresen's commit access permanently, on the grounds that he is "untrustworthy or incompetent" (https://twitter.com/petertoddbtc/status ... 4587632640.) The explanation is nonsensical, as Andresen is the same person he was yesterday. There is no pattern of repeated dishonesty or untrustworthiness that would warrant consideration of privilege revocation.

This action should be recognized for what it is: a coup by Core members to remove someone politically opposed to their views from bitcoin's future development, and the community should understand that this isn't a theoretical problem - there will be less advancement as a result of Andresen's ouster. And in terms of human ethics, Todd is taking advantage of someone who may have been the victim of a scam at his lowest point, by choosing this moment to twist the knife. What kind of man does that?

I disagree with Andresen about many topics. I think that his decision to withdraw BIP101 was incorrect. I also believe that his continued failure to step forward and lead has been a huge disappointment. Though he has claimed repeatedly that he is "approaching 50" and has kids, sometimes life intervenes to and calls a person who is uniquely capable to accomplish greater things. That said, Andresen has done more than anyone else in this entire industry, save possibly Wright himself, to advance the interest of cryptocurrency and everything it has become. If it weren't for his effort, then it is quite possible that you would not be reading this right now, because cryptocurrency would have remained a fringe ideal.

Wright has not yet provided all the proof he claims he is going to provide, so I will withhold judgement on his claims. What I do know is that even if Wright is completely discredited, and definitively shown to be a liar, fraud, and a cheat all at once, Gavin Andresen will have made a mistake. That one mistake will not have proven Andresen completely incompetent, irrevocably destroyed his character, or made him unfit to contribute to the bitcoin industry. If Wright does not follow through on his proof, then despite this incident Andresen will have contributed more to the advancement of bitcoin than every single one of the imbeciles who are attempting to discredit his name.

Whatever his flaws, Andresen is a decent, honest man. It is reasonable to disagree with his opinions, but the personal attacks on Andresen are reprehensible, and whether you support smaller or larger blocks, the basic idea of human decency is unchanging. Regardless of what happens with Wright, the people engaging in this behavior should be ashamed of themselves.

[coinaday]

I find it pretty disappointing that you treat the identity of Satoshi and a false "verification" as a non-issue. This entire post whitewashes this whole episode, with not the slightest bit of recognition of the significance of this. This does in fact reflect poorly upon Gavin's judgment. This is an issue which is relevant to Bitcoin.

Yes, removing his commit access was clearly political. Yes, Core supporters have acted terribly in using false Satoshis themselves. It doesn't make this a non-issue.

The ownership of a million BTC matters. The missing leader of Bitcoin matters. Saying that an insane conman from Australia is Satoshi is a serious mistake and it deserves better than your casual dismissal.

Your emphasis on being the nice guy is serving you pretty terribly here. It is in fact possible for good people to make serious mistakes that significantly damage their credibility, even if they have contributed positively in the past. Acting like any criticism of Gavin is simply unwarranted personal attack is completely disingenuous. Your only takeaway from this is that people are mean to Gavin. You don't even bother to have any sort of acknowledgment that the "verification" process was fundamentally flawed and that we should all expect better. Signature verification is not hard if one doesn't violate every basic principle by doing it in secret with hardware controlled by the person to be verified. This is a failing of the most basic principles of cryptography and you act like it's a missing semi-colon.

Edit:

During our meeting, I saw the brilliant, opinionated, focused, generous – and privacy-seeking – person that matches the Satoshi I worked with six years ago.

During that blog post, I saw someone whose desire to believe trumps reality. That is not someone whose opinion I will be taking as seriously in the future.

This post, in my opinion, shows that you consider civility more important than truth. I disagree with that priority.

[Steve Sokolowski]

I find it pretty disappointing that you treat the identity of Satoshi and a false "verification" as a non-issue. This entire post whitewashes this whole episode, with not the slightest bit of recognition of the significance of this. This does in fact reflect poorly upon Gavin's judgment. This is an issue which is relevant to Bitcoin.

Yes, removing his commit access was clearly political. Yes, Core supporters have acted terribly in using false Satoshis themselves. It doesn't make this a non-issue.

The ownership of a million BTC matters. The missing leader of Bitcoin matters. Saying that an insane conman from Australia is Satoshi is a serious mistake and it deserves better than your casual dismissal.

Your emphasis on being the nice guy is serving you pretty terribly here. It is in fact possible for good people to make serious mistakes that significantly damage their credibility, even if they have contributed positively in the past. Acting like any criticism of Gavin is simply unwarranted personal attack is completely disingenuous. Your only takeaway from this is that people are mean to Gavin. You don't even bother to have any sort of acknowledgment that the "verification" process was fundamentally flawed and that we should all expect better. Signature verification is not hard if one doesn't violate every basic principle by doing it in secret with hardware controlled by the person to be verified. This is a failing of the most basic principles of cryptography and you act like it's a missing semi-colon.

Edit:

During our meeting, I saw the brilliant, opinionated, focused, generous – and privacy-seeking – person that matches the Satoshi I worked with six years ago.

During that blog post, I saw someone whose desire to believe trumps reality. That is not someone whose opinion I will be taking as seriously in the future.

This post, in my opinion, shows that you consider civility more important than truth. I disagree with that priority.

It is true that I don't see this revelation as having much importance. The bitcoin industry is hopelessly deadlocked, so few people are going to listen to him. The only effect that Nakamoto would have is that he might sway a few opinions in favor of his previously published views on the blocksize issue.

People are making it seem as if this has some huge impact on Andresen's credibility, when it is just one event. Andresen has never been caught lying about anything else. Meanwhile, Gregory Maxwell has been lying about me and my brother for months, and few seem to even notice. In fact, I can definitively prove that Maxwell is lying, while nobody can prove that Andresen is lying.

Computer software is hard, and the probability that everything came together in these demonstrations just right, from hacked Wi-Fi to fake certificates to modified laptops to reprogrammed software, and that it would work perfectly for every single person who witnessed the demonstrations, is very low. Few seem to understand that just because there are theoretical attacks doesn't mean that it is remotely easy to take advantage of those attacks.

For what it's worth, I think that the simplest explanation is true. Wright is Nakamoto, he proved it to Andresen and the others, and he then wrote all those ridiculous blog posts and disappeared - perhaps due to mental illness. Despite inventing bitcoin, he got into tax problems and was involved all sorts of shady dealings. He's a fraud, he treats people like garbage, and he is the absolute scum of the earth. If he later comes back and signs a message, this incident should preclude any involvement in the industry whatsoever*. The circumstantial evidence is so overwhelming that literally the only part missing is his lack of signing a message.

That comes down to the bottom line, which is what makes me different than many others. Many people seem to believe that Wright has an "obligation" to sign a message, or else he is not Nakamoto. Most people seem to think that Wright must want to be part of bitcoin development. I believe that's irrelevant, and that he is telling the truth when he says he doesn't care what people believe. Refusing to sign a message does not automatically eliminate him from consideration. If I were on a jury being asked to decide a civil case as to whether he is Nakamoto, I think that the evidence shows that it is more likely than not that he is Nakamoto.

* (Unless it is shown that Wright suffers from an illness like bipolar disorder or schizophrenia and sought treatment, in which case he should be forgiven.)