Interesting
Nov. 25th, 2013 09:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mme_hardyWarning: triggery for Bitcoins.
Part of the Bitcoin legend is that Bitcoins were proposed, complete with algorithms, by a "Satoshi Nakamoto". Nakamoto created a few coins, then disappeared forever.
Dorit Ron and Adi Shamir (yes, the Shamir, the one in RSA) have encountered evidence that suggests that Nakamoto and "Dread Pirate Roberts" are the same person. The current "Dread Pirate Roberts" --there's no evidence that there's actually been more than one-- is alleged to be Ross Ulbricht, who was arrested for running Silk Road, the darknet supplier of illegal stuff.
Actually, that explains a lot.
Part of the Bitcoin legend is that Bitcoins were proposed, complete with algorithms, by a "Satoshi Nakamoto". Nakamoto created a few coins, then disappeared forever.
Dorit Ron and Adi Shamir (yes, the Shamir, the one in RSA) have encountered evidence that suggests that Nakamoto and "Dread Pirate Roberts" are the same person. The current "Dread Pirate Roberts" --there's no evidence that there's actually been more than one-- is alleged to be Ross Ulbricht, who was arrested for running Silk Road, the darknet supplier of illegal stuff.
The two scientists have been exploring the web of financial transactions produced by bitcoin, the anonymous currency that has drawn the attention of both law enforcement and federal regulators in recent months. Their research is made possible by the fact that while bitcoin is designed to protect the anonymity of buyers and sellers, the actual transactions are public. Earlier this year, the researchers obtained a complete listing of all bitcoin transactions and have since been exploring the “graph” of those interactions in an attempt to gain statistical insights into user behavior in the anonymous financial market.
After Mr. Ulbricht was arrested last month, the scientists used public information to begin tracing Silk Road-related transactions. Among their discoveries was a particular transfer to an account controlled by Mr. Ulbricht from another that had been created in January 2009, during the very earliest days of the bitcoin network, which was set up the previous year.
Although the authors state that they cannot prove that that account belongs to the person who created the bitcoin currency, it is widely believed that the first accounts belong to a person who identifies himself as “Satoshi Nakamoto,” but who has remained anonymous and has not been publicly heard from since 2010.
Individual bitcoin is generated using a cryptographic algorithm that requires computer-processing power and that insures that each coin remains unique and cannot be copied.
...
In tracing various transactions made to and from Mr. Ulbricht’s account, the authors found an intriguing one involving the transfer of 1,000 bitcoin, which would have been worth $60,000 when it was made on March 20 of this year, but is now worth roughly $847,000.
They write: “Such a single large transfer does not represent the typical behavior of a buyer who opens an account on Silk Road in order to purchase some narcotics (such buyers are expected to make an initial deposit of tens or hundreds of dollars, and to top the account off whenever they buy additional merchandise). It could represent either large-scale activity on Silk Road, or some form of investment or partnership, but this is pure speculation.”
The mysterious account that made the investment had at one point accumulated 77,600 bitcoin, mostly through “mining” operations, an amount which would now be worth approximately $64 million.
“The short path we found suggests (but does not prove) the existence of a surprising link between the two mysterious figures of the bitcoin community, Satoshi Nakamoto and DPR,” the authors write, referring to Mr. Ulbricht as the Dread Pirate Roberts.
After Mr. Ulbricht was arrested last month, the scientists used public information to begin tracing Silk Road-related transactions. Among their discoveries was a particular transfer to an account controlled by Mr. Ulbricht from another that had been created in January 2009, during the very earliest days of the bitcoin network, which was set up the previous year.
Although the authors state that they cannot prove that that account belongs to the person who created the bitcoin currency, it is widely believed that the first accounts belong to a person who identifies himself as “Satoshi Nakamoto,” but who has remained anonymous and has not been publicly heard from since 2010.
Individual bitcoin is generated using a cryptographic algorithm that requires computer-processing power and that insures that each coin remains unique and cannot be copied.
...
In tracing various transactions made to and from Mr. Ulbricht’s account, the authors found an intriguing one involving the transfer of 1,000 bitcoin, which would have been worth $60,000 when it was made on March 20 of this year, but is now worth roughly $847,000.
They write: “Such a single large transfer does not represent the typical behavior of a buyer who opens an account on Silk Road in order to purchase some narcotics (such buyers are expected to make an initial deposit of tens or hundreds of dollars, and to top the account off whenever they buy additional merchandise). It could represent either large-scale activity on Silk Road, or some form of investment or partnership, but this is pure speculation.”
The mysterious account that made the investment had at one point accumulated 77,600 bitcoin, mostly through “mining” operations, an amount which would now be worth approximately $64 million.
“The short path we found suggests (but does not prove) the existence of a surprising link between the two mysterious figures of the bitcoin community, Satoshi Nakamoto and DPR,” the authors write, referring to Mr. Ulbricht as the Dread Pirate Roberts.
Actually, that explains a lot.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-25 05:31 pm (UTC)If it is correct, then Ulbricht will be another in a long line of tragically, laughably impractical wiseguys who concentrate so much on the caper that it doesn't occur to them to, say, move to a more congenial jurisdiction (if there were one).
no subject
Date: 2013-11-25 05:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-25 05:42 pm (UTC)I mean, of course they didn't sit down and explain exactly how and why, they're criminals.
What I find really disturbing is there's talk of letting people bitcoin campaign contributions for US political races. That's...not going to get the corruption out of politics, no.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-25 05:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-25 06:06 pm (UTC)ETA: I mean, that's the entire point of currency of any kind, is to allow its issuer to accrue benefits which are disproportionate to their labor, and to administer or control the labor of others. And this particular kind of currency was also developed as a nation-state disruption method.
I don't doubt that the geekerati want to live in a utopia and whoo look you can make money out of numbers, boy howdy, but we're talking about a bunch of very smart people deliberately destabilizing the international currency system. And geeks are very bright and idealistic and all but also selfish rat bastards because these things aren't mutually exclusive.
If you can both take down capitalism AND profit from the takedown...well, that's kind of the libertarian geek project in a nutshell, innit? That it's also been the project of numerous capitalists throughout the last five hundred years or so, and isn't actually revolutionary in any way...like I say, I thought we all knew that. They're just dressing the same old profiteering shit in revolutionary pants. And also side-dealing in street drugs, which...goes to show that they have learned a few things from the examples set by nation-state governments.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-25 08:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-25 10:09 pm (UTC)The real question to me, like I say, is whether the forces in government that want a less-traceable way to carry out various better-off-in-the-dark financial transactions will adopt bitcoins. Which would mean the thing to do, if that were a goal, would be to take it away from the "CS geeks" in ways either visible or not. Imprisoning the Silk Road guy (or tying him up dealing with random legal stuff) once he's spent his social credibility getting it up and running would be a logical thing to do.
A stable, non-state-backed currency with no hard links to the increasingly imperiled US dollar? Maybe I'm a crackpot conspiracy theorist but that's basically a wet dream for various political and economic factions in the US government and worldwide.
There are a lot of long games being played in currency right now and it's going to be interesting to watch.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-28 05:03 pm (UTC)BWAAAAAAAHAHAHA.... //cries
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Date: 2013-11-25 08:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-25 09:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-25 09:03 pm (UTC)'kay. Must be hanging out in different circles, then, to have (fortunately) missed that kind of triumphalism.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-25 09:07 pm (UTC)