Best Way to Explain what Satoshi Files: Michael Clear
Michael Clear Michael Clear was a young graduate student at Trinity College, Dublin, when he was approached by New Yorker journalist Joshua Davis. He studied computer science and cryptography, and in 2008, the same year Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin, he was crowned the university’s top computer-science student.
What knowledge do we have on Satoshi? “He’s a world-class programmer with extensive knowledge of the C++ programming language,” says Dan Kaminsky, a famous internet security researcher. “He understands economics, cryptography, and peer-to-peer networking.” Kaminsky, on the other hand, is unsure whether Satoshi is a single person. “Either there’s a team of people who worked on this, or this guy is a genius,” he explained.
But why is Satoshi running away? Of course, we can only speculate, but one obvious explanation is that he is afraid the US government will prosecute him if he is ever apprehended. It wouldn’t be the first time the US government-imposed sanctions on someone who developed a currency that competed with the US dollar.
Consider the Liberty dollar, which was designed by Bernard von NotHaus in the mid-1990s. Liberty dollars were issued as metal rounds (similar to coins), gold and silver certificates, and as e-Liberty Dollars, or eLD, online. Like currency, you could exchange them for goods and services at specific businesses.
Libertarians adored Liberty Dollars, which spread like wildfire across the United States. However, the US government dislikes private currencies that compete with the dollar and has regulations prohibiting their creation. The FBI has this to say about Liberty Dollars:
“It is a violation of federal law for individuals…to create private coin or currency systems that compete with the official coinage and currency of the United States.”
The authorities slammed Liberty Dollars, accusing von Not Haus of supporting the selling of child pornography and facilitating money laundering. Bernard von Not Haus was convicted of forgery in 2011 and sentenced to three years’ probation. He was charged with domestic terrorism, but the government never prosecuted him. Satoshi Nakamoto clearly has at least one compelling reason to conceal his identity: he wants to avoid incarceration.
From The New Yorker, Joshua Davis
Despite Satoshi’s expressed desire for privacy, journalists have been following him for years. Every journalist who has tried has come up with a different candidate. Dorian Nakamoto was discovered by Newsweek’s Leah Goodman, Craig Wright and David Kleiman were ‘outed’ by Wired and Gizmodo, and Michael Clear was discovered by The New Yorker’s Joshua Davis.
Davis began his search for Satoshi at the Crypto 2011 conference, a small gathering of 300 of the world’s most significant and renowned cryptographers. Representatives from intelligence services such as the NSA, as well as several academics, were in attendance. Their crucial work almost guarantees our online safety, although few of us know who they are.
He asked conference chair Phillip Rogaway for assistance by framing his hunt for Satoshi as “trying to learn more about what it would take to create Bitcoin.” Rogaway told Davis, “It’s likely I either know the person [Satoshi] or know their work.” He then promised to introduce Davis to some suitable cryptographers.
The first challenge Davis faced was deciding how to select Satoshi, a very skilled cryptographer, from a group of 300 other extremely skilled cryptographers. He needed a way to narrow down the list, so he looked at Satoshi’s word selections and spelling, as well as the times of day he worked.
Satoshi utilized British spellings in the Bitcoin whitepaper (“color,” “grey,” “modernized,” and so on), and once described writing a description in a description.Davis interpreted his description of Bitcoin for the masses as “bloody hard,” which Davis took to suggest he was either British or lived in the UK. Davis also highlighted that Satoshi’s emails and forum posts were timestamped shortly after the conclusion of UK business hours, lending credence to his theory that Satoshi Nakamoto lived and worked in the UK and worked on Bitcoin in his spare time.
It’s worth noting that Davis has received a lot of flak for this investigation since The New Yorker published its piece on Clear. It was pointed out that British spelling is used around the world, not just in the United Kingdom (Hong Kong and Australia, for example). Furthermore, Satoshi’s working hours are more in line with the US East Coast than the UK. As a result, Davis’s criteria were not as black-and-white as he claimed.)
Davis’ criteria, however, lead him to the nine Crypto Conference attendees who lived and worked in the UK. Davis met six of these cryptographers at the University of Bristol during one of the conference’s cocktail receptions. They had all heard of Bitcoin, but none of them had used it.
None of the six had expressed any interest in it, nor had any of them worked with peer-to-peer technologies like as Bitcoin. “It’s not at all interesting to us,” they declared.
Davis was left with only three cryptographers based in the United Kingdom. Two of these were eliminated because they lacked experience developing large-scale software projects; the other was Michael Clear.
Davis emailed Clear, asking for an interview regarding Bitcoin, and the two planned to meet outside the lecture hall the next day. Clear had no idea that the interview would lead to him being published in one of the world’s most prominent magazines at the moment.
Davis told Clear that he had read about his academic expertise, work at Allied Irish Banks, and research on peer-to-peer technology and believed he would be interested.
have some unique Bitcoin knowledge. “He was hired by Allied Irish Banks to improve its currency-trading software,” Davis wrote, which Clear subsequently said wasn’t entirely accurate. “My involvement with AIB was through an undergraduate project,” he explained. “I was not an employee,” he stated, later adding that he was not paid for his duties.
Clear worked in the banking sector during the 2008 banking crisis, regardless of the type of employment he had. Satoshi placed the phrase “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks” in Bitcoin’s genesis block. This was an allusion to the UK government spending taxpayer money to bail out additional institutions.
When Davis inquired about the banking crisis, Clear stated, “It could have been avoided.”
The topic of cryptocurrencies was brought up. Clear told Davis that his research was focused on “fully homomorphic encryption,” not cryptocurrencies, and that he hadn’t kept up with Bitcoin’s progress. Davis’ notion didn’t appear to have a chance, but he persisted. To be fair to Davis, Clear’s technical abilities are impressive: he has been programming computers since the age of ten and is fluent in multiple coding languages, including C++, the language Satoshi used to create Bitcoin.
The discussion then turned to Bitcoin. “It needs to prove itself,” Clear explained, “but it’s an intriguing idea.” Davis then revealed his true purpose to Clear: to discover Satoshi Nakamoto.
“Are you Satoshi?” Davis inquired. Clear laughed but didn’t say anything. Instead, he promised to analyze Bitcoin’s code and provide feedback to Davis.
Clear later expressed remorse for not telling Davis he wasn’t Satoshi more forcefully: “When Bitcoin came up, I remember we had a brief casual chat; I was naturally startled when he thought I could be Satoshi, and there was some humour and regrettable mistakes on my part.”
Since then, he has repeatedly denied being Satoshi.
Clear emailed Davis with comments on Bitcoin a week after the Crypto Conference. He felt it was fantastic and claimed to recognize Satoshi.
“It is clear that the person(s) behind the Satoshi name have amassed a not insignificant knowledge of applied mathematics.”
Obvious stated, “cryptography.” Bitcoin’s architecture was “elegant,” and whoever created it had significant “programming proficiency.” This meant that the number of persons who may have created Bitcoin was relatively tiny, according to Clear, and he knew one guy who fit the profile perfectly: Vili Lehdonvirta.
Lehdonvirta, Vili
At the time Clear gave Davis his name, Lehdonvirta, a Finnish researcher at the Helsinki Institute of Information Technology, was researching virtual currencies. When Davis met with him, Lehdonvirta pointed out that he had no knowledge of cryptography and very rudimentary C++ abilities, and thus couldn’t have constructed Bitcoin. “You need to be a crypto expert to build something as sophisticated as Bitcoin,” said Lehdonvirta. He was also no crypto specialist.
Later, Clear stated that he hadn’t actually meant it.
Davis wanted to email and interview Lehdonvirta to demonstrate that even a quick brainstorming would yield persons who fit Satoshi’s profile better than he did. “My reference to identifying Satoshi was not meant to be taken so seriously (the humour has apparently been lost).” “I thought I could identify some Satoshi leads (and I say that lightly),” he said on his blog.
Davis’ focus returned to Clear once Lehdonvirta proved to be a dead end. Davis examined him once more, looking for any hints that could take him to Satoshi’s door. Clear admitted that, yes, he was a good coder who knew cryptography, and that now that he’d experienced Bitcoin’s success, he was even more so.He liked the design of the code, but he wasn’t interested in economics. This threw a wrench in Davis’ plans because Satoshi was very interested in politics.This mocking remark gave The New Yorker reason to distrust his previous statement. Because, in the eyes of Davis and The New Yorker, Clear might as well have replied, “Yeah, I might be Satoshi. But you’ll never find out.” He almost seemed to be putting down the gauntlet.
Clear was inundated with emails and interview requests after The New Yorker published Davis’s essay. But the Irish Times allowed him to tell his side of the story before things got out of hand.
Clear appears to have believed that his role in Davis’s piece was much lower than it actually was. He told Irish Times writers, “I thought I might feature in one paragraph as a possible candidate who was quickly eliminated.” He also stated that he was “bemused” by the entire encounter.
“When Bitcoin came up, I remember we had a brief casual chat; I was naturally startled when he thought I could be Satoshi, and there was some humour and regrettable mistakes on my part,” he explained.
Clear then published his blog is his official response to the saga.
“I’m a humble research student with an interest in cryptography; I’m far from an expert in anything.” As previously said, I have never worked in a bank and am certainly not an economist (I have gotten emails to that effect:)). My interest in Bitcoin originated from its design and cryptography features, among other things.”
The Proof That Michael Clear Is Satoshi Nakamoto
His Academic and Technical Background
Michael Clear possesses the majority of the technical skills required to have invented Bitcoin. He studied computer science as an undergraduate, cryptography as a graduate student, and is a skilled C++ coder.
His Time Zone No. 2
If we take Satoshi’s email and forum post timestamps and assume he worked on Bitcoin after finishing a conventional 9 to 5 day job, we can conclude that Satoshi works and resides in the United Kingdom. Or, at the very least, he did when he created Bitcoin.
Michael Clear is also a resident of this time zone.
Clear Was a Banker During the 2008 Banking Crisis
The genesis block of Bitcoin bears an obvious reference to central bank concerns.
Satoshi wanted to overcome the problem of fiat currency (The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on verge of second bailout for banks). We can therefore conclude that Satoshi had a strong understanding of banking and economics, and possibly even worked in banking, but that he thought the British government’s response to the crisis was completely inadequate.
During the time Satoshi Nakamoto was developing Bitcoin, Michael Clear was working with bankers for Allied Irish Banks. When asked about the incident, he stated, “It could have been averted.”
The Proof That Michael Clear Isn’t Satoshi Nakamoto
He claims he is not Satoshi.
Clear refuted in every interview that he invented Bitcoin. When asked if he was, he replied, “even if I was, I wouldn’t tell you.” But this is hardly an admission of guilt; rather, it is a casual remark.
2The Timetable
Clear was a student at Trinity College in Dublin when Satoshi was building Bitcoin. Given that he received an academic award that same year, it appears implausible that he had time to invent Bitcoin at the same time.
Do Not Care About Economics
Clear has indicated on multiple times that he is uninterested in economics. This contradicts everything we know about Satoshi, who was passionate about economics.
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