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Wired and Gizmodo have named Craig Steven Wright (along with deceased American computer forensics expert Dave Kleiman) as the inventor of Bitcoin, known by the apparent pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. Hours after their stories were published, the man's home was raided by the Australian Federal Police:
The latest attempt came this week from Wired magazine. Except this time, the story based its findings on numerous recorded links between the man and the identity of Nakamoto, through leaked emails, old blog posts and public documents. And then, just hours later, a twin story from tech website Gizmodo: more emails and documents, independent research, similar findings.
Their shared conclusion: It's probably a man named Craig Steven Wright, an Australian entrepreneur and academic, working with American computer forensics expert David Kleiman until his death in 2013.
And then, another few hours later: reports from Reuters and The Guardian that Australian police have raided Wright's home and office in Sydney. The authorities told The Guardian that the execution of search warrants was "to assist the Australian Taxation Office" but the "matter is unrelated to recent media reporting regarding the digital currency bitcoin."
The Register has some more details about Wright:
[More after the break.]
Wright's known business interests relate mostly to Bitcoin: as well as operating a BTC exchange, he has a company called Cloudcroft, which holds what's probably Australia's only privately owned Top-500 supercomputer – C01N operated by Tulip Trading.
The umbrella company most associated with Wright, DeMorgan, lists security, banking and finance, maths, AI and software development as well as cryptocurrency.
Earlier this year, DeMorgan had high hopes of turning its research into government R&D tax credits, as is outlined in this press release [PDF - google cache link - original has 404'ed] – crucially, DeMorgan said its work could be worth up to AU$54m ($39m, £26m) under AusIndustry's R&D tax incentive scheme. Worth AU$54m to DeMorgan, that is.
Both articles claim that if Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto, he may be holding Bitcoins currently worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Friday December 11 2015, @12:09AM
An "unrelated matter". Nice police state they've got there. How the hell did things get this bad?
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 11 2015, @12:15AM
You let it happen. It's happening. You could have stopped this. This is the future you chose. Why didn't you listen?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 11 2015, @12:26AM
What is up with these bullshit accusations on this site lately? It feels like a flood of shills have begun hammering the discussions with "its futile, give up" type messages. The "powerful" have chosen this future, the average citizen has not. The "choices" are between different flavors of the same shit (usually) with a huge amount of momentum against any third party. With third parties we are "wasting our votes" so it is said...
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 11 2015, @12:31AM
I'd like to say the shill pay is good, but it's not. Mostly attaboys and $5 gift cards to national chain restaurants. These economic times are tough...
(Score: 2, Funny) by takyon on Friday December 11 2015, @12:53AM
I'll help you out. Every sentence in the post you replied to is a meme.
It's happening! [imgur.com]
Why did you let this happen? / Why didn't you stop it? [kym-cdn.com]
Etc. [google.com]
Origin story [knowyourmeme.com]
ACs will post dank maymays for truly epic lulz. It can't be stopped.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 11 2015, @01:39AM
>spoonfeeding
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 11 2015, @10:02PM
Thank you for the explanation. I wasn't aware of that meme.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by isostatic on Friday December 11 2015, @12:53AM
The readership gets older, starts seeing the same things come round again. "Hey lets put up Trump so everyone's glad when Bush III gets in", or "Lets invade yet another arab country because TERRORISTS". Views change from trying to fix the world to making the best of a bad job.
At least pointless activism in the 60s and 70s involved people getting off their backsides, chaining themselves to lorries or missiles, and having sex. Now activism involves witty tweets and multiple shares from "makeameme.com".
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 11 2015, @01:24AM
> Now activism involves witty tweets and multiple shares from "makeameme.com".
There is evidence [qz.com] that slacktivism makes people much more likely to participate in real-world activism too. So, get off my lawn old man.
(Score: 2) by ticho on Friday December 11 2015, @07:11AM
I prefer the term "fauxtivism". :-)
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Friday December 11 2015, @12:41PM
So lets assume the keyboard warrier put down their cheetos and emerge from their mom's basement. They organise a large protest, and they even manage to keep squabbles over the name - People's Front of Judea or Judean People's Front, or the Popular Front of Judea.
So they organise and they protest. They Occupy Wall Street. They go on stop the war campaings. They get millions out.
Then what?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 11 2015, @03:40PM
Then what?
Then sometimes they get what they ask for?
Because in some cases what they ask for is not really conflicting with what the corporations want. So the politicians can give them what they ask for and give the corporations what they ask for.
Legalize marijuana? Doubt most corporations care. Big Tobacco might even see this as an opportunity- a new growth market. Gay marriage? Doubt most big corps care either.
In contrast - Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership? Doubt most voters care, so why not give the corporations what they want?
Everyone gets what they want. Win-win.
Ask loudly enough for small government, and they just outsource to their friends, with the bonus that not all the restrictions and requirements on what the Gov can and cannot do, will apply to their friends. Good luck filing a FOIA request on a private corporation.
(Score: 4, Informative) by NoMaster on Friday December 11 2015, @12:39AM
Given that he's had a few well-documented issues with the ATO - amongst other things, they say Bitcoin is a bartering or trade currency & is therefore taxable while he says it's not and isn't, and one of his companies has recently gone into receivership after a long-running dispute with the ATO about tax credits & copping a penalty - which were public before the Wired/Gizmodo stories, and seems to have skipped the country ... well, it's more likely than not that the ATO raid is unrelated.
Live free or fuck off and take your naïve Libertarian fantasies with you...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 11 2015, @01:21AM
My impression, just based on skimming a few articles, is that the raid was unrelated. But the bitcoin story moved up the timeline. If the guy actually has a couple of hundred million in difficult to trace/impound nearly liquid assets that would make him a serious flight risk, able to buy his way to practically anywhere in the world.
On the other hand, the photo of his garage getting raided sure doesn't look like the kind of garage that someone with much money would own. Looked run down on the outside and on the inside there was a universal gym / bowflex kinda thing instead of a car.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NoMaster on Friday December 11 2015, @03:32AM
It looks like a typical AU$1.5 - 2 million house in the area to me. Oz real estate prices are stupid, Sydney prices are particularly stupid, and North Shore prices are crazy stupid.
If it has a water view it could easily be worth 5 times that...
Live free or fuck off and take your naïve Libertarian fantasies with you...
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Friday December 11 2015, @02:27PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Friday December 11 2015, @08:48AM
He was raided because his tax affairs are under investigation. The bitcoin connection came to light because of leaked conversations with his lawyers. He was likely talking to his lawyers because he was under investigation.
So the two events are related, but possibly not in the way most people seem to be assuming.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk