The more remarkable discovery? That bitcoin may but hint at the depth of his work. When I contact a crypt
named Ray Dillinger, one of Satoshi's early (and initially sceptical) interlocutors, he insists that,
"intellectually speaking", approaching Satoshi's creation is "like being on the coastline of a new continent,
wondering what the eventual complete map will contain it will take decades, perhaps a century or more,
before new refinements and ideas become even remotely difficult to come up with."
What does Dillinger mean? Starting from the proposition that the most corrosive crimes against society
and individuals in the data age tend to involve falsification, whether at the hands of Enron, Bernie
Madoffor bankers flogging bent mortgages, Dillinger observes: "The rules of a consensus-history system
could, in principle, be as minimal or complete as we are able to express in a programming language. It is
possible, therefore, to extend the idea of a universally consistent history -- in which attempts to
misrepresent simply fail -- much further than simply recording monetary transactions. Can you imagine a
society in which most forms of falsification simply fail? "We can't build that yet. But with Nakamoto'sprotocol, we are starting to see how such a thing could be built."
At which point the question of who Satoshi is suddenly seems secondary. What Dillinger describes is an
internet in which all information does not look the same. The dawn of Web 3.0. And perhaps by the time we
have that, we'll also have the name of its creator | Andrew Smith is the author of Totally Wired: the Wild
Rise and Crazy Fall of the First Dotcom Dream, and Moondust. @wiresmith
https://www.gwern.net/docs/bitcoin/2014-smithset.pdf
Title: Desperately seeking Satoshi; From nowhere, bitcoin is now worth billions. Where did it come from?
Andrew Smithset off to find Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious genius behind the hit e-currency
Source: Sunday Times (London, England). (Mar. 2, 2014): News: p16.
Document Type: Article
Copyright : COPYRIGHT 2014 NI Syndication Limited. Sunday Times
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk
named Ray Dillinger, one of Satoshi's early (and initially sceptical) interlocutors, he insists that,
"intellectually speaking", approaching Satoshi's creation is "like being on the coastline of a new continent,
wondering what the eventual complete map will contain it will take decades, perhaps a century or more,
before new refinements and ideas become even remotely difficult to come up with."
What does Dillinger mean? Starting from the proposition that the most corrosive crimes against society
and individuals in the data age tend to involve falsification, whether at the hands of Enron, Bernie
Madoffor bankers flogging bent mortgages, Dillinger observes: "The rules of a consensus-history system
could, in principle, be as minimal or complete as we are able to express in a programming language. It is
possible, therefore, to extend the idea of a universally consistent history -- in which attempts to
misrepresent simply fail -- much further than simply recording monetary transactions. Can you imagine a
society in which most forms of falsification simply fail? "We can't build that yet. But with Nakamoto'sprotocol, we are starting to see how such a thing could be built."
At which point the question of who Satoshi is suddenly seems secondary. What Dillinger describes is an
internet in which all information does not look the same. The dawn of Web 3.0. And perhaps by the time we
have that, we'll also have the name of its creator | Andrew Smith is the author of Totally Wired: the Wild
Rise and Crazy Fall of the First Dotcom Dream, and Moondust. @wiresmith
https://www.gwern.net/docs/bitcoin/2014-smithset.pdf
Title: Desperately seeking Satoshi; From nowhere, bitcoin is now worth billions. Where did it come from?
Andrew Smithset off to find Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious genius behind the hit e-currency
Source: Sunday Times (London, England). (Mar. 2, 2014): News: p16.
Document Type: Article
Copyright : COPYRIGHT 2014 NI Syndication Limited. Sunday Times
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk
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