[Cryptography] Craig Wright

[Patrick Chkoreff]

John Levine wrote on 2/2/22 4:57 PM:

> In related news, Jack Dorsey is funding a legal defense fund in an
> even stranger case in the UK where Wright is suing people to force
> them to help him recover keys he allegedly lost in a computer hack in
> 2020:
> 
> https://nypost.com/2022/01/13/jack-dorsey-looks-to-give-bitcoin-developers-a-boost-with-nonprofit/

I would expect that the individual who created bitcoin, authored the 
white paper, and presumably mined the genesis block would make secure 
backups of his keys.  If he did make the rookie mistake of losing the 
keys, I would not expect him to demand that others boil the oceans at 
their own expense to help him recover them.  Judged by those 
expectations, the plaintiff's claim does not sound legitimate to me.

Allegedly the plaintiff "lost the encrypted keys when his home computer 
network was hacked."  Real hackers would have simply copied the keys and 
immediately moved the assets to their control under another key.  There 
is no particular reason to delete all the copies they found on the 
victim's network, as they would assume he had secure copies of the keys 
on other media, such as a USB stick and good quality paper.

Plaintiff claims that the hackers, upon obtaining a copy of the keys, 
proceeded to delete every copy on the victim's network that they could 
find, and then, assuming the victim had no other backups, calmly assumed 
that they did not need to move the stolen assets under the control of 
another key.  This claim defies credibility.

Plaintiff asserts that "he created bitcoin to operate within existing 
laws and that in the event of loss or theft, where legitimate ownership 
can be proven, the developers have a duty to ensure recovery."  This 
claim is amateurish.  Bitcoin is a system in which control of a private 
key is the sole determinant of ownership of the assets associated with 
that key, and loss of the key implies loss of the assets.  A "duty to 
ensure recovery" implies that an unspecified other party has a duty 
solve an impossible mathematical puzzle.  Therefore, no such duty exists.

Plaintiff's petition to this court is hereby denied. (bang)


-- Patrick