[Cryptography] Question about Bitcoin's security model

[Peter Fairbrother]

On 30/07/2026 03:58, Peter Gutmann wrote:
> Roland Ionas Bialke <webmaster at pro-wrestling.biz> writes:
> 
>> I know a lot about the topic is speculation,
> 
> Speaking of speculation, if anyone hasn't seen it yet I'd highly recommend the
> documentary "Finding Satoshi".  This is the most credible explanation I've
> seen to date about who Satoshi really was.  I went into it prepared to be
> pretty sceptical because there's been a pile of these analyses over the years,
> but this one is really well researched and the most convincing I've seen.


Convenient that they (Hal Finney and Len Sassaman) are both dead.

I haven't seen the documentary, but Len was a close friend of mine, and 
I highly doubt he was any part of Satoshi. I don't think he would have 
wanted to be [1].

Len certainly wasn't the main man. He maybe could have done the protocol 
design, though I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have done it that way, but I 
don't think he could have done the coding - which I don't think Hal 
would have done that way either.


Plus, neither was a Londoner, and Satoshi was.



I think the search for Satoshi is focussed too tightly on the old 
cypherpunk / crypto privacy crowd. Seems Adam Back agrees:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ljOb2eJQRUs

though he limits that crowd to people who were known and visible. Maybe 
look at people like Major Variola (ret.), or antonmasia, who are still 
anonymous afaik? There were others, those just sprang to memory.



Peter Fairbrother

[1] eg when Roger proposed a bigger, better Tor after getting USG 
funding (around 2004), Len (and Lucky, and me) declined roles 'cause, 
like Bitcoin, Tor is cr*p against GPA's and/or GAA's.

We spent the rest of that evening in a drunken discussion of the merits 
and disadvantages of 10-gauge (fully) auto shotguns, fortunately without 
practical examples - it was in Canada and none were available.

Ah, fun times.

Roger and Nick (Matthewson) had Tor stickers and other printed material 
with tor (the original spelling iirc) as "tor", "Tor", and "TOR". 
Apparently that's a big thing nowadays ;)