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A Look at Stylometry: Can We Uncover Satoshi Through Literary Quirks?

06/08/2018 by Idelto Editor

A Look at Stylometry: Can We Uncover Satoshi Through Literary Quirks?

Over the past few years, the number of people hunting for Satoshi Nakamoto has increased as people all over the world have been in search of the mysterious creator of Bitcoin. The cryptocurrency-community has also seen a few people come out of the woodwork recently, who have claimed to be Satoshi or have been accused of being the currency’s creator. Then there’s that one guy who says he’s Nakamoto and has published the first chapter of his autobiography. One investigative approach that’s been used often to try and uncover Satoshi Nakamoto’s identity is a scientific method called stylometry, which shows that there are very few people living on earth that have ever written like Nakamoto and the crypto-inventor’s writing style is not easy to plagiarize.

Also Read: The Weekly: China Hires Cryptographer, McDonald’s Unveils Maccoin, Bitmain Gets Richer

The Quest to Uncover the Real Satoshi Nakamoto

A Look at Stylometry: Can We Uncover Satoshi Through Literary Quirks?Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? That’s a question people often ask these days due to the climactic rise of cryptocurrencies last year, and a lot of individuals have always been curious about the technology’s creator. There’s a lot of reasons to why a bunch of people would like to find out who Satoshi is, as the creator of Bitcoin could maybe answer some questions that could possibly end the heated scaling debate that’s been happening for years. Nakamoto also allegedly holds over 1 million BTC, BCH, and every other fork created under his original protocol making him/her/them extremely wealthy. Over the past few years, the crypto-community has also seen a few individuals that have been said to be Satoshi Nakamoto including Dorian Nakamoto, Ian Grigg, Nick Szabo, and Craig Wright. Furthermore, recently a man from Hawaii claimed he was Satoshi, and then some other dude wrote the first chapter of the Satoshi Nakamoto memoirs while also claiming to be the creator of Bitcoin.

Stylometry Used to Uncover Satoshi Nakamoto’s Writing Style and Literary Quirks

Over the years, there’s one scientific method that studies the linguistic style of typed text and handwriting called ‘stylometry’ and the literary tool has been often used to attribute Satoshi’s anonymity to a real person. The method of analyzing text for evidence of authenticity or ownership has been used for hundreds of years. When people write, not only do they have a distinctive handwriting, but the way individuals place phrases and specific words in bodies of writing are also very unique characteristics to every individual.

A Look at Stylometry: Can We Uncover Satoshi Through Literary Quirks?
A sample of one of Satoshi Nakamoto’s emails.

After the guy who wrote 21-pages of personal Nakamoto memories, many people who study text patterns and stylometrists believed the latest autobiography allegedly written by Nakamoto was most likely phony. The armchair detectives found the latest memoirs did not contain Nakamoto’s literary quirks, double spacing, and unique misspellings.

A Look at Stylometry: Can We Uncover Satoshi Through Literary Quirks?

Hard to Copy Satoshi’s Style But a Few Cryptographers Have Similarities

In fact, other stylometric analyses of the original Bitcoin white paper and Satoshi’s emails reveal that it is not easy to copy Nakamoto’s style. For instance, stylometrists have stated that the chances of another cryptographic researcher using the phrases, “It should be noted, for our purposes, can be characterized, and preclude” turns out to be extremely low at 0.8 percent. However, over the years of stylometric analysis of the white paper, there have been a few cryptographers who have come close to Nakamoto’s linguistic stylings. The five closest individuals named would be Nick Szabo, Ian Grigg, Hal Finney, Wei Dai, and Timothy May. Szabo has the highest amount of algorithmic similarities in his early papers when studied side by side with Nakamoto’s white paper. Although, each one of the people mentioned above have had comparable writing styles to Nakamoto to some degree and stylometric studies have named them all as suspects. On December 26, 2017 the data scientist Michael Chon explains each character who has been used in stylometric analysis against Nakamoto’s writings.             

“According to the classification algorithms, [stylometric analysis], all predicted that Nick Szabo is linguistically similar to Satoshi who had written the Bitcoin paper and Ian Grigg is linguistically similar to Satoshi who had exchanged the emails,” Chon details. “The word ‘would’ is used by Hal Finney 28 times and the word ‘one’ is used by Nick Szabo 199 times. There is one unigram, the word ‘contract’, commonly used by Ian Grigg and Nick Szabo.”

Wei Dai has the highest similarity score to the Bitcoin paper and Hal Finney has the highest similarity score to Satoshi’s email exchanges. From gensim, Timothy C. May has the highest similarity score to the Bitcoin paper and Ian Grigg has the highest similarity score to Satoshi’s email exchanges. An unusual result is that Ian Grigg has a similarity score of .99996 to Satoshi’s email exchanges.

Although Not Perfect Stylometrics Can Confirm Phony Resurrection Writing

Lastly, another study written by a nonprofit based in England used stylometrics this past June against Nakamoto’s writings and they concluded that the creator was the well-known Bitcoin developer Gavin Andresen. “We identified Bitcoin Cash developer Gavin Andresen as being the real Satoshi Nakamoto,” explains Troy Watson, a representative for the nonprofit’s recent study. However, not many took the study too seriously and the stylometric analysis was quickly forgotten.

A Look at Stylometry: Can We Uncover Satoshi Through Literary Quirks?
Gavin Andresen loses faith in stylometry after a study claimed that he was Satoshi Nakamoto.

The community has seen many claims by people saying they are Satoshi and it’s safe to say stylometry will likely be used against any self-professed Nakamoto that comes forward. The method of study, although not perfect, can deduce things down to a relatively low amount of known people, while giving people a glimpse at just how difficult it is to uncover Nakamoto’s identity. But stylometry can also be used to easily confirm phonies attempting to relive the Nakamoto glory days through resurrection writing.

What do you think about the many stylometric studies used to uncover the real Satoshi Nakamoto? Do you think stylometry is a good tool to deduce whether someone is Nakamoto or not? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comment section below.


Images via Shutterstock, Twitter, Pixabay, and Time. 


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The post A Look at Stylometry: Can We Uncover Satoshi Through Literary Quirks? appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Filed Under: Craig Wright, Cryptographers, Developers, Dorain, Double Spacing, emails, English, Gavin Andresen, Hal Finney, Ian Grigg, Michael Chon, N-Featured, News Bitcoin, Nick Szabo, Papers, Phrases, Satoshi Nakamoto, Similar Writing, SN, Timothy May, Wei Dai, White Paper, words, Writing Style

Wendy McElroy: Do Not Passively Nationalize Your Privacy

07/04/2018 by Idelto Editor

Wendy McElroy: Do Not Passively Nationalize Your Privacy

The Satoshi Revolution: A Revolution of Rising Expectations
Section 2: The Moral Imperative of Privacy
Chapter 6: Privacy is a Prerequisite for Human Rights

Do Not Passively Nationalize Your Privacy. Chapter 6, Part 7

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?”

–Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Lewis Carroll’s world is government, where words express the opposite of their meaning. War brings peace. Diversity means conformity to PC demands. Security requires the rape of privacy and due process, which provide true security for individuals. Subservience is freedom.

Government ‘reality’ inverts the truth. Privacy is dead, government declares with the certainty of a slamming door. Only, it isn’t. Privacy is entering a golden age—or it is for individuals who privatize their own data instead of allowing their identities to be nationalized. Nationalization of identity occurs when the government claims the ownership and use of everyone’s personal information, which individuals have no right to withhold. The government owns birth certificates, medical records, school transcripts, surveillance reports, police and court files, financial  information…It possesses data that individuals themselves cannot access.

The fact that privacy is alive and kicking is demonstrated by the adamance with which bureaucrats and their allies try to convince people of the contrary. Government wants to quash the very possibility of discussion because individuals could realize how much control they have over their own information. Individuals might start privatizing their privacy through the glut of technology that allows individuals to use encryption, pseudonymity, polynymity, anonymous cryptocurrency, decentralized exchanges, scrambling software, and an evolving array of digital tactics.

But what technology gives, technology can take away. Tomorrow, some privacy strategies could be obsolete. Game changers are on the horizon. If quantum computing pans out, for example, then encryption could crack like a walnut. “The quantum computer, following the laws of quantum physics, would gain enormous processing power through the ability to be in multiple states, and to perform tasks using all possible permutations simultaneously.” The out-of-the-box approach to data processing could revolutionize operating protocol and speed.

But what technology takes, technology can give. It is a race between those who use computers for social control and those who use them for freedom. Whatever master technology serves, however, the background politics are remarkably the same.


A Step-to-Step Guide to Nationalizing Privacy

There is a common pattern to how governments nationalize identities and privacy.

A crisis is declared, whether it is real or created. A real crisis may be a war or a foreign attack, like 9/11; a created one may be a school shooting that gins up hysteria, even though school shootings are incredibly rare and infrequent. Sometimes government policies create the crisis, such as the implosion of the Bolivar in Venezuela. Whatever the cause, a message is drummed into the public: it is not the government’s fault. Who is to blame? Hostile nations, deranged individuals, evil groups, the free market run amok—the usual suspects are rounded up. Then government presents itself as the solution.

This is the point at which rights are displaced by privileges.

What is a right? A natural right, like freedom of speech, is an extension of the jurisdiction that individuals have over their own bodies, which they are free to use in any peaceful manner. A right is not earned or granted; it exists because the owner is a human being with the same claim to personal freedom as any one else. Another approach to the same concept: there are only three possibilities on who owns an individual’s body: the individual himself, which is self-ownership; someone else, which is slavery; or, the body is unclaimed property, like luggage in a lost-and-found. The choice that makes sense is self-ownership.

What is a privilege? A privilege is an advantage or immunity that is granted to a particular person or to a group of people, usually small in number, which does not apply to others. Governments confer privileges upon those it favors due to their loyalty, service, or some other trait that authorities find useful. These are the two main differences between a right and a privilege: Rights are universal, whereas privileges are targeted; rights do not require permission to exercise, whereas privileges hinge upon permission.

Gradually, an individual’s use of his or her own body becomes a matter of government privilege and not a matter of rights. The harvesting of personal data is essential to this transition. A database does not matter to individuals who exercise their rights because the individuals decide for themselves how to act. But a database is essential to granting or denying privileges. Government needs to know who to reward for ‘good’ behavior and who to punish for ‘bad’. Who owns guns and may be dangerous? Who sends money abroad or doesn’t report an income stream? Where do these people live? A massive amount of information is required for government to target specific individuals or categories of people to either privilege or punish. Privacy must be taken away from individuals and nationalized.

The adrenaline of a crisis is useful to government in this endeavor because the public becomes receptive to heightened security, including surveillance. When the adrenaline recedes, however, the push for security is often replaced by boiling-frog tactics.

The boiling frog is a false fable that has a valuable lesson attached. A frog is boiled to death because the temperature of water in the pan where it sits is raised so gradually that it does not notice the lethal process; it does not jump out. The boiling frog is a metaphor for people who blithely tolerate a series of incremental changes until the end result becomes deadly.  The process is also called “creeping normality”; a major shift is accepted as “the norm” because it is introduced in small steps, each of which is sanctioned or, at least, not opposed. The end result may be widely viewed as objectionable—or, rather, it would be if it arrived in a single leap—but it comes inch-by-inch. The slow erosion of freedom becomes an everyday event. There is one more blank to fill out on a form; boarding a plane  requires a standardized state-issued card; police stop random cars or pedestrians to demand ID.

And, to make sure as much data as possible is raked in, government recruits crony corporations—such as central banks—that act as centralized points of data collection. Then government eliminates free-market competitors who do not act as bureaucracies. The loop is closed. Anyone who uses a government service, from schools to social security, must give up their data to do so. Anyone who uses a faux free-market service, from air travel  to banking, must give up their data to do so. What the loop closes around is the individual.

When a distorted normality has been established and accepted, the government gloves come off. Society is micromanaged. In China, the process of micromanagement is called the “social credit system” by which citizens are assigned a rating by the state. Those who score high are allowed to access privileges, such as travel and good restaurants. Those who score low, perhaps due to jaywalking or a rebellious attitude, become second-class citizens.

The financial and social commentator Doug Casey calls the system “fiendishly clever” because…”a high social score gives a citizen lots of benefits and privileges. A low score penalizes you in many ways. People will start competing to be good little lambs.” Otherwise stated, this form of social control is “fiendishly clever” because average people become enforcers of government policy out of their own self-interest. High scorers are more desirable employees, spouses, family members, friends, clients, neighbors, university students, and associates. Low scorers are stigmatized and limited in prospects. In short, people will control and censor themselves in order to achieve the high score that leads to status and opportunity. They will shun those with low scores, who are consigned to lower economic rungs.

Western nations are adopting their own rating systems, and the trend will accelerate. Casey predicts, “The TSA will likely subject you to…screening based on your score [or red flags in your file]. The IRS…[will scrutinize] your finances. The same with the police, prosecutors, and what-have-you, right down to your local DMV…It’s the best idea since everyone got a Social Security number—for them.” [Italics added.] Whether in China or the U.S., the total state rests on total access to personal information, especially digital footprints.

Into the walls of this Brave New World, Satoshi Nakamoto carved an EXIT door for those who want to privatize their own data and to decline the nationalization of their identities. It opens to a path around government, central banks, and crony corporations—a path around trusted third parties—because no one should be trusted with the custody of human rights.

It is impossible to predict the future of crypto because the future evolves quickly and in unexpected directions. But, wherever it goes, the principles of the Satoshi vision remain true North: individual control of privacy; peer-to-peer exchanges (or as close as possible on exchanges); and, decentralization.

Conclusion

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”

―Lewis Carroll, Alice Through the Looking Glass

Privacy is not dead; it is enjoying a revival. Governments know this. That’s why they choke off discussion by claiming privacy no longer exists. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along. Believing authorities means allowing your identity to be nationalized and accepting your fate as a number to be ranked by bureaucrats.

Or you can take the EXIT.

[To be continued next week.]

Reprints of this article should credit bitcoin.com and include a link back to the original links to all previous chapters


Wendy McElroy has agreed to ”live-publish” her new book The Satoshi Revolution exclusively with Bitcoin.com. Every Saturday you’ll find another installment in a series of posts planned to conclude after about 18 months. Altogether they’ll make up her new book ”The Satoshi Revolution”. Read it here first.

The post Wendy McElroy: Do Not Passively Nationalize Your Privacy appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Filed Under: Alice in Wonderland, anonymous cryptocurrency, birth certificates, decentralized exchanges, deranged individuals, encryption, English, evil groups, Free Market, Government, government solution, Hostile nations, Lewis Carroll, loyalty, Medical Records, N-Featured, N-Privacy, N-Technology, ndividual’s body, News Bitcoin, Police, polynymity, privilege, Pseudonymity, Satoshi Nakamoto, school transcripts, scrambling software, service, slavery, surveillance reports, The Satoshi Revolution, Truth, Wendy McElroy, words, world of my own

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