Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[Justus Ranvier]

Yes, it's obvious that zombies have taken over Reddit. The only unanswered question is for whom they are working.

As much as I'd like to assume the easy answer, anyone going to the trouble of paying for a disinfo campaign could employ some misdirection to avoid being fingered as the actual culprit.

The junta which has taken over Bitcoin Core does not necessarily need to consist of the people whose names we know.

 

[cypherdoc]

Somebody is spending a fair amount of money on paid trolls, yes.

The simplest explanation is that it's a well-funded Bitcoin startup (Blockstream) trying to hold on to its position.

A less-parsimonious explanation is that it's a Bitcoin competitor paying for it to make Blockstream/Core look bad and commit forced errors, and to divide the community. This could either be a well-funded altcoin or one of the bankster-funded initiatives.

An explanation which can be not ruled out is that it's a state-level attacker.

i'll go with #1, the simplest explanation.

reason being, all you have to do is factor in all the Blockstream core dev BS coming directly out of their mouths to understand they actually believe what they're saying.

 

[Justus Ranvier]

Going with the simplest explanation is a good heuristic, but it's always good to consider the possibility of a false positive, even if only as a form of mental callisthenics.

 

[cypherdoc]

@Justus Ranvier

i totally agree. that's why we have you here

 

[Bagatell]

The junta which has taken over Bitcoin Core does not necessarily need to consist of the people whose names we know.

Said junta is probably not the only entity up to no good.

 

[Justus Ranvier]

Have I mentioned before that RES is incredibly useful, especially the tagging feature?

 

[Richy_T]

Is there a team tagging feature? It would be nice to make it a group effort.

 

[Bagatell]

RES is very useful. Be sure to highlight the red team!

 

[Justus Ranvier]

@Richy_T I don't think so, but there should be.

 

[Bagatell]

From the RES features page

RES Pro

Syncing
RES Pro allows you to sync settings and data to a server.
This feature is coming soon!

 

[Erdogan]

The satoshi still have negligible value. No reason for printing.

 

[Dusty]

Still, the issue to me is how on earth could Gavin be tricked. I find that very hard to believe.

Maybe this way:

• CSW pulls out the signature from the blockchain
• That signature signs a known hash, let's call it H
• CSW builds a program that claims to hash a string, but instead of really hashing it, it checks its content: if the string ends with "CSW" then output H, else output the real hash
• He then let gavin chose a message ("Gavin's favorite number is eleven."), and hashes it, let's call H1 the output of the program
  
• CSW gives H1 to Gavin and tells him: "Verify this hash with your pc"
• Gavin takes the fresh PC, installs the software, checks the signature and it does not match
• CSW tells Gavin "oh, shit! I signed a different message! Mine had my initials in the end"
• So CSW runs the hashing again, this time the message is "Gavin's favorite number is eleven. CSW", and the program outputs H because the string this time ends with "CSW"
• Gavin sees a different hash (H is different from H1) so everything seems quite normal to him
• Gavin checks the signature of H and it gets validated (remember, H was already signed on the blockchain) and starts to wonder "oh shit! This is really him!"

Lesson: cryptography is a tricky business, and a single weak link can fool us.

Details about the procedure followed by Gavin:

 

[Norway]

@Dusty
Why do you talk about all these hashes? Gavin simply got a signature of the decided message on the stick. And checked it on a new computer with a fresh installation of Electrum.

 

[freetrader]

Gavin has left open the possibility that he was tricked.

So @Dusty has just described a plausible way in which this might have happened. (it's what has been suggested by others before)

Gavin does not owe us an answer, although if the scenario that Dusty describes could not have happened, Gavin could refute it. But we have to consider that he may not want to refute it even if he himself knew he could, because that might raise other questions - there could literally be endless questions arising from this, because in the end it was a private demonstration and no words that Gavin puts forth will satisfy anyone. I think it's best to let it remain a private matter.

 

[Dusty]

Why do you talk about all these hashes? Gavin simply got a signature of the decided message on the stick. And checked it on a new computer with a fresh installation of Electrum.

Because to check if a signature is valid you need two things: the pubkey and the hash of the message (if you have a message you have to hash it first).
If we suppose that CSW is an impostor he does not have the private key so he can't create a valid signature.
But since Gavin only needs the hash of the message to verify the signature, he pulls the trick of giving him the right hash, the problem is that that hash is not corrisponding to the message, and maybe Gavin falls for it.
Only Gavin can know if this could be happened or not.

 

[Norway]

@Dusty In Electrum, you just type in the message. Not the hash.

 

[Dusty]

I know, but the thing about having to add Craig's signature in the message (I've no link for that post, sorry) left me quite puzzled so I tried to find a plausible scenario: we should know a lot of other details to understand how Gavin got fooled.
I assume that if CSW is able to sign a message he would simply have done it, that functions has been designed expressly for such kind of events

Anyway, I must admit that I had a very low opinion of CRW but after viewing the whole interview that Cypherdoc posted my view on him changed radically: that guy studied a lot of material, or definitely has a vision of the big picture. It could have convinced me, if I was in Gavin's place.

 

[Norway]

@Dusty
Did you learn anything from what I wrote about how the signing from Craig to Gavin was done?

 

[sickpig]

Anyone see something contradicting?

I have personally asked, in a phone conversation as well as in mail, Gavin various times to give up his privileges with the github project himself - and so have other people. The response was always that he’d “sleep on it”. Despite allegations of the opposite, this did not come out of the blue.

 

[Justus Ranvier]

@sickpig You mean contradictions other than how he's pretending to refute allegations that nobody made to avoid recognizing that he's confirming the allegations which were actually made?