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How the Nsa Identified Satoshi nakamoto


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bitcoin mask, illustration

Credit: Medium

The 'creator' of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, is the world's most elusive billionaire. Very few people outside of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security know Satoshi's real name. Satoshi has taken great care to keep his identity secret employing the latest encryption and obfuscation methods in his communications. Despite these efforts Satoshi Nakamoto gave investigators the only tool they needed to find him — his own words.

Using stylometry one is able to compare texts to determine authorship of a particular work. Throughout the years Satoshi wrote thousands of posts and emails and most of which are publicly available. The NSA was able to the use the 'writer invariant' method of stylometry to compare Satoshi's 'known' writings with trillions of writing samples from people across the globe.

The NSA's effort took less than a month and resulted in positive match.

From Medium
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