Crypto expert Len Sassaman may have been the creator of Bitcoin

Sandra Loyd

Len Sassaman, a cypherpunk expert in cryptography, pioneer in his specialty, could be the creator of Bitcoin, the person behind the name “Satoshi Nakamoto”.

A publication made last 21 February 2021, by an author identified as Evan Hatch , tells the story of Len Sassaman, who was a well-known member of the computer science community and a privacy activist , as well as an eminence in cryptography and the PGP public crypto system.

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Len Sassaman (1980 – 2011) at the 27th Congress “Chaos Communication”, year 2010. Source : Alexander Klink / Wikipedia

Sassaman died on July 3, 2011, at the age of 31, after committing suicide motiv Possibly due to depression or a neurological condition that he would have been struggling with for years.

His death was reported by his wife Meredith Patterson to the cypherpunk community that same year, according to Wikipedia. Sassaman’s profile on that website has already been modified to indicate that the crypto expert is now considered one of the candidates for Satoshi Nakamoto.

Two months before Sassaman died, on April 26, 2011, Satoshi Nakamoto left his last known message in an email sent to the developer Martti Malmi: “I am dedicating myself to other things and will probably not be around here in the future.”

Shortly after his death was known, an obituary in honor of Len Sassaman was entered into the Bitcoin blockchain, as metadata in block 138725. Since then, it could be said, every Bitcoin node has a copy of this tribute on its hard drive , thus perpetuating the memory of this brilliant cypherpunk, relates the author.

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This is what Len Sassaman’s obituary looks like on the Bitcoin blockchain. Source: miro.medium.com

Len was our friend. A brilliant mind, a noble soul, a path finder, Meredith’s husband and Clavin’s brother, Jim and Dana Hartshorn’s son, Shmoo co-author and co-founder, and much more. We dedicate this hack to Len, who would have laughed a lot (…) ”

Obituary of Len Sassaman.

Sassaman’s career meets the requirements to be the inventor of Bitcoin

Although the author highlights the coincidence between the dates and lapses between Sassaman’s death and Satoshi’s disappearance from the public trail. What seems to give strength to this theory the most is Sassaman’s career, in which he achieved great things and shared moments and work with the great minds of the cypherpunk movement, precursors of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.

That is one of the main factors that lead the author to associate Sassaman with Satoshi, but the publication also details how the specialist became friends with Hal Finney , the first person to receive a Bitcoin transaction.

Both Hal Finney and Sassaman worked based on the ideas and influence of David Chaum , who is credited with the theoretical invention of the concept of cryptocurrencies.

Chaum is also an inventor of blockchain and systems electronic payment, according to Hatch; being recognized as one of the most important architects of the cypherpunk movement and “father of digital currencies”.

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David Chaum, pioneer of digital money and “father of the Cypherpunks”. Source: chaum.com

But Chaum’s proposal that inspired a whole generation of cypherpunks and experts in various areas were the remailers . Len Sassaman was the main developer of the Mixmaster 3.0 remailer, a program on which Hal Finney also worked.

This program consists of a mixer of E-mail messages that works in a decentralized way on a P2P network of distributed nodes, to which it can transmit information units (blocks) of different sizes, in a secure and encrypted way. Evan Hatch points out that this happens basically in a very similar way in Bitcoin.

Adam Back, Bitcoin pioneer and current Blockstream CEO, he also met Len Saussaman, who names him as a collaborator in an investigation, as well as indicating that they worked on a report on Mixmaster.

Evan Hatch indicates that Adam Back’s interest in remailers inspired him to explore cryptocurrencies, leading to the creation of the proof of work ( Proof of Work , PoW) of HashCash, a type of algorithm to prevent spam and attacks on email servers. Proof of work is used today in Bitcoin mining.

Some theories also point out that Back may be the creator of Bitcoin . And the author notes that “interestingly” Back said in 2015 that “Satoshi could have been a developer of a remailer software,” says Evan Hatch.

The difference with remailers, notes the publication, is that Bitcoin nodes do not work anonymously but pseudonymously. This means that the remailer nodes do not reveal the origin of the message, while Bitcoin does , that is, revealing a traceable pseudonym on the network. In addition, in Bitcoin, simple text messages are not shared, but transactions with your data and metadata.

Remailers: a last push for the invention of Bitcoin

The remailers were proposed by David Chaum and even the Cypherpunks mailing list was based on this electronic messaging protocol.

Many cypherpunks related to Bitcoin worked on remailers to create their money proposals. electronic, like Hal Finney, who spoke of a system of payments with accounting tokens. Even smart contracts, proposed by Nick Szabo in 1997 as a solution to some attacks against the services of remailer , specifically from Mixmaster , points out Evan Hatch.

Hatch also mentions Ian Goldberg and Ryan Lackey , acquaintances from Len Sassaman, and who worked in a cryptocurrency called HINDE during 1998, a project that was never completed . After that, Goldberg created several Ecash clients and Ryan Lackey became Chief Security Officer (CSO) of Tezos, a blockchain and cryptocurrency platform.

With Sassaman being the main developer of Mixmaster, these indications are taken to maintain that the crypto expert is Satoshi Nakamoto.

Satoshi Nakamoto had experience and academic background

Evan Hatch also indicates that Satoshi Nakamoto may have had a strong background or experience as academic.

“The construction of the Bitcoin code suggests that Satoshi may have had an academic background. This code has been described as “brilliant but lazy”, omitting conventional software development practices such as unit testing, but having cutting edge knowledge of security architectures and an expert-level understanding of academic cryptography and cryptography. economy“.

Evan Hatch, author of the Sassaman / Nakamoto Theory.

Sassaman He did not have formal academic studies in economics, apparently, and there are no great indications in his career to corroborate his presumed knowledge of the subject, but he does appear to have shown a strong interest in that area.

Len Sassaman se joined the International Association of Financial Cryptography between 2008 and 2010, giving conferences and sharing with specialists in cryptography applied to finance, it is commented on this theory.

Where is Satoshi?

Hatch notes that the amount of Satoshi’s contributions and interventions tended to increase during the summer and winter months , corresponding to academic vacations in most countries.

But during the spring and at the end of the year, their interventions were reduced, possibly being very busy during that season when final exams are usually taken at universities. Satoshi could have spent more time for Bitcoin during the holiday period.

The identity of Satoshi Nakamoto remains unknown, although several theories are candidates. Composition by CriptoNoticias

Last year CryptoNews reported on a theory that Satoshi possibly resided in London, England . This apparent geographic location is inferred from the type of English Satoshi communicated with, but also from the times of his posts.

Evan Hatch notes that as of Bitcoin’s creation date, Sassaman I was in Belgium, also on the same continent. Likewise, this developer also used British English to communicate , even though he was an American by birth.

The author notes that the British newspaper The Times, was very popular in Belgium for 2009 . Evan Hatch is struck by the fact that, being Satoshi Nakamoto from the United States, he included the head of that European newspaper in the genesis block of Bitcoin. According to the author, this newspaper was the most widely read by researchers and academics at that time in that country.

Len Sassaman’s is perhaps one of the most impressive theories about the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto. But hard evidence is still lacking to establish a definitive link between Sassaman and the invention of Bitcoin.

No obs However, the intentions of the author of the theory are still very valuable. Evan Hatch affirms that initially he did not give much importance to the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, but Craig Wright’s attacks against the project, led him to take action on the matter. “It is important that we revisit this issue and refocus the discussion on the cypherpunks that are actually the creators of Bitcoin,” said the author of the theory.

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