Thread by @CryptoDevil

After CSW had his barrister pose technical questions attempting to trip @adam3us up, which failed spectacularly and only exposed his own misunderstanding of the tech, let's see what is in store today!

Here's yesterday's transcript for you while today's fills out here.

https://twitter.com/CryptoDevil/status/1760250425456951643

Morning session begins:
*Mike Hearn in witness box being sworn in*
H: gives the usual request for witness to acknowledge witness statement as being true
Grabiner: "You are a software developer?"
M: "Yes"

G: "You joined R3 a few years ago, what is the Corda product?"
M: "It is a decentralised product for banking and finance, some ideas from bitcoin but different"
G: "Is R3 a competitor to nChain?"
M: "I've no idea what nChain does"

G: "Do you know any particular areas they compete?"
M: "I do not"
G: "You now work with Oracle, what is their business?"
M: "A large DB company specialising in Enterprise products"

G: "This dinner you speak of from 8 years ago you say you refreshed your memory by reading subsequent emails about it? There was no other way to recall the details about it?"
M: "Well I couldn't recall great detail [otherwise] but [some I could]"

G: "So it was Matonies approaching you about having dinner and you said 'sure let's get dinner"
M: "Yes I didn't even know that CSW was in London at the time"
G: "This email in the chain comes from Matonis to you and CSW and he says 'Hi CSW I just met with Mike who asked.."

G: "...for an introduction. So it looks like you asked for an introduction"
M: "That's not how I recall it"
G: "But how you recall it now is not the same as is being described"
M: "He [Matonis] wrote that, he wanted us to meet"

G: "When the contemporaneous record contradicts the recall it suggests the recall isn't accurate, yes?"
M: "Possibly, I don't believe I asked to meet CSW myself"
G: "That's why you wanted to get to him through Matonis."
M: "I reject that claim"

G: "You were happy to meet him"
M: "I was happy to meet him because Matonis wanted me to"
G: "You say about re-reading the emails you say it looks like it was Matonis who wanted me to meet CSW rather the other way round. That isn't represented in the emails we just saw. "

G: "What I'm saying is that if you re-read the emails we discussed you couldn't have come to that conclusion"
M: "I was re-reading other emails I had found"
G: "Oh so not the ones we just saw?"
M: "No"

G: "You say you didn't have one opinion one way or the other at that point and that you agreed to have dinner. You say that by the end of the dinner Matonis seemed convinced that CSW was Satoshi and that he wanted me to reinforce that belief. Is that your own recollection?"
M:Yes

G: "Can we agree your recall is hazy?"
M: "Some of it might be"
G: "You say here that you don't really remember the details. You say 'I got the impression he didn't really know I can't recall CSW's responses. Your memory seems hazy"
M: "Not word for word, correct"

G: "Did you sign an NDA for that dinner?"
M: "No"
G: "You were working for R3 at the time you say it is not a competitor to nChain"
M: "If you can tell me what they do, otherwise I don't know"

G: "One area of competition concerns scaleability of Bitcoin"
M: "Well lots of companies are interested in the scaling of Bitcoin"
G: "You say Stefan played some sort of minder role at the dinner, particularly about sensitive IP topics"

M: "I wasn't asking about IP I was asking about core bitcoin tech"
G: "You saw Stefan as a minder, is that your sense of the relationship between him and CSW"
M: "Yes"

G: "Here Stefan is being cross examined [by The Hough] for @opencryptoorg have you seen it"
*they argue a little over whether he has or not*
G: "The question here is in May 2016 do you remember Matonis arranging an intro between CSW and Mike Hearn"
M: "Oh this bit I recognise"

@opencryptoorg G: "Stefan says he does and asks about the Wild Honey dinner [makes a slight about the restaurant not being his fave]. He says it was a way to provide support for CSW's claims. Matonis sais Mike had reached out to ask for meeting with CSW. You disagree with this?"
M: "Yes"

@opencryptoorg G: "So all of this is nonsense then?"
M: "I don't know this is a conversation I wasn't there for"
G: "You were there for this bit though?"
Mellor: "Not this bit"
G: "Ah my mistake"

@opencryptoorg G: "It says Mike asked a lot of detailed tech stuff that seemed related to nChain IP I told him not to answer. Is that right?"
M: "I didn't know anything about nChain or patents, I was just asking about Bitcoin's tech. That's just Stefan's interpretation"

@opencryptoorg G: "What about your memory about what is said here about what is said by you is that right or wrong?"
Mellor: "Which bit?"
G: "Mike asked a lot of detailed tech stuff [repeats IP concerns]"
M: "I think this is a difference of opinion I was just talking about Bitcoin tech"

@opencryptoorg M: "CSW seemed to be stuttering and struggling to answer and he looked at Stefan and so Stefan then said 'no don't answer'"
G: "I put it to you that when this was put to Stefan he said [you] and he exchanged 6 or 7 emails and had meetings at no stage did Mike take any issue"

@opencryptoorg M: "He emailed me a few times I don't think we did meet necessarily as described, I don't remember them."
G: "Stefan says [you might be saying about not being impressed with CSW] now but he gave no indication of that then. You say that's not true. So there is a different opinion"

@opencryptoorg G: "I'm putting it to you that his recollection is the right one and yours is not"
M: "No my recollection is accurate, his is not"
G: "I put it to you that you were very keen to learn about CSW's [current] work"
M: "I knew nothing about CSW's work"

@opencryptoorg G: "You brought up about SIGHASH and saying it was an area of interest, so you clearly did know"
M: "That was part of the original Bitcoin so it was a common interest. I'd not been aware of Satoshi having any interest in patents so did not think it was [an element of things]"

@opencryptoorg G: "You were a Bitcoin dev at one time. And developing then. Is it fair to say you became dissolusioned with the project, saying in a blog post saying Bitcoin had failed and the technical issue on the scaleability of Bitcoin and that's really a debate about blocksize"

@opencryptoorg M: "I said it was more a political argument"
G: "You said Greg Maxwell did not believe in Satoshi's original vision. Greg and core devs took a different view from you [who believed in removing size limited]. This is why you concluded it had failed."

@opencryptoorg G: "When were you first approached for this trial?"
M: "Last year by @twobirds "
G: "Those are all my questions"

H: "Just the one, 'Are you Satoshi Nakamoto'"
M: *nearly chokes on water bottle and laughs* "No!"

@opencryptoorg @twobirds Mellor: Ok we'll sit again at 2pm then

And that was a short session indeed and certainly felt like CSW's counsel is just phoning it in at this point as nothing being asked has any real consequence for his case.

This afternoon will have US witnesses on videolink.

For this afternoon session via videolink from the US we have Hinnant and Zooko.
Hinnant is the author of chrono in C++ lib which CSW claimed he'd used at a time earlie than its actual creation!
CSW claims he sent Zooko coins as Satoshi, which Zooko denies

Hinnant being sworn in.

H: Gives usual q's about affirming his witness statement. Says he has given a subsequent clarification about one statement in it and hands over to CSW's counsel

W: "In C++ libs contain pre-written code to perform specific functions. Libraries are developed by C++ programmers. Some libs become standardised by the C++ committee. They have been extended over time to include what has now become the chrono libary"

Hinnant: "Yes"

W: "Not all libs are standardised by the committee. They don't have a monopoly"
H: "No but they [committee] do get to state what namespace they use"
W: "3rd party programmers can create their own. Project chrono is an example of a 3rd party library. Not a standard library"
H: Yes

W: "You summarise CSW's evidence, you understand CSW created his own lib based on Project Chrono, so use of # include chrono would lead to the use of his own library."
H: "Yes"
W: "So it is possible for a programmer to modify existing lib to create their own"

H: "In general"
W: "So the answer is yes. So the 2nd step it would have been possible for a c++ programmer to set env so # include chrono would lead to using their own library and that their library to use namespace standard AND chrono"
H: "Yes but leads to undefined behaviour"

W: "So it would be possible for the c++ programmer to use the standard namespace for a function of their own"
H: "Yes, sure undefined behaviour can be the behaviour the programmer intends"
W: "He could also write in his special library a function called sleep-4"

H: "It's dash not underscore"
W: "Yes but the proposition is technically possible"
H: "Yes"
W: "So there is nothing to prevent a c++ programmer doing what he said he did"
H: "Sure but highly highly unlikely"

W: "You just consider it unconventional"
H: "No I say that starting out with chrono and ending up with project chrono is like starting out with P1 Mustang plane and ending up with Ford Mustang car"
W: "I will leave it up to the court to decide what CSW did or did not do"

H: "So will I"
W: "The extract from forum called bytes, are you familiar with it. It is a programmer's forum for exchanging ideas"
H: "I am not familiar with it"
W: "There you see a section of code produced by a programmer, completely untested and for demonstration only"

W: "You see sleep_4, time.sleep [more code] do you see that. Am I right that what that phrase sleep_4 is used for is a name of a variable to define the time a program was to be suspended"
H: "Yes"
W: "If he's writing a function to cause sleep one name of variable could be sleep_4

H: "Sure"
W: "So when giving functions names a logical name could be sleep_4"
H: "Sure but here it is time.sleep"
W: "Yes but what I'm suggesting to you is the principle of defining names is [up to the programmer]"

W: "Moving on to random, you refer to CSW use of random lib. You refer to the standardised library in c++ [for random]"
H: "That's what CSW referred to in his witness statement"
W: "You said that it was not standardised until 2011. My question is when you say random library you..

W: "... are referring to the standardised library in c++"
H: "Yes"
W: "It was first created as standardised in 2011, but was proposed several years earlier. You say 2006"
H: "To the best of my knowledge"

W: "Are you aware Prof Stroussup also put in a statement about this"
H: "Yes"
W: "The sentence 'the first proposal [for random] was Nov 2002. Do you accept that?"

H: "Sure I didn't look that deeply into it, so it could be 2002"
W: "So you accept his witness statement of it being 2002"
H: "Yes"

W: "So before that date this function would have been developed by other c++ programmers"
H: "Yes"
W: "So programmers operating outside of the committe must have developed that function [into their own library]"
H: "Yes"

W: "And RNG's are used extensively in programming."
H: "Yes"
W: "So in 2006/7 there was nothing at that point in time there was nothing stopping a programmer creating their own library and calling ir random"
H: "And putting it in standard?"

W: "Yes"
H: "Well that gives underfined behaviour. [something about boost random]
W: "You can't speak for all programmers. There would have been nothing to stop a c++ programmer using the boost library and modifying it for the random function"
H: No except for undefined behaviour

W: "You first witness statement you say @twobirds asked if it was possible to use chrono and sleep in early 2007. You understand that they were asking if it was possible for your standardised library to have been used then"
H: "My standard library, yes"

@twobirds W: "And that is what you are saying when you say it would not have been possible [using your standard library at the time CSW claimed]"
H: "Yes"
W: "You asked to see the source file and said the use of [chrono] and [sleep] make the last modification date not possible"

@twobirds W: "But this was in terms of the standardised namespace"
H: "Yes"
W: "all my questions"

Jonny Hough: "You gave various answer about some steps being technically possible but highly unlikely to start with project chrono and end with standard chrono"

@twobirds JH: "What is that opinion based on?"
H: "Project chrono has no similarity whatsoever with chrono other than the name. It is literally unbelievable that somebody would claim to have derived a date/time lib from a physics lib tells me they don't have the technical expertise"

@twobirds H: "chrono did derive from date/time library in 2007/8 prior to that it was called boost data/time"
JH: "You described what was put to you as causing undefined behaviour, what effect does this have?"
H: "The compiler isn't require to give a diagnostic. It might work it might not"

@twobirds JH: "You were shown a doc with code lines 'limited speed of a socket... -python' what language is that showing it is written in?"
H: "It was written in python, I don't have any expertise in that"
H: "all my questions"

@twobirds Mellor: "I have a question, your answer at line 18 you say it would take more work to write chrono from scratch rather than derive it from a completely unrelated piece of software"
H: "Oh, my mistake you are quite right I meant it the other way around"
Mello: "Yes as I thought"

@twobirds Judge Mellor is helpfully explaining that he understood that Hinnant clearly meant that it would take far more work to develop chrono from a completely unrelated piece of software (as CSW claimed he had done) than to write it from scratch.

5 minute break!

And we're back with Zooko on videolink being sworn in

H: Gives the usual preamble about his witness statement and says there is one matter to update where you say "I am the CEO of the electric coin company" Are you now still the CEO?"
Z: "No I am not the CEO now, just on board"

H: "Does the Electric Coin Company have any connection to Zcash"
Z: "Yes it does"
H: hands over to CSW counsel for questions

W: Asks to confirm that Zooko doesn't have docs or tech he could reference from or receive secret messages. "About the Electric Coin Company you remain on the board"
Z: "Of the non-profit foundation which owns it yes"

W: "Moving on to Zcash you founded the ECC in 2015 and at that stage it was known as the Zcash company and was to promote Zcash"
Z: "Well there was a lot of tech development needed"
W: "And to support it on an ongoing basis and it promtes Zcash"
Z: "In documentation, education"

W: "Marketing"
Z: "To some degree, not much, it's mostly about explaining technolody"
W: "Through online promotions and blogs?"
Z: "Not sure what promotions means, but blogs yes"
W: "Central feature is that it is designed to be anonymous"

Z: "Well it has encryption built in, like web browsers do and this is what differentiates it from bitcoin"
W: "This is designed to enhance privacy"
Z: "Yes the user can choose whether to reveal information publicly [about their transactions]

W: "It shields their names and transaction amounts and details"
Z: "Well not their names in the same way that Bitcoin doesn't use names"
W: "On this doc 'What is Zcash and what is ZEC' is it familiar to you?"
Z: "Not really. I dont know if I've seen this before. You sent it over"

W: "It explains what Zcash is in that is is based on bitcoin's code but improves on privacy. Under 'why does it matter' it says 'xcash solves bitcoin's biggest flaw pseudonymous tx's not being enough today'
Z: "Well my organisaction didn't write that"
W: "The benefit is anonymous

W: "that transactions are anonymous. It says it allows users to run fully private monetary transactions."
Z: "Yes"
W: "When you founded zcash you recognised it could be controversial"
Z: "Yes"
W: "The reason would be because an anonyous currency could be used for illegitimate

W: "...purposes. This Forbes article says 'cypherpunk Zooko Wilcox aims to bring anonymous tx to law abiding people' were you asked to be interviewed by Forbes"
Z: "I asked to speak to him [forbes reporter]"
W: "On it you describe [the duality of law abiding and not law abiding]"

Z: "I see it that privacy is essential for free thought and an important part of stable democratic society. A lot of people tend to see it as a conflict between bad and good elements of society. I see it more as being part of the social order and rule of law and freedom of choice

W: "You were one of the original cypherpunks"
Z: "If by that you mean I was on the mailing list, yeah. I spent a lot of time talking back and forth with the others"
W: "This extract from bootstrap's website giving bios of the board and it says 'he is an original cypherpunk"

W: "You believe in using cryptography to bring about positive social change"
Z: "Yes the nuance of cypherpunk meaning has changed over time and today it is more like the political persuation you describe but at the time members had lots of different political opinions"

Z: "The focus involved a lot of the political and social consequences of the emerging internet technology of the time"
W: "Hal Finney and Adam Back were part of that group"
Z: "Yes"

W: "You say 'I was good friends with other like Hal, Back and Maxwell and we used to hang out on IRC and chat about cryptography and open-source things like that. It was around the end of the 90's early 2000s yes"
Z: "Yes"
W: "You spoke with Adam Back then?"

Z: "Well he didn't use the IRC then, we had communicated on email a bit and he joined the Bitcoin IRC chat later."
W: "Remember when he joined that?"
Z: "It was at least a couple of years after Bitcoin's launch"
W: "About 2011?"
Z: "Not sure"

W: "Your original witness statement said you had spoke with Adam Back via IRC prior to then"
Z: "I wasn't sure, I felt we had more of a social connection and though it had been through IRC [in 90's 2000's] I may have misremembered"
W: "Can be difficult when you don't have records

W: "You say in your witness statement you also worked for Digicash and you took leave from college to join that group. That was an early form of electronic payment"
Z: "Yes"
W: "Digicash provided a degree of anonymity but was centralised"
Z: "I wouldn't use anonymous"

Z: "It used some encryption"
W: "But it did give some privacy. It was centralised though as you say and it collapsed in 1998"
Z: "Yes that sounds right"
W: "You concluded from Digicash that what was needed was a currency that did not depend on a central party"
Z: "Yes"

W: "I assume you followed B-Money and Bit-Gold then Bitcoin came on the scene in 2008. You say 'I first became aware of Bitcoin when it was announced by Satoshi in 2008'. It was first announced by Satoshi posting a link to the WP on the cryptography mailing list"
Z: "Yes"

W: "This announcement to the mailing list by Satoshi on 31st October 2008 [gives intro to it about no trusted 3rd party fully peer-to-peer]. That is what you first became aware of in 2008?"
Z: "Presumably, I don't remember if Satoshi also emailed me about it or not"

W: "Does that mean Satoshi and you had communicated before the release of the paper?"
Z: "No he may have mailed me around that time I don't recall. It might have been that I saw this post [about the WP]"
W: "It was proposing a decentralised currency that you said was needed"

Z: "Yes"
W: "This other article 'Satoshi files - Zooko Wilcox'"
Z: "I read it a couple of days ago, I may have seen it before. It was created a few months ago, I might have seen it then"
W: "You see quote 'Zooko said: I had struggline for more than 10 years...waiting for Satoshi"

W: "It says you told Greg Maxwell that he should stop whatever he was working on at the time [bitcoin was released] and he should start working on Bitcoin"
Z: "Yes like most at the time I didn't think it was 100% correct and thought it would be a 'good try' [like others]"

Z: "It wasn't until about a year later that it was still going that I realised it was really working [and got excited about it and then told Greg to start working on it]. When I first read WP in 2008 I didn't think it would actually work as well as it did"

W: "When the WP was announced, given your interest did you get in touch with Satoshi?"
Z: "I did as the public records show, later, a couple of small interactions on the bitcoin forum"
W: "But you don't have clear recollection of your communication with Satoshi at this time?"

Z: "Now"
W: "This might help your recollection. The transcript of the podcast you did with @PeterMcCormack in 2018 and discussing ZCash 'I was saying in 2009 Satoshi and Hal and I don't want to speak for anyone else but I was pals with a lot of the Bitcoin devs on IRC before then

@PeterMcCormack W: "You were saying 'even before they and I got into Bitcoin'. One of the things you were saying that in 2009 you were pals with people who became Bitcoin core developer even before they got involved in Bitcoin"
Z: "Yeah around that time, not sure if 2009"
W: "You did say 2009"

@PeterMcCormack Z: "I don't know what I was referring to about 2009, just about how it was important [to cypherpunks]"
W: "Were you also pals with Satoshi"
Z: "No I wouldn't say that, I knew his invention was a scientific curiosity. Later I realised how important it was"

@PeterMcCormack W: "The next development 8th Jan 2009 Satoshi releases the Bitcoin software through an anouncement on the mailing list. He says 'the first release of Bitcoin' and gives link to sourceforge. A link to the actual Bitcoin software"
Z: "I assume so"

@PeterMcCormack W: "The screenshots you included in your statement show the page from Bitcoin org [which also had the announcement]"
Z: "Yes there were two links, one to the software and one to the source code"
W: "You did download it, you wanted to see if it was viable"

@PeterMcCormack Z: "No I didn't download it at that time, I did not have windows"
W: "How did you conclude the design had a flaw"
Z: "Just by reading the WP, but I'm embarrased to say I was wrong, it did not have a flaw. I thought it relied on global clocks to act as a time server"

@PeterMcCormack W: "Do you recognise this extract from your blog on the bitcoin forum?"
Z: "The url says forum. bitcoin .com this is not the dot org. It's a different group"
W: "Anyway this is you and others writing on this forum"

@PeterMcCormack W: "The Q&A says 'what did you learn from Bitcoin' you sais 'So much Bitcoin is a revelation' that is right, you believe it to be?"
Z: "Oh yes"
W: "It asks why weren't you entranced and immediately sucked in"
Z: "You say I was entranced and sucked in, I use Bitcoin a lot"

@PeterMcCormack W: "So you were entranced and sucked in"
Z: "Yes but that wasn't immediately"
W: "But you say it was pretty early, you had in mind 2009 in that answer"
Z: "I don't remember particularly if it was 2009, I've looked up some of my records in preparation for this"

@PeterMcCormack W: "Your blog dated 26th Jan 2009, the last few lines begin 'what I want is a currency which everyone can cheaply and easily use which noone has the power to manipulate, see B-Money and Bit-Gold and the recent effort Bitcoin by Satoshi Nakamoto"

@PeterMcCormack Z: "A lot of these ideas like Bit-Gold etc got written down but never implemented so I was excited by Bitcoin which was actually being implemented"
W: "So it had been implemented by announcement and launch of the software [which was before this blog post]"
Z: "Yes"

@PeterMcCormack W: "And this blog page then links to the Bitcoin software. So you were talking about the launch of the software and how concrete steps were being taken to get the system up and running"
Z: "Yes"

@PeterMcCormack W: "Here is says 'Zooko is one of the first cypherpunks to get involved with Bitcoin and even though he wasn't a dev at the time he did blog about it and said that it would be a success [from January 2009 launch]"
Z: "No I think I said it would be a great success or we would..."

@PeterMcCormack Z: "...see it fail and then build something on it further"
W: "You said it was a year or two later that you saw Bitcoin being used and that's when you got more involved"
Z: "Yes I remember website 'agorism' or something and they were saying how they were paying for things with it

@PeterMcCormack W: "So your recollection about the timeline is not very clear at all"
Z: "Why?"
W: "You say years later was when you first used the software, now you say within a year or two which is not years later is it?"
Z: "I said within a year or two my opinion changed from what I saw"

@PeterMcCormack W: "What I suggest is that you are mistaken about that and given how you were entranced by it pretty early that the reality is that you did in fact get more involved [earlier] than you now remember and you downloaded the software ran it and were sent some Bitcoin by Satoshi"

@PeterMcCormack Z: "No it went through a process from being a curiosity to Satoshi becoming my absolute Hero and if I ever got Bitcoin from Satoshi I absolutely would remember that. There was OTC trading of coins between people and thast's my earliest memory of using Bitcoin"

@PeterMcCormack W: "Given that Satoshi is you hero it beggars belief that you did not get more involved [earlier]"
Z: "You underestimate my laziness and procrastination"
*laughter"
W: "So the Forbes article and the forum Q&A , Satoshi article weren't shown to you before you witness statement"

@PeterMcCormack W: "So you had very little reference to go by when you made your witness statement"
Z: "Well I had the internet to go to"
W: "But you say in your statement there were only these three documents you referenced"
Z: "I don't remember which ones"

@PeterMcCormack W: "It's your blog post, a reference to Satoshi putting a link to your blog on his page and the third being a record of certain bitcoin transactions"
Z: "Right"
W: "So these are the only ones you have referred to in your witness statement"
Z: "Yeah, but is the question did I look

@PeterMcCormack Z: "...at other docs"
W: "You said you didn't"
Z: "I'm hesitating because I may have done a google search of my old posts from the bitcointalk forum"
W: "You didn't say that in your witness statement though"
Z: "No"

@PeterMcCormack W: "And you didn't refer to the three docs I showed you today"
Z: "I may have seen them before but I didn't recall"
W: "So I put it to you that your memory may be incorrect and that you did download and run the bitcoin software and receive bitcoins from Satoshi"
Z: "No"

@PeterMcCormack W: "When you wrote about python you did that on Windows"
Z: "I do remember when I ran bitcoin I ran it on Linux"
W: "So you were able to run it on Linux when you first used it and that was in 2009]
Z: "Yes"
W: "all my questions"

@PeterMcCormack H: "All witnesses for today, the only witness tomorrow is @dr_cswright being recalled"

And we're done for today!
Remember gang ⚡️tips to [e-mail] to keep Mrs CryptoDevil happy and...

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