Late summary of COPA v some IT security guy, day 8 (Wednesday): 🧵

Wright's worst day so far. Until now he's only been asked about his own narrative, but today he was tested on his knowledge of C++ and the Bitcoin code, objective things you can't just lie your way through. Yesterday Wright asserted that he'd never had anything to do with a particular email account on a domain owned by McGregor. Hough shows him an employment contract between Wright and McGregor's company. Wright denies it's his signature and says he didn't pay any tax. 🤨

Notes from COPA v the IT security guy, day 7: 🧵

Opens with an update on COPA's analysis of Wright's LaTeX files; some of the redactions in the turned over material are raised as questionable (judge calls them "very odd"), but it'll be handled after Wright's cross-examination. Several of Wright's claims have been shown to be contradicted by Satoshi's own words in hitherto-unpublished private communications with people like @marttimalmi or @adam3us, and Wright is coming up with tortured interpretations to avoid admitting he was wrong.

A collection of Wright moments from my notes today: 🧵

Wright thinks copying entire blocks of text without making it clear they're quotes is fine for his academic work, though acknowledges missing a footnote or two and blames his software for that. Judge chimes in in disbelief. Wright says his original version properly quoted & credited everyone, but his editors told him to reduce the word count so all the crediting got lost.

Wright accuses PaintedFrog (who uncovered this heavy plagiarism in Wright's LLM thesis) of being Greg Maxwell in disguise.

MtGox creditors: are you unsure choosing between Early Lump Sum Payment or waiting for Final Payment? Both are perfectly valid and rational choices, and you should think for yourself and decide what's best for you.

A few considerations. 🧵

https://twitter.com/wizsecurity/status/1630798910611439618

Again, don't just blindly trust or follow what someone else says or does. Other people's thinking doesn't necessarily translate to good advice for your personal situation, and some actors have ulterior motives for wanting you to choose a certain way.

All MtGox creditors: the deadline to choose between "Early Lump Sum Payment" and "Final Payment" is March 10. If you haven't already done so, please log in to claims.mtgox.com to choose your preference. This is an individual choice for every creditor, and you should consider your own situation and time preference when choosing, and not merely follow other people's suggestions. See this previous blog post for a closer explanation of the options.

blog.wizsec.jp/2021/02/mtgox-…

The JSTOR forgery didn't come from somebody else, and it isn't just some corrupted file. Wright was holding up this very document on camera, with his own handwriting on it, claiming it proved how he came up with the name Satoshi Nakamoto. This is *his* document. Wright suggesting we ask "cui bono?" (who benefits?) is hilarious because yes, let's ponder the great mystery of who could *possibly* benefit from forging evidence that Wright is Satoshi? Will we ever have an answer?

CSW wanting more "honest debate"? He started his Twitter comeback by preemptively blocking anyone who might call him out, then boasts people are "too afraid" to respond to his disingenuous garbage. 😂

Performative ranting for his followers, playing an idiot's idea of a genius. But we are here to educate, and no one with a decent grasp of Bitcoin — and especially not the real Satoshi — would have any trouble grasping the validating role full nodes have on the Bitcoin network.

(Does CSW think playing dumb makes him look smart?)

So Wright's "mountain of evidence" is finally public and it's just unbelievable. Literally.

I'm not sure which is crazier, that Wright had the gall to attempt to convince people with *this*, or that some people actually believe this.

reddit.com/r/bsv/comments… Today I'm not talking about the technical incompetence of leaving evidence of backdating everywhere (that'll be repeatedly and deservedly ridiculed elsewhere).

I mean just how weird and unbelievable the premise itself is if you just give it the slightest bit of critical thought.

🔖 Thread bookmarks for the @hodlonaut trial megathread: Day 1, @hodlonaut opening statement

https://twitter.com/wizsecurity/status/1569876157012791296

Following the @hodlonaut trial but won't live debunk due to Brandolini's law. Occasional follow-up commentary in this thread based on notes taken. Background: @hodlonaut is the plaintiff in this case, trying to secure a declaration that his statements about Wright weren't libelous, as a proactive defense to Wright's UK libel lawsuit against him.

Alexander Vinnik, who laundered hundreds of thousands of bitcoins stolen from MtGox, Bitcoinica and other entities through BTC-e and various other exchanges, has after years of legal wrangling been extradited to the US.

edition.cnn.com/2022/08/04/pol… It remains to be seen if further information about these thefts will now get revealed in US courts, or if the US government has other priorities in mind for Vinnik, who was arrested in Greece in 2017 for his role in running the BTC-e exchange to facilitate money laundering.

Wright v McCormack judgment just handed down.

Having abandoned a truth defense, McCormack's statements were found to have been defamatory, but CSW deliberately lied so much in court the judge capped damages at £1.

judiciary.uk/wp-content/upl… In other words, the court found that McCormack calling Wright a fraud was libelous, while simultaneously finding that Wright defrauded the court.

Ladies and gentlemen, the UK legal system.

Tomorrow the judgment in Wright v McCormack (in which CSW sued podcaster @PeterMcCormack for libel for calling him out as a fake) gets announced. Expecting a lot of spin on this one from the BSV camp, so beware of lazy media write-ups. Importantly, much like the Kleiman trial this case doesn't actually examine whether CSW is really Satoshi (he's not), as McCormack previously dropped his truth defense early in pre-discovery. All the court has tried is the question of whether his statements caused "serious harm".

I may not be a lawyer, but "unless you open your wallet and do exactly as I say, your property is mine" is not a thing in law. It's definitely a thing in crime though.

Thread 🧵 This is an ad in the Financial Times to "give notice" to the world about CSW's claim to own addresses. Presumably they felt the court wasn't terribly convinced by CSW's argument that since no true owner came forward to stop him in his obscure UK lawsuit then they must not exist.

Tomorrow the Wright v McCormack trial starts, and it's important that people (especially journalists) have an understanding of the background of this case, because sometimes fact is stranger than fiction.

A short thread of my observations and opinions. 🧵 When the "Craig Wright is Satoshi" claim began being spread in late 2015, many people were initially open-minded, if skeptical. Plenty of things didn't fit right, but there was a non-trivial amount of material involved; why would someone spend that much time to make this up?

BREAKING: UK judge dunks on CSW's legal argument against core devs, dismisses lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds.

bailii.org/cgi-bin/format… In a motion to dismiss the court generally interprets facts favorably to the claimant, and here CSW merely needed to show he had a case worthy of being tried, not that he was right. The judge however concluded CSW's argument is too ridiculous to be taken seriously.

When you've lied so much you can't afford to admit literally *anything* under oath, in case you walk into another rake.

A small sampling of Craig Wright's testimony in the Kleiman v Wright trial. (No need to reply with the GIF, I got you covered.)

A brief history of Craig Wright's false claims to own the @1FeexV6 Bitcoin address containing 80k BTC (one of many addresses he's claimed to own even though they belong to other people), over which he's launched a spurious lawsuit to harass Bitcoin developers: Wright claims he purchased these bitcoins in 2011 via transaction from WMIRK, a small Russian money exchanger that didn't even deal in Bitcoin until 2013, and even then only in tiny amounts.

As proof of his claim, Wright has a purchase order he says his ex-wife typed up for him.

Reminder to the media that since Kleiman v Wright is based on false premises, the jury is just choosing between two outcomes which are both wrong.

Please do your research when reporting on the verdict. I'll be watching and scoring you.

Crash course thread: Neither Wright nor Kleiman had anything to do with the creation of Bitcoin and didn't mine any bitcoins, so they're quarrelling over fictional assets that never existed in the first place (or are trying to lay claim to other people's bitcoins).

Craig Wright's post-Kleiman narrative:

Craig: "Let's assume I own all these bitcoins"
Ira: "Sure (because I want half of that)"
Craig: "Okay, since we agree but I don't have any keys, the court will order other people to seize and reassign those coins to us"

Ehm... no? Kleiman v Wright is a *civil* dispute to determine what Craig owes Dave's estate (even though the funds are imaginary, Craig was still ensnaring Dave's relatives in his schemes with lofty promises). It has zero bearing on any third parties.

Consensus by tweet. 🤡 The BSV chain has been suffering from repeated reorgs from a party with superior hashrate.

Now thanks to this kind of careful intervention, BSV is additionally suffering from a split network as some nodes artificially reject certain blocks, breaking the consensus rules. 🤡