Wired is covering the silly trial where Craig Wright is trying to prove his false claim to be Satoshi. Along with the stupid lawyer tricks, the trial has also pulled some previously unseen emails into the public eye. The emails show Satoshi collaborating with a team of acolytes. As with the C++ code, the tone of the collaboration is familiar. I’ve run through similar processes many times, where the coder is listening to corrections and proposals from others in the team, incorporating usable ideas and politely rejecting impractical ideas.
One nonbark stands out from this familiar stuff: Nobody has ever met Satoshi in person, or at least nobody will admit it. These emails were around 2009, before the era of total digitalizing and lockdowns, when tech collaborators met in person occasionally. Somebody should have been chatting with Satoshi in cafes or bars or apartments. If he was working for a company, somebody should have worked with him. If he was not working with a company, how did he survive?
The whole thing still smells like spycraft. Before the digital era, APs worked by phone or mail. Appearing in person was expensive and risky, requiring careful cover stories.
Stingers actively organize the “network”, then disappear and watch the activity of the “subversives” and “terrorists”, occasionally feeding them more money or rewards. Satoshi was highly active by email for two years, then completely disappeared, leaving the network running on NSA’s web where NSA could watch the lab rats pressing levers and receiving tokens for the correct answer.
Polistra's Mill 