alt Hacker NewsI think this misses the point. The point is that interests and writing style matches, which means there's a higher chance they are the same person.
The more similarities you find, the closer the match. It's in no way proof, of course. But it does provide good reason to look closer
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Similarities in style and word were common enough in small circles such as the cyphyrpunks that spawned those discussions.
Then there's not altogether unlikely chance that Satoshi is a nodding homage to Nicolas Bourbaki, each contributor holding part of a multiparty voting key.
The interests and writing style differentiate Mr. (Dr.?) Back from the general public, sure. But from what I’m reading, they don’t do a great job of distinguishing between 90s hackers.
“Get this, his PhD thesis dealt with a computer language called C++, just like Bitcoin papers used” seems both confused and impossibly lazy to me.
> “Scrap patents and copyright,” Mr. Back wrote in September 1997.
> Satoshi did a similar thing. He released the Bitcoin software under M.I.T.’s open-source license
Really?
Like saying “get this, his college-aged musical interests included the Urban American musical style known as ‘Hip Hop’; therefore Tupac didn’t really die and this is him.” Heavy on insinuation, light on seriousness. Strong “…you’re not from around here, are you?” vibes.
What does this kind of journalism hope to accomplish, anyway? Beyond bothering middle-aged nerds for gossip? And providing a frame for the author’s cute little sleuth jape?
“Good reason to look closer” assumes there’s good reason to pick through ancient rubble in the first place.
Only if those similarities are indicating more than 'generic internet hacker' for both of them. You only need 23 bits to identify a person but those are 23 uncorrelated bits, and all the 'similarities' presented here are extremely strongly correlated with themselves.