Somebody has taken control of reclusive Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto’s email account. Now, this hacker is offering to sell Satoshi’s secrets in exchange for (what else?) bitcoins.
See also: What’s Bitcoin Worth In The Real World?
The hack allegedly took place Monday night. By Tuesday morning, hardly anybody questioned its veracity. That’s because the hacker forwarded emails from [email protected] written as far back as 2011 to Bitcoin Core developer Peter Todd as proof.
Interesting, got another forwarded email from "satoshi", from 2011 – indicates this was a hijacked account, not expired and re-registered.
— Peter Todd/mempoolfullrbf=1 (@peterktodd) September 9, 2014
A screenshot of the inbox is further indication the hacker is in possession of an email account used previously by Satoshi Nakamoto.
lol Satoshi's hacker posted a screenshot of his inbox with the email I just sent him: http://t.co/tMzeYsm73J pic.twitter.com/DYMejQs2Ri
— Adrian Chen (@AdrianChen) September 9, 2014
The hacker, or somebody who bought information from the hacker, has since updated the P2P Foundation homepage generally believed to belong to Satoshi with a warning message. The P2P Foundation is an international organization promoting peer to peer practices, where Satoshi’s page has been more-or-less inactive for a while.
“Dear Satoshi. Your dox, passwords and IP addresses are being sold on the darknet. Apparently you didn’t configure Tor properly and your IP leaked when you used your email account sometime in 2010. You are not safe. You need to get out of where you are as soon as possible before these people harm you. Thank you for inventing Bitcoin.”
In the same time period, the hacker or somebody else defaced web-based source code repository Sourceforge. The hack has been reverted, but screenshots show that Satoshi’s account was altered to read “Buttcoin” instead of “Bitcoin,” Buttcoin being the name of a spoof website that is critical of Bitcoin.
The hacker, who identified himself as “Jeffrey,” told Wired that he will release Satoshi’s private information if somebody sends 25 Bitcoin, or about $12,000, to his Bitcoin address.
See also: Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto Lawyers Up To “Clear His Name” Of Bitcoin Claim
The person or group of people that go by the name Satoshi Nakamoto have so far avoided detection since inventing the cryptocurrency in 2009. One of the most famous attempts to unmask Satoshi occurred earlier this year when Newsweek claimed a California resident named Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto was the fabled inventor of Bitcoin.
Photo via Shutterstock
