Why Did the NSA Investigate Nakamoto?

I just read a fascinating and scary post about Satoshi Nakamoto and the NSA quest to identify him. Nakamoto is the name of a supposedly Japanese man who was primarily responsible for creating the first blockchain database and designing and implementing bitcoin. Satoshi Nakamoto is estimated to own at least 1 million bitcoin. At today's valuation, that puts his bitcoin worth at over 4 billion dollars. 

Nakamoto was involved with bitcoin until 2010, when he handed control over to a man named Gavin Andresen. Nakamoto has carefully guarded his privacy. There has been intense speculation on his true identity. It's ironic that a person who created a transparent and reasonably anonymous cryptocurrency for good reasons, has been hunted by the curious, the media, and now the NSA. 

Yes, the NSA was tasked with formally identifying Satoshi Nakamoto.

Why Did the NSA Investigate Nakamoto?

According to Alexander Muse, the Obama administration worried that Satoshi might be working for Russia or China and planned to weaponize the bitcoin against the US in the future. If they knew who Nakamoto was, they might better understand his motives. The Administration asked the NSA to find out the true identity of Nakamoto.

How Did the NSA Identify Nakamoto?

The NSA used his own words to identify him. They usedstylometry to analyze thousands of Satoshi's posts and emails against trillions of writing samples by billions of people. The method analyzes the sentence structure and word usage of one person against a huge, worldwide comparison sample.The NSA used PRISM and MUSCULAR, two tools, to find Satoshi's real identity. It took them a month. For more information about PRISM and MUSCULAR, please refer to the first linked post below under Sources.

So Who Is Nakamoto Really?

Alexander Muse suggests that both the NSA and the Department of Homeland Security know Nakamoto's true identity. They have not released that information. There was some suggestion that Nakamoto was not a single person, but rather four different people.I'm happy they haven't released Nakamoto's name. He's not a criminal. He hasn't broken any laws. The creation of the blockchain and bitcoin was for the greater good.

Is Satoshi Really Japanese?

Satoshi Nakamoto claimed to be a 37 year old man who lived in Japan. Early on, this was questioned because he used perfect English in his writing, occasionally used British English, and never documented the software in Japanese.

One person analyzed 500 of Nakamoto's posts to his bitcoin forum. Based on timestamps, he concluded that Nakamoto slept from 5am to 11 am GMT. That suggested he lived in either the Eastern or Central time zones which included North America, parts of Central America, the Caribbean and South America.

Is Satoshi Nakamoto 1 Person or Several People?

It's been speculated that Satoshi Nakamoto was a name for a small group of developers. Here are some possible members of that group:

• Nick Szabo - He published an early paper on "bit gold," a precursor to bitcoin. He liked to use pseudonyms. He was connected by his comments to Nakamoto and bitcoin early on. However, he has denied being Nakamoto.
  
• Dorian Nakamoto Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto is a Japanese American man living in California. His birth name was Satoshi. In 2014, Newsweek reported that he was Satoshi Nakamoto. The author of the article said that Nakamoto confirmed his identity as the bitcoin founder but said he was no longer involved with it. Later, Dorian Nakamoto denied any connection to bitcoin and had misunderstood the question my the Newsweek reporter. The bitcoin founder's P2P Foundation said that "I am not Dorian Nakamoto."
• Hal Finney was a cryptographic pioneer who was one of the first people to use the bitcoin software, file bug reports etc. Interestingly, he lived a few blocks from Dorian Nakamoto's family home. Writing samples from Finney were compared to those of Satoshi Nakamoto and found to be very similar. But some suggested that Finney may have been a ghostwriter for Nakamoto. Others thought Finney was telling the truth when he said he wasn't Nakamoto.
  
• Craig Steve Wright This is one of the stranger possibilities. Wright is a former Australian academic who claimed to be Nakamoto in 2015. He was also witnessed signing a message using the private key associated with the first bitcoin transaction. Then he retreated from the claim. At the same time, Gizmodo published evidence by a hacker who cracked Wright's email. He claimed Nakamoto was a pseudonym for Wright and David Kleiman, a deceased computer forensics analyst. Others thought Gizmodo had been the victim of a hoax. Wright posted on his blog: "Sorry. I believed that I could put the years of anonymity and hiding behind me. But, as the events of this week unfolded and I prepared to publish the proof of access to the earliest keys, I broke. I do not have the courage. I cannot."
  
• Others have been mentioned as being the bitcoin founder, with no person has been proven to be Satoshi Nakamoto.
  

What Drives Us to Find the True Identity of Satoshi Nakamoto?

It can be argued that there's no real privacy anymore. If you walk or drive down the streets of any major city, your movements are being recorded by traffic cameras. The government has all of the data, money, and systems to find out anything they want about us. Some skilled hackers can do the same with less resources.The government has its motives and hackers have theirs. But why are others in the media and other industries still trying to find the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto?

1. The thrill of the hunt and the simple accomplishment of identifying him?
2. The desire for bragging rights as the person who finally identified him?
3. Less noble motives like blackmailing Nakamoto to keep the information secret?

I think it's a hunt that will continue on until there's a definitive public answer. I have no doubt that the NSA has identified the true identity of Nakamoto.

Sources

https://medium.com/@amuse/how-the-nsa-caught-satoshi-nakamoto-868affcef595
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto#cite_note-wallace-3