The Newsweek Credibility Matrix
Earlier this month, Newsweek magazine returned from its temporary slumber with a bombshell. It had found the elusive creator of the Bitcoin protocol, who went only by the name “Satoshi Nakamoto.”
Only problem is, the man Newsweek identified says he is not Bitcoin’s creator, and his background and skills seem not to fit the profile of a crack C++ coder with a solid grasp of cryptography. And the purported true Satoshi Nakamoto posted anonymously online that he is not Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto, 64, of southern California.
Now, more than a week after the story’s publication, it seems clear that Newsweek fingered the wrong man. So the question now turns to Newsweek and the level of irresponsibility they displayed in publishing this at all.
So we ask: could Newsweek have known? Prior to all the denials, prior to Dorian’s interview with the AP where he said nonsensical things like “I have never communicated with bitcoins” - could Newsweek have found details that would have suggested that Dorian and Satoshi were different people?
I believe the answer is yes.
More: The Newsweek Credibility Matrix
The article goes on to detail the discrepancies between Newsweek’s Nakamoto and the anonymous Bitcoin creator, and the possible explanations for them.
Newsweek and the reporter, Leah McGrath Goodman, stand by the story, but judging from this article, it looks like they really screwed up. Not a shining moment in American journalism by any measure.