Looks Like Craig Wright’s Dissertation Proposal Took a Time Machine to 2019

8. LLM Dissertation proposal 2 (Reliance Document) {ID_000217} / {L2/131/1}

162. The document purports to be an LLM Dissertation proposal made to Northumbria University, prepared by Dr Wright in connection with his LLM course. It is dated as being created between 18 June 2007 and 28 October 2007, and contains language similar to that found in the Bitcoin White Paper.

(a) COPA’s Reasons for Alleging Forgery

163. The document has been backdated. The document contains hidden, embedded Grammarly timestamps indicating its true date to be later than 18 August 2019 at 9:10am (UTC). [PM25 [8-13]].

164. The document contains embedded references to fonts including Calibri Light and Nirmala UI [PM25 [20]]. Those fonts were not yet published in 2008 [Madden Report [165]. Further, the designers of those fonts have given evidence relied on by COPA in these proceedings that the fonts were not yet conceived of or designed by the purported date of this document.

165. The document contains embedded internal references to Microsoft schema not yet published in 2008 but which are contemporary to 2012 and later. [PM25 [21]].

166. Searching online revealed the presence of a very similar document uploaded by Dr Wright to the website SSRN which was created just a few hours after the Grammarly timestamp of {ID_000199}, on the same date 18 August 2019. That uploaded document (the “SSRN Upload”) was created with software that did not yet exist in 2007. [PM25 [40-46]].

167. The SSRN Upload document has not been disclosed by Dr Wright.

168. The Grammarly software did not exist in 2007 [Madden1 [62c] but is contemporaneous for 2019. [Madden1 [70-72]].

169. {ID_003993}, a document with the filename “LLM_ProposalA.doc” and which shares content with {ID_000217} (including the embedded Grammarly timestamp) was emailed from Dr Wright to Lynn Wright on 18 January 2020. [{ID_003927}, PM26 [25-38]].

170. The document is part of a chain of editing of several documents, three of which are Reliance Documents of Dr Wright, all of which inherited the same embedded hidden Grammarly timestamp, indicating that the document was created as a downstream document from a common source. The interaction with Grammarly (on 18 August 2019) took place before the creation of {ID_000199} and other documents created from the same common source. [PM25 [7-8 and 12-13]].

171. There is a common precursor document to these files, which has not been disclosed. [PM25 [24a]].

172. Taken individually and as a set, the group of documents sharing common characteristics with {ID_000217} are inconsistent in their metadata. [PM25 [18-24]].

173. Within Dr Wright’s disclosure is another document, {ID_000199}, which presents as if it is a subsequent document to {ID_000217} and which is dated as if it was last edited later than {ID_000199}. At face value, the similar and earlier-dated file in the chain of editing ({ID_000217}) ought to have a longer Edit Time and a higher revision count than {ID_000199}, consistent with the same file being picked up and further edited while the Edit Time counter continues to count. However, the internal metadata records the reverse. This has the misleading effect of (on the face of the documents) appearing to place {ID_000217} within an apparently credible continuum of editing, contrary to fact. [PM25 [22-23]].

174. ID_00217 has an implausible edit time of 131 days 21 hours and 50 minutes consistent with the use of clock manipulation techniques. [PM25 [22b]].

(b) Reasons for Inferring Dr Wright’s Knowledge / Responsibility

175. Dr Wright has positively asserted in these proceedings that this is a document on which he primarily relies as supporting his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto.

176. The effect of the tampering is to make the document appear to be supportive of Dr Wright’s claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto (suggesting work done by him in 2007, elements of which then appeared in the Bitcoin White Paper), contrary to fact.

177. In addition to {ID_000217}, Dr Wright has also positively asserted in these proceedings that two other related documents [{ID_000199} and {ID_003702}], are documents on which he positively relies as supporting his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto.

178. Dr Wright has also relied in these proceedings on his Northumbria University degree award transcript as being a document on which he primarily relies as supporting his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto. [{ID_000491}]

179. In his evidence in these proceedings, Dr Wright positively relies upon his LLM Thesis at the University of Northumbria as forming part of the story behind his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto. [Wright1 [56-60]].

180. In his evidence in these proceedings, Dr Wright claims to have discussed the concepts behind the Bitcoin White Paper with teaching staff at the University of Northumbria. [Wright4 [52]].

181. Dr Wright has relied on his LLM Thesis Proposal, in previous proceedings, including on oath.

182. The document {ID_000217} is part of a chain of editing of documents disclosed by Dr Wright, all of which have a common precursor source as indicated by the inclusion of the same Grammarly timestamp and other characteristics. [PM25 [12]].

183. Dr Wright shared a hash-identical document to {ID_000217} on social media on the same date indicated in the hidden embedded Grammarly timestamp. Upon request in these proceedings, Dr Wright has repeatedly declined to disclose a copy of his posts to social media accounts. Since the date of the request, Dr Wright has claimed to have lost access to the relevant social media account.

184. A very similar document, the SSRN Upload, was uploaded to the internet by Dr Wright on the date indicated in the hidden embedded Grammarly timestamp.

185. Dr Wright is recorded in the metadata as the first author.

186. Dr Wright is a user of Grammarly software.

187. Although the document metadata presents Lynn Wright to have been an author, it was actually created by Dr Wright in the name of Lynn Wright after 18 August 2019, and a copy of a similar document later sent from Dr Wright to Lynn Wright by email long after they were separated, contained in a zip file along with many other files bearing evidence of backdating and tampering including several documents on which Dr Wright relies. The metadata of that zip file itself are also irregular. [{ID_003927}, PM26 [25-38]].

(c) Dr Wright’s Explanations and COPA’s Rebuttal

188. Dr Wright sought to explain away the presence of (a) the Grammarly timestamp dating to 2019, (b) the references to fonts released in 2012 and later and (c) the reference to the Microsoft schema published in 2012. He has done so on the basis that unidentified employees of his companies will have opened the document, without having had the ability to edit it, and this opening of the document alone will have caused these artefacts to be inserted into the raw data.

189. Dr Wright has claimed that the operation of one or more of the following features of his computing environment led to these changes being made: (i) “Citrix updating schemas in the background while not letting the user make changes”; (ii) the use of a normal.dotm template in a shared computing environment making “updates happen” to enforce corporate policies; and/or (iii) the effects of Dr Wright’s operating systems more generally, including that “the use of Citrix Metaframe, corporate environments and tools in Powershll, such as Xcopy, produce these results”. See CSW/2/17, [5.5 and 5.6] and {Day3/56:7} to {Day3/61:18}.

190. COPA submitted that this explanation should be rejected as dishonest for the following reasons:

190.1. Dr Wright’s explanation is contradicted by the clear expert evidence of Mr Madden, which is that the Grammarly timestamp, font references and schema reference could not be inserted without the document being interacted with by a user, which would in turn result in updating of the metadata timestamps of the document. The fact that the metadata timestamps for this document were dated to 2007 but the raw data contained the elements set out above (the Grammarly timestamp, etc.) shows that the document has been forged by backdating. See Madden4, para. 158; Madden / Placks joint statement2 at [8]; {Day16/35:19} to {Day16/38;11}; {Day16/125:7} to {Day16/125:18}.

190.2. Dr Wright was unable to produce an independent expert to support his position that a user of a shared system simply opening a document (without interacting with it so as to cause timestamps to update) could lead to these elements being added. Dr Wright’s position was rejected by Dr Placks. Even the report of Mr Bryant, which he applied to introduce by application notice of 23 February 2024 (before abandoning that application) did not support his position.

190.3. The evidence of Grammarly timestamps in documents analysed by Mr Madden is not explained by the inclusion of elements in templates. Adding a Grammarly reference to a normal template could cause later-created documents to incorporate that reference. However, the references would then be identical. However, in this case, Mr Madden did not observe the same Grammarly timestamps appearing many times over, but many different Grammarly timestamps. What he observed is only consistent with editing of numerous documents over a substantial period, with extensive backdating. See Madden4, [158c].

190.4. On Dr Wright’s account, it would be a remarkable coincidence that the Grammarly timestamp (supposedly resulting from a staff member merely opening the document) was dated 18 August 2019, which was (i) the same date as (and timed just two hours before) Dr Wright posted a copy of the document on Slack to support his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto (see PM43 [45ff]). Dr Wright’s freewheeling attempt under cross-examination to explain these forensic signs as resulting from poor document handling by his former solicitors, Ontier (see {Day3/65/2}), makes no sense and further was not mentioned in his chain of custody information.

190.5. On Dr Wright’s account, it would also be a remarkable coincidence that the Grammarly timestamp was three days before Dr Wright posted a copy of the document on the SSRN site to support his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto (see PM25 [46]).

190.6. Dr Wright’s attempt to rebut the expert evidence about the operation of Grammarly timestamps by saying that he used the Enterprise version of the software should be rejected, including because (i) it has no support in any expert evidence, (ii) it would involve Grammarly tags being committed to a file without any user interaction, which Mr Madden explained simply cannot happen and (iii) Dr Wright’s Slack post included an Open Grammarly button showing his use of the Standard version of the software (as he admitted – {Day3/66:22}).

190.7. Dr Wright’s account is that his LLM dissertation proposal included concepts and language strikingly similar to those of the Bitcoin White Paper, even though those were entirely missing from his actual LLM dissertation (which is a publicly available document). This is inherently implausible. The absence of the relevant language and concepts from his actual LLM dissertation is wholly consistent with this proposal document having been forged in 2019 to support his claim to have written the Bitcoin White Paper.

190.8. Dr Wright’s account also presupposes that, in 2019 or later, staff members of his technology companies were given access to, and indeed were accessing, a copy of his old LLM dissertation proposal from 2007. There is no good reason for them to be given access to or to use that document in the course of their work in recent years.

190.9. Dr Wright dishonestly sought to bolster his account in relation to this document by reference to a hard copy version of his LLM dissertation proposal which he discussed in Wright11, [139ff] {CSW/1/26}. In [140] and footnote 111, he referred to a letter from the University of Northumbria by which it had sent back his actual LLM dissertation. He implied that a version of the proposal which contained language and concepts featuring in the Bitcoin White Paper had been attached to that letter. However, the letter clearly identified its enclosures, and the proposal was not one of them. In Wright14 [20d], Dr Wright acknowledged that the document was not enclosed with the letter (E/32/6}. In his oral evidence, Dr Wright sought to go back on that evidence, suggesting that the hard copy LLM proposal document had been within the same envelope. Faced with the contradiction between his written and oral evidence, Dr Wright was evasive, blaming his former solicitors and stating that “no-one checked inside the envelope properly” {Day3/83:1} to {Day3/87:7}.

191. Finally, the points on this document gathered in Appendix 1 to Dr Wright’s Closing have already been addressed either above or in the main Judgment. I did not find those generalised explanations at all convincing when viewed against the much more specific analysis explained by Mr Madden.

(d) Conclusion

192. I found Mr Madden’s analysis to be entirely convincing. Furthermore, there is additional support for the conclusion that Dr Wright’s LLM Proposal is a forged document due to the passages and phraseology in it which are similar to wording in the Bitcoin White Paper. First, those passages sit oddly in the document itself. Second, these striking concepts do not appear anywhere in Dr Wright’s finished LLM Dissertation. Although there are over 19,000 words in the Dissertation itself, there is a lot of padding around the actual text. Overall, I conclude those passages were a rather clumsy plant by Dr Wright derived directly from the Bitcoin White Paper. For all these reasons, I was and am entirely satisfied that ID_000217 was forged by Dr Wright.