COPA Presents Evidence of Bitcoin White Paper Fabrication by Craig Wright

20. Backdated White Paper PDF (1) {ID_000536} / {L2/474/1}

371. This document purports to be a PDF version of the White Paper with a creation timestamp of 24 January 2008 and a last modification on 21 May 2008. The document contains Dr Wright’s contact details in place of those of Satoshi Nakamoto.

(a) COPA’s Reasons for Alleging Forgery

372. Rather than being a precursor document to the Bitcoin White Paper as it purports to be, this document has been created from the Bitcoin White Paper subsequently, and edited in such a way that it appears as if it was precursor work. [PM3 [127-128]].

373. The metadata of this document has been edited in its year and month, so as to appear to date from over a year before the authentic Bitcoin White Paper. However, the timestamps otherwise match those of the authentic White Paper in their day, hour, minutes, and seconds. [PM3 [91]].

374. Further, the document contains embedded fonts bearing copyright statements from 2017. [PM3 [100-101]].

375. The document appears to be an edited version of document {ID_000538}. In particular, information present in {ID_000538} (including 2018-2019 date stamps, and a URL contemporaneous to 2019) has apparently been deleted from this version. In the case of the URL, the deleted content has been replaced by a series of blank space characters precisely equivalent in length to the deleted URL. [PM3 [152-155]].

376. Although {ID_000536} purports to be dated from the beginning of 2008, its content matches the March 2009 version of the authentic Bitcoin White Paper. The content does not however match the intervening, authentic drafts of the Bitcoin White Paper dating to October 2008 or November 2008, even though those are closer in time to the purported date of {ID_000536}. [PM3 [92]].

377. The document contains “Touchup_textedit” flags indicating that the document text has been edited in Adobe software [PM3 [95-98]].

378. The effect of the “Touchup_textedit” changes shown on the face of the document (referred to above) includes adding Dr Wright’s name and contact details appear in place of those of Satoshi Nakamoto.

379. The document contains additional, hidden “Touchup_textedit” flags relating to changes which are not shown on the face of the document. The hidden changes are identical to those observed in {ID_003732}, suggesting that {ID_000536} was created subsequently to the creation of {ID_003732}. {ID_003732} dates from 22 May 2019. On that basis, {ID_000536} could not have been created before 22 May 2019. [PM3 [98-99]].

380. The document contains four conflicting internal metadata streams, recording contradictory timestamps for different events, indicating the use of clock manipulation techniques or byte-level editing. [PM3 [104-107]].

381. The document purports to have been authored using XMP Core software that does not exist. The version referenced in the internal metadata is invalid and does not relate to any real-world versions, indicating content manipulation by byte-level editing. [PM3 [108- 114]].

382. The date of the XMP Core version is given as October 2008. If this software were valid, which is denied, it would in any case post-date the purported date of authorship of the document. [PM3 [115]].

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

383. The effect of the tampering is to make the document appear to be supportive of Dr Wright’s claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto (presenting as a predecessor draft of the Bitcoin White Paper and supposedly written by him in early 2008), contrary to fact.

384. The document bears Dr Wright’s name and contact details.

385. The contact details included refer to Charles Sturt University. In his evidence in these proceedings, Dr Wright has claimed to have drafted and shared versions of the Bitcoin White Paper while studying at Charles Sturt University, and to have discussed the concepts with teaching staff at Charles Sturt University. [Wright1 [87]; Wright4 [52]].

386. The document contains metadata that purports to pre-date the Bitcoin White Paper, indicating efforts at backdating to support Dr Wright’s claim.

387. The document was created in 2019 in a British time zone, consistent with Dr Wright’s location in London in 2019.

388. Dr Wright is recorded in the metadata as the author of the document.

389. In his evidence in these proceedings, Dr Wright has stated this to be an authentic document. [Exhibit CSW-5]

390. In his first witness statement in these proceedings, Dr Wright lists this document as a document to which he has been referred when preparing his evidence.

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

391. In Appendix B to Wright11, Dr Wright sought to explain away the fact that the day, hour, minutes and seconds in the metadata timestamp matched those of the published Bitcoin White Paper by saying that this document and the Bitcoin White Paper were both authored in LATEX and that, when producing the Bitcoin White Paper, he manually set the metadata timestamp at the same day and time as had been set for the precursor document: {CSW/2/48} to {CSW/2/50}. When it was put to him in cross-examination that it would be extremely odd to bother to set metadata timestamp information in this way, altering the month and year but not the other time information, he could only say “lots of people call me bizarre” and refer to his ASD: {Day3/163:9}.

392. In Appendix B to Wright11, Dr Wright sought to explain the fact that content of this document matched the March 2009 version of the Bitcoin White Paper, including in respects where it differed from the August and October 2008 versions. He claimed that this was because he worked in a non-linear manner, and that in the March 2009 version he restored text which he had produced for early versions but had removed / altered in the August and October 2008 versions: {CSW/2/51}.

393. In Appendix B to Wright11, Dr Wright sought to explain the signs of editing out anachronistic content from another of his documents ({ID_000548}), which included a URL dating from 2019. He claimed only that this would be a complicated way of fabricating a document and that he could have forged it more easily: {CSW/2/50}.

394. In Appendix B to Wright11, Dr Wright sought to explain the presence of Touchup_textedit tags indicating editing of the document in Adobe in ways corresponding to the differences between the document and the Bitcoin White Paper. Again, he said only that this would be a complicated way of forging a document: {CSW/2/50}.

395. When pressed in cross-examination with the point that one tag referenced Dr Wright’s contact details at nChain (which did not exist in 2008), Dr Wright said that this would have been added as a result of somebody merely opening the document in recent times: {Day3/165:23} to {Day3/167:14}.

396. When pressed in cross-examination with the point that Mr Madden had found embedded font files with 2017 copyright information, Dr Wright tried to explain the finding by saying that this artefact would have been added by the document just having been opened at some time since that date: {Day3/167:20}.

397. When pressed in cross-examination with the point that Mr Madden had found four internal metadata streams in the document which contained contradictory timestamps (including from 2019), Dr Wright could only say that these artefacts could appear as a result of the document just being opened in Adobe DC: {Day3/168:24}..

398. Dr Wright’s explanation should be rejected as dishonest for the following reasons:

398.1. The Bitcoin White Paper was not originally created in LATEX, as convincingly established by the expert evidence of Mr Rosendahl (which was agreed by Dr Wright’s expert, Mr Lynch, in the joint statement). There is equally no basis for saying that this document was originally created in LATEX. Furthermore, no LAT EX .tex file has been provided to support Dr Wright’s account in relation to the creation of this document.

398.2. Dr Wright’s explanation for how he supposedly set the metadata timestamp is entirely unconvincing, being (on his own admission) predicated on bizarre behaviour in setting times.

398.3. Dr Wright’s attempt to explain why this supposed early version of the Bitcoin White Paper matches the March 2009 version, including in respects where the latter differed from the August and October 2008 versions, is also unconvincing.

398.4. Dr Wright’s explanation for the presence of anachronistic artefacts in the metadata (including the embedded font file with the 2017 copyright information and the metadata stream with 2019 timestamp) is contradicted by the clear expert evidence of Mr Madden, which is that such references 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 (notably the “last saved” timestamp). The fact that the metadata timestamps for this document were dated to early 2008 but the document contains the elements set out above shows that the document has been forged by backdating. See Madden4 [158]; Madden / Placks joint statement 2 at [8]; {Day16/35:19} to {Day16/38:11}; {Day16/125:7} to {Day16/125:18}.

398.5. In summary, there are a series of independent signs that this document has been backdated, none of which has been answered by Dr Wright’s explanation.

(d) Conclusion

399. I can only agree with COPA’s summary. The document was plainly forged by Dr Wright.