COPA Challenges Authenticity of Wright's Timecoin ODT Document

24. Timecoin ODT Whitepaper (Reliance Document) {ID_000254}

446. The document purports to be a precursor draft of the Bitcoin White Paper and is presented as if written by Dr Wright. It is dated in the period 6 May 2008 to 12 December 2008 in its metadata, and Dr Wright states its approximate date to be 6 May 2008 in his Chain of Custody information.

(a) COPA’s Reasons for Alleging Forgery

447. The document has been backdated. 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. [PM2 60-64]].

448. {ID_000254} has apparently been converted from the Bitcoin White Paper (which is a PDF) into a more easily editable format and has then undergone further conversions via intermediate documents [PM2 [60-64]]. Font configurations and the absence of diagrams are consistent with this conclusion [PM2 [17-28]]. No such intermediate document has been disclosed.

449. Diagrams have been omitted from this document as a result of the conversion process from PDF. The inclusion of the object replacement character  within the document [a point where a diagram would be expected to appear is consistent with {ID_000254} being created by a process of conversion of a different document. [PM2 [28]].

450. Where diagrams are absent, the document nevertheless preserves margin indentations from the Bitcoin White Paper PDF, but which do not match the content of the document. [PM2 [29-37]].

451. The document irregularly contains words throughout in which hyphens ought to appear but are missing. This is not consistent with ordinary dictation or typing error but is as an artefact of conversion from PDF and backdating. [PM2 [38-44]].

452. A conversion of the Bitcoin White Paper PDF to editable form would result in corruption of formulae. In each case where those formulae would have appeared corrupted, they have been deleted from {ID_000254}, leaving behind white space. [PM2 [45-48]].

453. The document contains irregular line breaks consistent with conversion from the Bitcoin White Paper PDF into editable form and backdating. [PM2 [49-51]].

454. The document contains text that matches the corrected text of the Bitcoin White Paper (2009 version) [PM2 [12]]. It does not match the October 2008 or November 2008 versions of the Bitcoin White Paper, even though this document purports to be earlier than both of them.

455. The document has been disclosed with irregular metadata listed in relation to its Created and Last Accessed external metadata properties. [PM2 [6-11]].

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

456. 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. Further, the document uses the same software (OpenOffice Writer) as used by Satoshi Nakamoto.

457. 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.

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

459. 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]].

460. In his evidence in these proceedings, Dr Wright positively relies upon the presence of the word “Timecoin” in documents he has disclosed as being precursor work to the Bitcoin White Paper and thus forming part of the story behind his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto. Moreover, on the basis of his narrative, this is a detail which would have been known to him and to few, if any, others. [Wright1 [26], Wright4 [6.c.x.]].

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

462. Dr Wright claims, in his chain of custody information, that only he drafted this document.

463. Dr Wright has stated in these proceedings that this was a draft of a document under the name TimeCoin which later became bitcoin. [Exhibit CSW-5]

464. Dr Wright has not disclosed the apparent intermediate document from which this document was created. [PM2 [63]].

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

465. Dr Wright sought to explain away a number of the anomalous findings by saying that both this document and the Bitcoin White Paper were originally created in LATEX and that the commands in the original code accounted for such features as (a) the notes being in a font which was the same as would later be used for tables in the White Paper; (b) the OBJ character; (c) indentation in empty lines corresponding to the size of flowcharts later featuring in the Bitcoin White Paper; and (d) irregularities in hyphenation. See {CSW/2/26} to {CSW/2/28}; {Day3/139:21} to {Day3/152:8}.

466. Dr Wright sought to explain away the content of the document matching the March 2009 version of the Bitcoin White Paper rather than the earlier released versions by claiming that he does not “write things linearly”. He claimed to have used text in this early document, edited it out again in the August and October 2008 versions of the White Paper and then added it back in again for the March 2009 version. See {CSW/2/28} to {CSW/2/29}; {Day3/153:9} to {Day3/154:10}.

467. Dr Wright sought to explain away the irregular metadata by saying that his use of “Xcopy and related tools” somehow accounted for it: {CSW/2/28}.

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

468.1. 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.

468.2. The use of LATEX to create the document would not account for the presence of the OBJ (object replacement) character, which on the expert evidence is purely and simply an artefact of conversion from PDF: see PM2 [26-28] {H/17/8}.

468.3. Neither would the use of LATEX to create the document account for Dr Wright having predicted in a precursor document precisely the size required for diagrams and having applied coding to mark out indentations for the diagrams in what would be empty space in the document.

468.4. Neither would the use of LATEX to create the document account for there being irregular hyphenation in precisely the points where line breaks appear in the text of the Bitcoin White Paper. Dr Wright could only weakly account for this as him doing “unusual things” and deliberately including irregular hyphenation {Day3/10:11}. This explanation was nonsensical. Further, it assumed that his deliberate inclusion of irregular hyphenation just happened by coincidence to fall in the places where line breaks existed in the Bitcoin White Paper.

468.5. Dr Wright’s explanation for the irregular metadata was at odds with the independent expert evidence. It also assumed that this irregularity happened by coincidence to co-exist with the other irregularities, when in fact all suggest backdating.

468.6. Dr Wright’s explanation for the content of the document including changes which were made to the Bitcoin White Paper between its 2008 and 2009 versions is inherently unlikely. It also assumes that this irregularity happened by coincidence to co-exist with all the other irregularities, when in fact all suggest backdating.

(d) Conclusion

469. The explanations gathered in Appendix 1 to Dr Wright’s Closing confirm his reliance on both this document and the Bitcoin White Paper being based on earlier LATEX files and his allegation that the diagrams were created with LATEX. I find those explanations to be false, in view of my more general finding that the Bitcoin White Paper was not produced in LATEX. Other explanations (the indentations, the supposed ‘steganographic watermarking’ and formatting irregularities) are just a desperate attempt to explain away Dr Wright’s failure to be able to reproduce the Bitcoin White Paper in LATEX. The ‘non-linear’ working explanation (see [468.6] above) is ridiculous, in the light of all the other evidence which clearly indicates that this document was forged by Dr Wright. I so conclude.