“Satoshi’s a bit of a mysterious figure”
Finding information on Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto is very difficult. Perhaps this shouldn’t be a surprise, though. After all, Nakamoto created a system based on complete anonymity, and so it’s no surprise that he would seek anonymity himself.
In fact, after three years of attempting to learn more about Nakamoto, many actually believe the name is a nom de plume. On some Bitcoin forums and blog posts, speculation centers around whether Satoshi Nakamoto is male or female. Most people consider Nakamoto a male, though.
Satoshi Nakamoto’s Wikipedia page doesn’t even include a photo, which is an oddity. This also fuels speculation that his name is an alias. Nakamoto has admitted in various messages that he is from Japan, but this could have also been fabricated.
Even the people most closely aligned with the current development of the Bitcoin software aren’t quite sure. A team currently oversees the Bitcoin software adjustments and development. This is a volunteer team working under open source in the software development.
Jeff Garzik, who is a member of a four-person core team that works on development of Bitcoin’s software, spoke to Technology Review in a recent article. “Satoshi’s a bit of a mysterious figure. I and the other core developers have occasionally corresponded with him by e-mail, but it’s always a crap shoot as to whether he responds.” In fact, some Web sites and media outlets have reported that Satoshi Nakamoto has stepped away from the project entirely.
(http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/37619/)
Nakamoto has two known e-mail addresses that are affiliated with the alias name. Both are from untraceable accounts. One e-mail address comes from an anonymous hosting service called vistomail, while the other one is from the free e-mail Web site, gmx.
Satoshi Nakamoto does have a personal page on the P2P Foundation Web site. This page has had no activity since very early in 2011, though. It does list Nakamoto’s profile as being a 36-year-old male from Japan.
There are a few claims on the Internet about who Satoshi Nakamoto really is. Most are from sources that don’t carry a history of a lot of trustworthy reporting. However, the New Yorker magazine says it may have uncovered Nakamoto’s real identity through an investigative report. The reporter who wrote the New Yorker article, Joshua Davis, makes a compelling argument for having identified Satoshi Nakamoto.
The New Yorker reports Nakamoto is really Michael Clear. Because Nakamoto uses British spellings of words in his papers and correspondence, rather than American English spellings, the New Yorker speculated that he is British. He also would need to be highly fluent in peer-to-peer technologies and cryptography. He would need to be active in those areas in the late 2000s. Clear fits all of these criteria, according to the New Yorker.
The New Yorker did contact Clear via e-mail initially, following with a telephone call. The reporter Davis cut to the chase, asking whether Michael Clear is actually Satoshi Nakamoto. Michael Clear laughed at the question initially and did not answer it. Later in the interview he did say that he is not Nakamoto … with a catch. “Even if I was, I wouldn’t tell you,” Clear said to the New Yorker.
(http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/10/03/141011155/did-a-reporter-just-solve-the-bitcoin-mystery)