A Flood of A.I. Slop + Searching for Satoshi + the Hot Mess Express Returns

Summary

Hard Fork Episode Summary: "A Flood of A.I. Slop + Searching for Satoshi + the Hot Mess Express Returns"

Release Date: October 11, 2024
Hosts: Kevin Roose and Casey Newton
Publisher: The New York Times

---

1. Introduction and Personal Anecdotes

[00:33] Kevin Roose:
Kevin kicks off the episode by celebrating Hard Fork’s second anniversary with a light-hearted banter about entering their "terrible twos." He mentions the introduction of a new New York Times audio subscription, encouraging listeners to support their work while assuring that recent episodes remain accessible for free.

[02:06] Casey Newton:
Casey introduces the topic of the Nobel Prizes, highlighting the rare achievement of a Hard Fork guest, Demis Hassabis, winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on AlphaFold, which has revolutionized protein structure understanding.

---

2. Main Topics

A. The Rise of AI Slop in the Wake of Natural Disasters

[04:34] Casey Newton:
Casey sets the stage by outlining the primary segments of the episode: AI slop related to Hurricane Helene, Cullen Hoback's documentary on Bitcoin and Satoshi Nakamoto, and the return of the "Hot Mess Express."

[05:16] Kevin Roose:
Kevin delves into the concept of AI slop, explaining it as low-quality, AI-generated content flooding online platforms. He draws parallels to email spam, emphasizing the overwhelming volume of AI-generated misinformation, especially following natural disasters like Hurricane Helene.

[07:00] Casey Newton:
Casey defines AI slop as often unverified AI-generated imagery, videos, and text that spread rapidly online without concern for their authenticity. She compares it to spam, noting its potential to inundate social networks and obscure genuine information.

[08:58] Casey Newton & Kevin Roose:
The hosts discuss specific instances of AI slop related to Hurricane Helene, including fake images of individuals and political figures like President Trump amidst floodwaters. They explore the motivations behind such content—ranging from political operatives aiming to influence public perception to creators seeking financial gain through increased online engagement.

[14:54] Casey Newton:
Casey references a New York Times article detailing how misinformation from AI slop has tangible impacts on disaster response. Local officials report being overwhelmed by calls from people misled by fake content, hindering rescue efforts and increasing public frustration.

Notable Quote:
[17:53] Casey Newton:
"There are a lot of people who want it to be true that the Biden administration is messing up the response to Hurricane Helene because it will give them a better shot at winning the election."

[19:54] Kevin Roose & Casey Newton:
Drawing an analogy to "The Library of Babel" by Borges, Kevin explains how the sheer volume of AI-generated content can render the internet nearly unusable, making it difficult for users to find credible information. Casey emphasizes the need for improved digital literacy and institutional trust to navigate this information overload.

[23:04] Casey Newton:
Casey envisions a future where trust shifts back to institutions rather than individuals, as the proliferation of AI slop makes personal sources unreliable. She advocates for both platform-led and government-driven digital literacy initiatives to help users discern authentic information from AI-generated misinformation.

B. Cullen Hoback’s Documentary: Searching for Satoshi Nakamoto

[25:10] Casey Newton:
Casey segues into the second major topic: Cullen Hoback’s new documentary, Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery, which posits that Peter Todd is the elusive creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto.

[27:49] Kevin Roose & Casey Newton:
Kevin summarizes the ongoing mystery surrounding Satoshi Nakamoto's identity and introduces Cullen Hoback’s theory that Peter Todd, an early Bitcoin contributor known for his deep technical knowledge, is Satoshi. They discuss the significance of uncovering Satoshi's identity, considering Bitcoin's massive influence on global finance and the cryptocurrency market.

[31:00] Cullen Hoback:
Colin Hoback, the filmmaker, explains his investigative approach, including interviews with key Bitcoin figures like Adam Back. He outlines key evidence, such as Peter Todd’s technical expertise and behavioral patterns, that led him to identify Todd as Satoshi.

[35:33] Cullen Hoback:
Cullen presents his strongest evidence: a 2010 forum post where Peter Todd’s detailed technical correction mirrors Satoshi’s writing style, suggesting deep familiarity with Bitcoin’s inner workings. He discusses Todd’s motivations for maintaining anonymity, aligning with the cypherpunk ethos of judging ideas on merit rather than personal credibility.

[43:24] Cullen Hoback:
During a climactic confrontation in his documentary, Cullen accuses Peter Todd of being Satoshi. Todd vehemently denies the claim, labeling Cullen a conspiracy theorist. Cullen interprets Todd's defensive reaction as further evidence of his true identity as Satoshi.

[47:42] Casey Newton:
Casey reflects on the implications of Cullen’s findings, pondering the significance of Satoshi potentially being alive and the impact on Bitcoin’s legacy. She also contemplates the psychological aspects of individuals denying their own pivotal roles in major technological advancements.

[51:26] Kevin Roose:
The discussion concludes with Cullen Hoback expressing hope that Satoshi will either burn his Bitcoin stash or publicly reveal his identity to put an end to the mystery, allowing Bitcoin to move forward without the burden of an unresolved origin story.

---

3. Hot Mess Express Segment

[52:48] Casey Newton:
Transitioning to a lighter segment, "Hot Mess Express" features the hosts humorously rating and discussing recent Silicon Valley calamities.

[53:36] Comcast Data Breach:
Kevin highlights a significant data breach affecting over 230,000 Comcast customers, leaking sensitive information like Social Security numbers. Casey contrasts it with a previous breach affecting 35 million customers, deeming the current incident a "warm mess" in comparison.

[56:54] Chinese Hackers Penetrating US Broadband Providers:
Kevin and Casey discuss a recent cyberattack by the Chinese hacking group Salt Typhoon, targeting major US broadband providers. They emphasize the dangers of backdoors mandated by laws like the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), which inadvertently facilitate such breaches.

[60:24] Snoopy Fan Community Feud:
The hosts humorously dissect a feud within the Snoopy fan community sparked by politically charged content. They lament the intrusion of politics into what was once a non-partisan, nostalgic fandom, rating it as a classic "hot mess."

[63:10] WordPress Community Discord:
Kevin and Casey explore internal conflicts within the WordPress community, where corporate interests clash with open-source ideals. They describe the situation as a "very hot mess," noting personal grievances and the broader implications for the open-source ecosystem.

[68:05] Google Antitrust Struggles:
The DOJ's antitrust case against Google is scrutinized, focusing on potential forced breakups of major Google products like Chrome, Play Store, and Android to dismantle its monopoly. While Kevin views it as a simmering mess with significant consequences, Casey remains optimistic about regulatory interventions promoting consumer interests.

---

4. Conclusion and Final Remarks

[72:15] Casey Newton:
Casey wraps up the episode by acknowledging the tumultuous week in Silicon Valley, reinforcing the "Hot Mess Express" as their way to humorously navigate the chaos.

[73:05] Closing Credits:
The hosts extend their gratitude to the production team and encourage listeners to engage with the show’s content, including sharing theories about Satoshi Nakamoto.

---

Key Takeaways:

• AI Slop's Impact: The proliferation of AI-generated misinformation, especially during crisis events like Hurricane Helene, poses significant challenges to disaster response and public trust. The need for enhanced digital literacy and institutional reliance is paramount to mitigate these effects.

• Satoshi Nakamoto Mystery: Cullen Hoback’s documentary presents a compelling case for Peter Todd being the real Satoshi Nakamoto, intertwining technical evidence with personal narratives. The revelation could have profound implications for Bitcoin's future and its foundational myths.

• "Hot Mess Express" Highlights: The segment humorously addresses various Silicon Valley controversies, from data breaches and cyberattacks to internal community disputes and antitrust battles, reflecting the ongoing complexities and challenges within the tech industry.

• Regulatory Scrutiny: The DOJ’s antitrust actions against Google signify a pivotal moment in addressing monopolistic practices in the tech sector, potentially reshaping the landscape for major digital platforms.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Casey Newton [07:09]:
  "Slop is low quality content that is generated using artificial intelligence. It can be imagery, video, text, often shared without regard to truth."

• Kevin Roose [19:54]:
  "We are kind of arriving at a similar place with AI slop on the Internet, where it's not that the problem is all this stuff is bad, but there's just so much of it that the job of sifting through it becomes impossible."

• Cullen Hoback [35:33]:
  "Peter Todd is the only one to add on to this post with a deep knowledge of how the system that Satoshi was describing was working."

• Casey Newton [17:53]:
  "There are a lot of people who want it to be true that the Biden administration is messing up the response to Hurricane Helene because it will give them a better shot at winning the election."

---

Conclusion:
This episode of Hard Fork expertly navigates the intertwined realms of artificial intelligence misinformation and the enduring enigma of Bitcoin’s creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Through in-depth discussions and engaging segments, Kevin Roose and Casey Newton provide listeners with a comprehensive understanding of the technological challenges and mysteries shaping our digital future.

Transcript

[Vanta Representative]

Whether you're starting or scaling your company's security program, demonstrating top notch security practices and establishing trust is more important than ever. Vanta automates compliance for SoC2, ISO 27001 and more. With Vanta, you can streamline security reviews by automating questionnaires and demonstrating your security posture with a customer facing Trust Center. Over 7,000 global companies use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time. Get $1,000 off Vanta when you go to vanta.comhardfork that's vanta.com hardfork for $1,000.

[Kevin Roos]

Off Kasey it's our second birthday. Happy birthday. Kevin Hardfork was born two years ago. We are now officially in our terrible twos.

[Casey Newton]

We are. So don't be surprised if we start crying on the show and trying to flush your keys down the toilet. Don't put it past us.

[Kevin Roos]

And if you listen to this show and you want to get us a birthday present, you actually can't. That's against the ethics policies of the New York Times. But you can do something even better, which is to subscribe to the new New York Times audio subscription. We talked about this last week on the show. This is basically a new subscription that you can get through Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Subscribers will be able to get full access to every episode of Hard Fork and all the other great New York Times podcasts. And that will support the work that we here and across the rest of the Times audio department. To reiterate, because we did get some emails about this, you will still be able to listen to Hard Fork for free. The most recent episodes are going to keep being posted for free wherever you listen, even if you don't subscribe. But we want to encourage you to support our work and our colleagues work by getting a subscription. Thank you and good night.

[Casey Newton]

And good morning.

[Kevin Roos]

And good morning.

[Casey Newton]

And now we just woke up.

[Kevin Roos]

You can learn more and [e-mail] podcasts well, they're announcing the Nobel Prizes this week, Casey.

[Casey Newton]

That's right.

[Kevin Roos]

And for another year we've been shut out.

[Casey Newton]

That's right. But for the first time, a Hard Fork guest did win the Nobel Prize.

[Kevin Roos]

That's true.

[Casey Newton]

Demis Hassabis just won the Nobel Prize for. What was it again?

[Kevin Roos]

For chemistry.

[Casey Newton]

Oh, I was going to say literature, but that makes sense to me too. No, it's because Alphafold, which is the deep mind technology that is sort of helping us understand the structure of proteins, has been like a huge deal and Demis co created it so it makes sense to me.

[Kevin Roos]

Totally. Yeah. So congrats to Demis and his collaborator, John. What's John's last name?

[Casey Newton]

John Jumper.

[Kevin Roos]

John Jumper.

[Casey Newton]

Incredible Name sounds fake. Not. His name is John Jumper. Now, what's the biggest prize you'd say you ever won?

[Kevin Roos]

Let's see. I won the reading prize at my public library in fifth grade.

[Casey Newton]

And did that come with a free personal pan pizza?

[Kevin Roos]

Sure did.

[Casey Newton]

A Pizza Hut.

[Kevin Roos]

It sure did. How did you know?

[Casey Newton]

Because for some reason, this happened to every child in America. There was a period of time in America where if you just read enough books, you get a free pizza.

[Kevin Roos]

Yeah.

[Casey Newton]

They should bring that back.

[Kevin Roos]

Yeah.

[Casey Newton]

The best reward that I got for participating in a school fundraiser in middle school was if you sold one box of candy, you got to go to the concert. And then, you know, whatever company was putting together this fundraiser would sort of go out and like, reach out to these up and coming acts and say, hey, do you want to perform in front of a bunch of indifferent 12 year olds? And the year that I there at Washington Middle School, I swear to God, Kevin, we sit down for this concert that has been so hyped up, and the man gets on the microphone and he says, and please welcome to the stage the Backstreet Boys. Now, at the time, none of us had ever heard of the Backstreet Boys because they hadn't released any songs yet. And so they come and they do their little. And I will never forget, it was.

[Kevin Roos]

The actual Backstreet Boys.

[Casey Newton]

The actual Backstreet Boys. And then, I don't know, six, seven years later, I'm driving down the road and I turn on the radio and I'm hearing some pop song. I'm like, it's kind of catchy. And. And the man, the dj, says as they come out of the song, and that was the Backstreet Boys. And I almost swerved off the road because I thought I knew them way back when. And they actually played touch football with us at recess.

[Kevin Roos]

Wow.

[Casey Newton]

You have to hand it to the Backstreet Boys for doing that.

[Kevin Roos]

Wow.

[Casey Newton]

Yeah.

[Kevin Roos]

That's a great story.

[Casey Newton]

Yeah. So Demis Hassabis might be feeling pretty good about his Nobel Prize, but I'm telling you, there's nothing like seeing the Backstreet Boys in 1993.

[Kevin Roos]

I'm Kevin Roos, a tech columnist at the New York Times.

[Casey Newton]

I'm Casey Newton from Platformer.

[Kevin Roos]

And this is hard.

[Casey Newton]

This week, in the wake of Hurricane Helene, a storm of slop will dig into the rise of AI Misinformation in politics this election season. Then filmmaker Cullen hoback on his controversial new documentary about the history of bitcoin and why he thinks he's found the real Satoshi Nakamoto. And finally, Kevin, the train has returned to the station. It's time to reboard the hot mess express.

[Kevin Roos]

Toot, toot. Well, Casey, it's time to talk about slop.

[Casey Newton]

It is time to open up the slop shop. This is going to be one stop shopping for slop here today on Hard Fork. Kevin.

[Kevin Roos]

Yes. So the big news this week in the country is this rash of hurricanes that is ripping through the southeast and Florida. And there's been a lot of talk online, not just about the actual natural disasters that are occurring here, but the kind of AI generated content that is polluting the information ecosystem when it comes to what these storms are doing, how people are responding to them. And it's generated a lot of talk about AI slop. So today, let's talk about what AI slop is, how it's operating in this moment of natural disasters, and what we're learning about kind of how the Internet is changing in response to all this AI slop.

[Casey Newton]

Yeah. You know, Kevin, the aftermath of any natural disaster is always chaotic. There is always some level of misinformation that's flying around. But the aftermath of these storms really has felt different, because now people who have strong motivations to spread misinformation have a new technological tool in their arsenal. And it feels like it is changing the way that a lot of Americans are understanding what's happening.

[Kevin Roos]

Totally. And I remember a few years ago when there were the wildfires in the west and there were all these stories about the misinformation that was spreading at the time about, you know, there being, you know, directed energy beams that were causing the wildfires and things like that. And that was all happening through sort of normal means of producing these, you know, false theories and spreading them on social media. But now we have tools that are available to everyone with an Internet connection that can be used to create lifelike images or even videos of some of this stuff and use that to sort of fool people into believing whatever they want.

[Casey Newton]

Yeah.

[Kevin Roos]

So let's talk about AI slop today. But first, I would love for you to give me a clear and concise definition of what AI slop means.

[Casey Newton]

Sure. So I would say that slop is low quality content that is generated using artificial intelligence. It is often imagery. Right. It can be a still image. Increasingly we're seeing video, but it can be text as well. And often this stuff is shared kind of without any regard to whether it is true or false. And because it is so cheap and easy to generate, if left unchecked, it can quickly flood online online spaces. And this year, the word slop has really taken hold as the description for this. You can almost think of it, Kevin, as a kind of counterpart to spam. Right. And in the same way that your email spam filter gets clogged every day with nonsense messages from people trying to scam you, we're now starting to see social networks and other online forums get flooded with this very low quality AI generated stuff.

[Kevin Roos]

Yeah, that's a great definition. I really like that. I think it's also important to note that it's not just AI generated. It can also be AI enhanced, AI edited. You know, the sort of line between what is AI and what is not is sort of blurring as tools become more present in, like, everyday software applications like Photoshop. So let's talk about what has been happening this week. All year we've had these pieces sort of bemoaning the state of AI slop and how it's taking over online forums and fooling a bunch of people. But this week felt like a real moment of inflection for the AI slop era. In response to Hurricane Helene in particular, there were just a ton of images going around these AI slop generated images of the hurricane and its aftermath. So, Casey, describe some of what people were seeing on their feeds this week.

[Casey Newton]

Yeah, so there was one very widely viewed image of what appeared to be a little girl in a boat on a flooded street, holding a puppy and shivering. So that one got a lot of play. There was another one that purported to depict President Trump walking around a flooded street in a life preserver with another person. And then possibly my favorite was one that purported to show President Trump in a suit, sort of up to his shoulders in water, cradling a newborn behind an American flag that for some reason had been lowered behind him into the floodwaters of the street and was not wet. How does he do it?

[Kevin Roos]

Right.

[Casey Newton]

How does he do it?

[Kevin Roos]

And, you know, presumably some of the people who are sharing this stuff don't know that it's fake. You know, these are not the most sophisticated AI images I've ever seen, but they're not terrible. If you're scrolling quickly through a feed and you didn't know any better, you might say, oh, that's real. But do you believe that the people who are spreading this stuff know that it is fake and AI generated and Just don't care.

[Casey Newton]

You know, it's really impossible to say, Kevin. And for this reason, we don't actually know the original source of these images. So some journalists who have looked into it, including Ryan Broderick at Garbage Day and Jason Keebler at 404 Media, did their best to find the initial place where these images were shared. And while Facebook groups appear to have been one place, there's also another forum called Patriots Win. We don't know who was the actual author of these images, so it gets hard to understand their motivation. However, earlier this year, Jason did a lot of reporting about the rise of an earlier, and, I would argue, funnier generation of AI Slop. This was, of course, Shrimp Jesus. Remember Shrimp Jesus?

[Kevin Roos]

Of course.

[Casey Newton]

So Shrimp Jesus was this sort of series of very strange AI images that purported to show Jesus, like, made out of crustaceans. And when Jason looked into it, he found that there were a lot of creators, often in developing countries, who were taking advantage of Meta's creator incentive programs to essentially get paid for generating as many views as they could. And they found that, you know, even though many of us coastal elites find this stuff sort of distasteful, it turns out there's a huge market for it. People love looking at Trip Jesus.

[Kevin Roos]

Yes.

[Casey Newton]

And so, on one hand, Kevin, there is a chance that this stuff is being created by essentially political operatives or partisans who are trying to make an impact on the election. And certainly, I would argue the people who are sharing it online, many of them fall into that camp. But I think there's just as good of a chance that the people who created these images initially are not necessarily partisans, but might have just been trying to make some money on Facebook.

[Kevin Roos]

Right. Just make something that's shareable, that'll get viewed, and that'll make you some money through whatever you're selling on your page or some type of creator program that pays out based on how popular your content is.

[Casey Newton]

Exactly.

[Kevin Roos]

So, yeah, I mean, in this case, the ones of Trump holding a baby while the mysteriously dry American flag lowers into the waters behind him, that seems probably partisan to me. Like, the motive for that seems like, let's create this fake AI image of Donald Trump, like, heroically rescuing a baby from the flood. It's hard to see how that would generate a ton of revenue for anyone. But that does seem like something that you could point to and say, look at how well Donald Trump is handling emergencies relative to the Biden administration.

[Casey Newton]

And that goes to, well, why have these images taken off this week? And the reasons are Just plainly partisan. Right. We are in the final weeks before an election we've just had had a series of major natural disasters. I think a lot of folks remember President George W. Bush's botched response to Hurricane Katrina, which greatly damaged him. And they're looking at this situation and they're saying, well, if we can make a similar case that the Biden administration has botched the response to Hurricane Helene, maybe Donald Trump will have a better chance of winning the election. And so we've seen a lot of right wing leaders, politicians, political operatives sharing these images online to push the narrative. You know, not only has the Biden administration done a bad job, but sort of saying that like fema, the Federal Emergency Management Agency isn't even doing anything.

[Kevin Roos]

Yeah, this was something that Elon Musk has been posting a lot about is how he thinks that FEMA is falling down on the job. And, you know, based on these sort of like erroneous or just fictional claims, he's sort of boosting it from his account, which is obviously huge.

[Casey Newton]

Yeah. And to me, that's where this gets into the realm of the truly dark, Kevin. Because while the AI slop is the sort of show, shiny new technological feature of this, as we said a bit earlier, spreading misinformation after natural catastrophes has happened, basically after every national catastrophe. What is different here is people are seeing an opportunity to in some cases just make up entirely fictional narratives about what the federal government allegedly is not doing after this natural disaster and then quickly generating evidence to support it online. Right, right. Generating these fictional images that they can share that say, you know, look like, look at this shivering little girl. You know, this shivering little girl is a sort of icon of the administration's botched response to this hurricane. Nevermind the fact that this little girl doesn't even exist.

[Kevin Roos]

Right. And I guess one question that I have about this stuff is not, you know, obviously it's pretty widespread. Like these are not sort of fringe posts that are getting 17 views, right. Some of these have gotten millions and millions of views and share and comments. So they're very popular. But do you think they're actually convincing people or is this just sort of entertainment that we may be reacting too strongly to? Or do people believe this stuff?

[Casey Newton]

Well, so this is the right question. Right. I think a lot of times discussions about misinformation feel really tedious because it's not clear what effects this kind of thing is having. But there was a great story in your outlet this week, Kevin. The New York Times, by Emily Cochran, Christopher Flavelle Michael D. Schier and Tiffany Su. And they talked to local officials who are working on the disaster response. And what they told the reporters is our phones are ringing off the hook from people who believe this misinformation and are mad at us and they're actually distracting us from the rescue work that we need to do. They talked to a woman named Samantha Montano, who's an assistant professor of emergency management at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. And she said, quote, I have been doing disaster work for nearly 20 years and I cannot think of another acute disaster where there has been this much misinform information.

[Kevin Roos]

Yeah. So, okay, there are still a lot of questions about that kind of supply chain for AI slop where it originally comes from. But there's also the distribution piece too, which is like, who is actually spreading this stuff?

[Casey Newton]

Yeah. So a number of high profile right wing accounts have been sharing this stuff online. Utah senator Mike Lee reposted the girl with the puppy on his personal X account, although he did later delete it. That same image was shared by Amy Kramer, who is a Republican National Committee, National Committee woman and a co founder of Women for Trump. And you know, Kevin, I thought this was interesting because after she was called out for posting this fake image, she said, quote, I don't know where this photo came from. And honestly, it doesn't even matter. It is seared into my mind forever. There are people going through much worse than what is shown in this pic. So I'm leaving it because it is emblematic of the trauma and pain people are living through right now. So. So that's a pretty rich text, I would say.

[Kevin Roos]

Totally.

[Casey Newton]

Because what it's telling us is we're now in a world where we share things not because they're true, but because they're emblematic of the way that we feel.

[Kevin Roos]

Right? They feel true.

[Casey Newton]

Yeah, they feel true.

[Kevin Roos]

I mean, I remember I did a story a few years ago about a QAnon believer and influencer, a woman on the Upper east side of New York who was just sharing all of this crazy QAnon stuff. And at one point I asked her like, you know, cause she knew that some of it was. Was not true or it was at least not verified. I was like, well, why do you share it then? And she's like, well, it just. It performs well. Like, my followers love it and they don't care if it's true. And frankly, I don't care if it's true because it feels true. Yeah. And I think that's a depressing but accurate Read of the psychology of a lot of people who are sharing this stuff. It really does not matter to them. And even after it is pointed out that the thing that they have just shared to their followers is false, there's not like a taking stock. There's not a sort of like, maybe I'll do better next time. You just sort of post through it and you say, well, it feels true.

[Casey Newton]

Yes. And I think that this is the most important piece of the misinformation story and the one that we talk about the least, which is the demand side for it. Right. There are a lot of people who want it to be true that the Biden administration is messing up the response to Hurricane Helene because it will give them a better shot of winning the election. And that is a very powerful engine that drives essentially all of the behavior that we're talking about today.

[Kevin Roos]

I. I mean, I've been thinking about this more broadly than the sort of recent hurricane misinformation, but just it feels like the Internet is starting to sort of break under the weight of AI Slop. And this is something that we've been talking about for a while now, but it really does feel like things are starting to come to a head. And I think that generative AI and AI Slop is sort of hurting the web in one specific way, which is that it is sort of just generating this content on a scale that makes it very hard to find what you actually want. And I was thinking about this recently. Have you ever read any Borges?

[Casey Newton]

I've read a bit of Borges. The nice thing about Borges is all their stories are really short, very short. You could read it online at Starbucks. It's true.

[Kevin Roos]

So I just remember this one Borges story that I read in college called the Library of Babel. And it's about this fictional library in which a copy of sort of infinite numbers of books are stored. And not just all the books ever written, but like, every possible combination of letters and symbols exists in this library. And, you know, when they built it, the people who built this Library of Babel thought, like, this is going to be great. The greatest works of humanity will be in this library, by definition, if it includes all the possible combinations of letters. And then they realize, like, oh, it's actually useless to have a library with every possible book with every possible combination of letters in it, because you can't find the things you're looking for. It's as useful as a library with no books in it at all.

[Casey Newton]

Yeah.

[Kevin Roos]

And I feel like we are kind of arriving at a similar place with AI slop on the Internet, where it's not that the problem is that all this stuff is bad or even that some of it is, you know, might not be good quality. It's that there's just so much of it that the job of sifting through it all just becomes impossible. And maybe at a certain point it does make the Internet basically useless.

[Casey Newton]

Yeah. And particularly in these really high stakes situations after natural disasters. Kevin. I think that's something that we want to pay attention to. Right. Like, we need to have like very good signal to people who are struggling in the aftermath of disasters to hear from their government to know what FEMA is really doing for them, how they can get assistance if they need it. And a world where the online conversation is taken over by people sharing fake images and lies saying that the government isn't doing anything, they're blocking the distribution of disaster relief. That creates a real problem. I think the second thing, in addition to the sort of loss of signal that I think we need to work on, is essentially just digital literacy. Right. We need people who are on Facebook and X and every other online platform to know that increasingly the images that they see will either be generated or heavily modified by AI, and they should take that into account when forming their view about what's happening in the world. I think the platforms could lead the that effort if they wanted. But honestly I would, I would like to see the government do some sort of digital literacy effort here as well, because I don't think this should just sort of be a volunteer effort by the industry. On the platform side though, they can absolutely do more to highlight when images have been created or heavily modified using AI. And in fact a lot of the platforms have. When I was looking through Facebook this week trying to find some of these images, I did find many that had been hidden behind some sort of screen saying, hey, what you're about to see has been rated by our third party fact checkers as false. And that's good. We've also seen tools that would label these images saying, hey, we can sort of detect that this has been made with AI. I would say so far the platforms have been pretty shy about displaying those too boldly. And I do think it's tricky to understand exactly, like how do you want to show that to people? But I think that particularly in the aftermath of a natural disaster, you want to make it pretty prominent, right? You want people to know that that shivering little girl doesn't really exist.

[Kevin Roos]

I have a question about where all this is heading I think it's easy right now to sort of dismiss like, AI slop because so much of it is low quality and sort of obviously fake to those of us who consider ourselves discerning Internet consumers. But if we assume for the moment that like, this stuff is going to get better and that, you know, in a year or 2 years or 5 years, the quality of AI generated content will approach or even exceed the quality of sort of the best or even the median human content, does that change what the Internet looks like if it's not just slop we're talking about, but it's just sort of like an overwhelming surplus of AI generated content of all kinds, good, bad, and in between.

[Casey Newton]

I mean, one possible outcome that I could see there, Kevin, is a return to putting trust in institutions over individuals. Right. I would say that over the past 20 years, people have tended to trust big institutions like major newspapers or the government, much less because they're constantly being attacked on social media. And they've tended to trust individuals a lot more because they can see that person's face and they can look them in the eye and they can say, hey, I trust what this person has to say. What I'm wondering is, in a world that is dominated by slop, do people say, you know what? I actually, I'm not sure that I can trust all these random faces I'm seeing all over social media anymore. Maybe I've been burned a few times by trusting slop that this person shared. And maybe if I can sort of separate myself from the fact that this person is always telling me what I want to hear, I'm actually going to go out and seek a source where I know that that information has been vetted. Right. Maybe that's not the majority use case here, but I can see more people wanting it over time because, you know, as. As partisan and emotional as many of these discussions can be, I do believe that most people, the end of the day, want to know what is true. And in dominated by AI slop, I think what is true is probably. You're probably going to need an institution to help you figure that out.

[Kevin Roos]

Yeah. It also makes me wonder if what is prized among people who make things on the Internet is going to change. Like maybe we're moving from an era of the creator economy into something more like a curator economy. Right. Where the people who will be trusted, will have status, will be sort of widely followed online, will not just be people who make stuff, but they'll also be people with sort of good judgment about what is real and what is not. There'll be people who, you know, most people don't have hours a day to sort of sift through everything they look at online and say, like, what's true and what's not, what's slop and what's real. They're going to put that trust in someone or maybe an institution. And the value. I can see the value of curation really going up.

[Casey Newton]

Well, I love that you basically just described my job at Platformer.

[Kevin Roos]

Well, I. Have you ever been fooled by a piece of AI Slop?

[Casey Newton]

Oh, of course. Well, wait, I'm trying to think AI slop. I mean, yes. I'm pretty sure that when I saw the Pope in a puffer coat, I thought it was real.

[Kevin Roos]

Yep.

[Casey Newton]

Because he just looks so cool.

[Kevin Roos]

I know.

[Casey Newton]

Yeah. Of course, if you don't remember this, you can just Google Pope in a puffer coat and you'll see, you know, one of the sort of early viral pieces of AI Slop, which was, you know, Pope Francis in a coat that he does not own, but was very beautiful.

[Kevin Roos]

Yeah, that was the one that got me, too.

[Casey Newton]

Yeah.

[Kevin Roos]

Yeah.

[Casey Newton]

What is it about that coat?

[Kevin Roos]

I don't know. It's very swaggy. Great coat.

[Casey Newton]

When we come. Hoback. It's Colin Hoback, the director of a new documentary thinks he's found the real Satoshi Nakamoto.

[Colin Hoback]

This podcast is supported by US Bank. At US bank, when they say they're in it with you, they mean it. Not just for the good stuff, the grand openings and celebrations, although those are pretty great. But for all the hard work it took to get there. Because together, they're proving day in and day out that there is nothing as powerful as the power of us. Visit us bank.com to get started today. Equal housing lender, member FDA.

[Vanta Representative]

With Instacart, you can get all your holiday essentials delivered in as fast as 30 minutes, whether it's the white elephant gift everyone will want to steal or the secret ingredient that makes great Grandma Jo's cookie recipe so great. Just download the Instacart app to find recipes, shop ingredients, and whip out dishes so delicious, your aunts and uncles will forget to ask about your love life. Enjoy free delivery on your first three service fees and terms of.

[Kevin Roos]

Well, Casey, this week we are talking about one of the greatest mysteries of the last 20 years on the Internet. And no, I'm not talking about when you're gonna write a good newsletter.

[Casey Newton]

Wow. Well, you're coming in hot, Kevin. But you're right, this is a real whodunit. And it's the rare sort of happy whodunit and that there's, like, no body anywhere. It's just the question of who created bitcoin.

[Kevin Roos]

Yes. So for years now, there's been frantic speculation and investigation about the identity of Satos. Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of bitcoin, who published the bitcoin white paper all the way back in 2008. No one has known who Satoshi Nakamoto is or was, but there have been lots of different theories floated around over the years.

[Casey Newton]

Yeah. You know how, like, every few years, they reboot Spider man and just, like, cast a new person in the role of Spider Man? That's sort of how it feels like it's been with Satoshi Nakamura. Every three years or so, some journalist comes forward and says, aha, I finally got it. And then three years later, somebody comes in and does it all over again.

[Kevin Roos]

Yes. So this week, we got a new potential Satoshi Nakamoto.

[Casey Newton]

There's a new Nakamoto in town. And like other previous Nakamotos, he's denying that he's Nakamoto.

[Kevin Roos]

Right, Right. So this new Satoshi Nakamoto candidate comes to us courtesy of Cullen Hoback. Cullen is a documentary filmmaker, and his new movie just came out this week. It's called Money Electric, the bitcoin mystery. Colin previously did a movie about the QAnon conspiracy theory called Cue into the Storm, which was an attempt to sort of unravel that mystery of who was behind this big conspiracy theory.

[Casey Newton]

And we should say in that case, I think they did actually nail the person.

[Kevin Roos]

Yes. I think a lot of people found his conclusion in that film very credible. And I watched this movie. I was given a screener of it several days before it came out. And I watched it over the weekend, and I went in very skeptical. I thought, oh, here we go. There's another one of these theories about Satoshi Nakamoto. And by the end of the film, I was fairly convinced that Colin had done it again, that he had actually. Actually uncovered the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto.

[Casey Newton]

And who does he think Satoshi Nakamoto is, Kevin?

[Kevin Roos]

So Colin makes the case in his film that Satoshi Nakamoto is a guy named Peter Todd. Peter is not one of the usual suspects whose name gets floated a lot during these Satoshi Nakamoto investigations, but he was an early contributor to the bitcoin project. But I was actually more impressed by the kind of other thing that the film did would just. Just that it convinced me that who Satoshi Nakamoto is actually matters.

[Casey Newton]

Which is what?

[Kevin Roos]

Which is, you know, obviously, there's sort of the financial angle. Right. This is a person who presumably controls, you know, billions of dollars worth of this cryptocurrency now. And so I think it's important to understand, you know, who that person is. But this is also like a movement. Like, whatever you think of bitcoin, whether you think it's a scam or it's worthless or whatever, like, it has had a profound impact on global finance. It's this trillion dollar industry. It's also influencing a lot of central banks around the world and how they're thinking about starting their own digital currencies. Obviously, it's created this tribe of kind of bitcoin true believers who are now very influential in US Politics. So I just think it's had a big impact on the world. Even if you are not a person who cares about bitcoin itself, I think you will care about this film because it just illustrates the many ways that this single invention has rippled out into the world.

[Casey Newton]

Absolutely. And I really agree with you. Who satoshi is does matter, even if you're not a bitcoin person yourself. For my own part, I remain skeptical that Peter Todd is Satoshi, although I do think the film is a valiant effort to uncover the identity of Satoshi. And if nothing else, if you watch this film, I think you'll have a lot to talk about with all your bitcoin friends.

[Kevin Roos]

All right, let's bring in Colin Hobby. Colin Hobeck. Welcome to Hard Fork.

[Cullen Hoback]

Excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

[Kevin Roos]

Can you just start by explaining why you took on this story, the pursuit of the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto? Like, what convinced you that this was worth this many years of your life to try to figure out who Satoshi Nakamoto is?

[Cullen Hoback]

Well, in the beginning, I wasn't actually convinced because it's one of those mysteries that's just been hanging for so long. And it's like you start to think, well, if it could have been solved, it probably would have been solved. But I put together a list of five people who seemed like likely suspects and said, okay, if I can get access to maybe one of these guys, it would make sense to start picking around the edges of this story.

[Kevin Roos]

And what was your pitch to those people when you started approaching them? Because a lot of these people, they've been hearing all the speculation about who is satoshi for more than a decade at this point, and I'm sure reporters have reached out to them hundreds of times. Trying to piece together various fragments of evidence. So how did you approach these people who you thought might be satoshi or might be connected to Satoshi? What did you tell them you were working on and how did they respond?

[Cullen Hoback]

I mean, I try to be very upfront. I said, this is a story that's looking at the origins of bitcoin to understand how it became what it became, but then also perhaps understand satoshi's motives and maybe figure out who satoshi was. So this is how I kind of pitched it. And the first interview I did was with Adam Back. He's the cryptographer who invented something called hash cash, which is really one of the key technological aspects of bitcoin. And Adam Back was also the first person that satoshi had ever reached out to. So that was the jumping in point. His answers were pretty suspicious. And after that I said, all right, well maybe there is a story here.

[Kevin Roos]

Yeah. So let's talk about the investigation into the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto. Tell us about Peter Todd.

[Cullen Hoback]

Peter Todd was this like a self taught coder, a super genius. Super genius. He starts communicating with Adam Back and some of the other cypher punks at the age of 15. Now, Bitcoin is white page paper. The sort of blueprint for bitcoin is released in 2008. Peter Todd would have been 23 at the time. And Bitcoin itself is launched in 2009. Peter Todd, I mean, prior to bitcoin he was in art school, but he was very focused in those early years. There's these old emails you can find where he was trying to turn hash cash, which is Adam Back's invention, into a real currency, like a workable version of cash for the Internet. Something that would maintain that sense of privacy that you get when you buy something with cash just online. Right. And he was very focused on this, which I found fascinating for a 15 year old. Right.

[Casey Newton]

In your film, Peter also comes across as like quite ideological about sort of the need for Internet money and private money. And I wonder if you could share a little bit about what was that philosophy that was driving him from such a young age to want something like a hash cash or bitcoin to exist.

[Cullen Hoback]

I was also very curious about what he was like as a kid. It was not easy to find some of these details around him. I think he's best described as, he said it himself, he's a young libertarian. I think he self describes more as a soft libertarian.

[Casey Newton]

That's a libertarian who doesn't go to the gym.

[Cullen Hoback]

Yeah, I mean libertarianism is a big umbrella, right? So, yeah, you have your libertarians. You don't go to the gym. You have your anarcho capitalists. You have ones who don't believe that any state should exist at all. Peter Todd is not one of those. He's someone who understands that governments will exist.

[Casey Newton]

Got it.

[Cullen Hoback]

But he also stands in opposition to them.

[Kevin Roos]

And the breadcrumbs that led you to Peter Todd, I think we should just say they're complicated. Right. There's a reason this film is as long as it is, because it does take a lot of background information to just be able to understand how you started piecing together the clues that led you to Peter Todd as the son for Satoshi Nakamoto. But can you just give us, like, what is your best piece of evidence that led you to claim that Peter Todd and Satoshi Nakamoto are the same person? Sure.

[Cullen Hoback]

So Peter Todd is masterful at muddying the waters. And in the film, you get to go on this journey where you're conversing with people who have interacted with Todd in the past and have been disoriented by this. Some people think he works for the. You know, he's a government agent trying to undermine Bitcoin. There wild narratives that have formed around him. But the key piece of evidence and the thing that started to unlock this for me, he makes this post in 2010, and he's only made three posts on the forums up until this point. And that post really reads like a continuation of a thought of what Satoshi had just written. You know, it's like an hour and a half later. And Peter Todd is the only one to add on to this post with a deep knowledge of how the system that Satoshi was describing was working.

[Kevin Roos]

He's basically correcting Satoshi.

[Cullen Hoback]

It's a correction post. It's a correction post.

[Kevin Roos]

Yeah.

[Cullen Hoback]

I think that's the best way to put it. And what it looked like to me is that Peter had logged out of the Satoshi account, logged into this new account, not realized he'd logged in, and written this correction post. And then both he and Satoshi evaporate after this. And clearly it indicates an unbelievable degree of involvement at that time to be able to correct Satoshi on a very minute detail about something called replace by fee, which is a technical solution that he would add to Bitcoin himself years later. But he would invent this whole character and construct this whole wild narrative with an email hack and all of this stuff just so, basically he could have an excuse to write Replace by fee. So we're talking about a guy who loves playing these kinds of games, loves playing with alternate identities. And I think that that speaks to why this mystery has stood for so long.

[Casey Newton]

What's your personal level of confidence that Peter is Satoshi?

[Cullen Hoback]

I mean, look, I think that based on the evidence, we make a hell of a case. I'm very confident in the case that we make. And ultimately, I mean, I'm hoping that the audience will watch and come to their own conclusions. But all of the evidence that I've got lines up with him. When you parse through all of the evidence, you look at his history, the timing, the writing style. You know, there was a recent batch of emails that came out as a byproduct of a court case against a guy who was claiming to be Satoshi. Craig Wright, who is not satoshi. He was proven to be a fraud in court. But in order to prove him as a fraud, some of the folks who were messaging with Satoshi very early on had to release their emails. And within those emails, it shows someone who is kind of struggling with cash as being the person behind the Satoshi account and someone who has kind of troll like lexicon. He uses the word retarded. And I think that satoshi saying a word like that just casually really starts to narrow your. Down your options on who Satoshi might be. Hmm.

[Casey Newton]

Yeah. For me, there's two things that I always get hung up on in the conversation about, you know, who is satoshi. One is we live in a society where everyone wants credit for everything, even things that they didn't do. Right. You know, Craig Wright apparently was one of these people, you know, so the idea that the person who created this, you know, global phenomenon, maybe changed the course of history, does not want to take credit for in public. It's just always been very hard for me to understand. The second thing as your film goes into in great detail, is that satoshi owns bitcoin's, worth at least $60 billion right now for its current selling price. Could be worth much more in the future. The idea that, you know, someone who, as you just said, Colin, was quite poor, would just not want access to the $60 billion, leads me to feel like this person has to be dead, whoever this is.

[Cullen Hoback]

Well, I think this is why a lot of folks in this space want to believe that. That he's, that he's dead. Why wouldn't he have tapped that massive chest? But here's what I'll say is that there's a pattern that was revealed by an error in bitcoin's code that showed what is believed to be satoshi's stash of a million or so bitcoin. That bug gets fixed in 2013. Satoshi could have easily been mining long after that. Satoshi could have also had another computer or other things that didn't fit that pattern up until that time. What I'm saying is I think that satoshi could be perfectly well off without having to touch any of the stash that's a part of that pattern. So that's point one. I think point two would be, you know, why not take the credit for it? I think the motivations over time have shifted of, like, why to protect satoshi's identity. You know, we make this case in the film. And this is what I believe. Most people have thought. Satoshi used anonymity because they knew that bitcoin was going to be this massive success. Right? But in the beginning, the cryptography mailing list, the cryptographers there are largely papoose the idea. But something that I hadn't considered for a large portion of the investigation is what if the reason for anonymity wasn't because they knew this thing was going to be a success and that they needed, you know, to protect their identity, but because they weren't prominent, they hadn't written any papers before, they were unknown, and they wanted their ideas to be taken seriously. And this is another part of the sort of cypherpunk ethos is like, oh, well, if you use anonymity, then the ideas can be judged at face value rather than using credibility as the metric. And when you think about it in that light, it makes a lot more sense why satoshi might have needed said anonymity. Now, once it became a success, the motivation might shift. Right? At that point, you go, okay, well, this thing is getting bigger than I was expecting. Maybe you want to be able to kind of continue working on it, but sort of living your life in a kind of Clark Kent, Superman fashion, where, yeah, there's this satoshi character, but then I'm also. But then also over here, I'm a real person kind of reporting on myself or whatever. So I think that's the sort of dynamic at play here. I believe that satoshi disappears, and then Peter. Peter Todd reemerges and injects himself in the narrative and kind of interacts with his alter ego. I mean, this is something I saw in Q as well. It's almost like the people who run these anonymous accounts can't help but interact with their alter egos. In some way bake themselves into the narrative because it makes them look, I think, in their minds, perhaps less suspicious. And then I think as time went by, I mean, Peter really mudded the waters, made himself look like the anti satoshi. And if there were people in bitcoin who knew this secret, they would probably think it's bad for bitcoin if he did end up being satoshi.

[Kevin Roos]

Right. Because he's a pretty controversial figure in the bitcoin community already. Even before your film came out, he was sort of seen as, like, a troll or just someone who was, like, had a lot of controversial opinions about things related to crypto and other things too. So not someone who you'd want to say, like, this is the person who started our whole movement.

[Casey Newton]

Although if you are that troll, to me, it's like, all the more reason to be like, by the way, I'm satoshi. Because that instant immediately gives you so much more credibility in all the online fights that you're starting.

[Kevin Roos]

Right, right.

[Cullen Hoback]

Well, you saw up until the film released, he did that all the time. He'd say, oh, I'm satoshi. Anytime someone would ask him, and they would just brush it off and move on.

[Kevin Roos]

Right, right. But he was not someone who was.

[Cullen Hoback]

Part of the troll like, behavior, though.

[Kevin Roos]

Exactly. They sort of do this, like, I am Spartacus thing where they all say, I am satoshi, as a means to preserve the identity of the real satoshi. I mean, the scene that is sort of the climactic scene is this confrontation where you basically, you know, are interviewing Peter Todd and Adam back, his kind of mentor, and you present him with your case that he is Satoshi Nakamoto. Walk us through what happened there and how he reacted.

[Cullen Hoback]

Yeah. So it was a bit of a challenge getting both Adam and Peter to be in the same place at the same time to answer these questions. And I felt that was really the only way that we could get to the bottom of this, if there was any way at all. And Peter loves to go caving. So I was like, all right, maybe I can get these guys to go on an adventure if we find some crazy Soviet era ruins. So we tracked those down, and I suggested to Peter maybe we should go on this adventure. Do you think you get Adam to go with us? And so kind of a producing miracle. But they both agreed. And so we. We drive out to this decrepit steelworks factory, and pretty early on, I start going through the evidence. I start with Adam back and all of the reasons why it looked like Adam was Satoshi unless he was covering for someone. And then in that moment, Peter once again kind of deflects and says, no, no. Well, here's all, actually. You're missing all of the evidence that does point pointed at him. So I started asking, okay, why did you write pro tip? If you start a revolutionary currency, you should frame someone back in 2014. And eventually coming to this alter ego that he had seemingly invented and trying to get to the bottom of that, why he did that. And then eventually putting together this theory and holding the camera as steady as I can, as I just paint the theory as directly as I can. And watch his reaction. Watch Adam's reaction. See how he's kind of absorbing what I'm saying? He's at a loss for words. And this is not a guy who is often at a loss for words. I'd never seen that happen before.

[Kevin Roos]

He's sweating, I think, like, he's maybe not literally sweating, but, like, it's a. You see, like, how. How surprised and nervous he is, and he's sort of stammering, and he can't really figure out how he wants to respond. I mean, that must have just been a very high adrenaline moment for you, holding the camera there after three years of work to finally be sort of like confronting your suspect.

[Cullen Hoback]

Yes. The amount of sort of butterflies, tension in my stomach, the adrenaline, I think it translates as does his intensity in his response.

[Kevin Roos]

You know, in the film, he does. After he's done stammering, he does eventually say, like, I'm not satoshi. And I've been emailing him a little bit this week. He says he's not satoshi, that you got it all wrong. He sort of accused you of being a conspiracy theorist. And I just wonder if you have, like, a response to that.

[Cullen Hoback]

Well, it doesn't surprise me. He's had a year and some change to figure out how he was going to respond. He's had something pinned to his profile since we had that interaction. In the months that followed, he tried to minimize the correction post. He's a master of game theory, and I view all of this as just more of his. More of his game theory and distraction. I think that the evidence is helpful. It pointed us in the direction, but his reaction, in many respects is even better evidence.

[Casey Newton]

I will say that doing something really big and then not wanting credit or attention, there is something Canadian about that. I do think that that is a point in the favor of the Peter Todd case.

[Kevin Roos]

Why don't you think Peter Todd has been a suspect? Thousands of people have been Looking into this for years and years and years, and Peter Todd was not in the top 10 or maybe even the top 20 suspects of who Satoshi could be. So why do you think he escaped scrutiny for so long?

[Cullen Hoback]

Yeah, I think that he's really become adept at figuring out how to muddy the waters in such a way that even with a case that's being made like this, with a lot of strong evidence, the community isn't prepared to even entertain it. There were a couple of instances where people had brought it up, but they would just get laughed off the forums. So he had been suspected occasionally, but for the most part, it was just discounted.

[Kevin Roos]

Right. I mean, I think we should just say, like, in the interest of fairness, this is not like a smoking gun case. Right. In order to definitively prove that Peter Todd is Satoshi Nakamoto, you would have to do something like catch him using the private keys to satoshi's bitcoin wallets or something like that. But let's say you're right and Peter Todd is Satoshi Nakamoto and the evidence that you've laid out holds up. Do you think that changes anything for bitcoin or its future?

[Cullen Hoback]

Well, I think the best outcome from this would be if, say, in the next couple of weeks. Weeks Satoshi burns. The entire stash burns. The million or so coins burn.

[Kevin Roos]

Meaning, like destroys in a cryptographically irreversible.

[Cullen Hoback]

Way, in a public way, for all to see on the blockchain, which is bitcoin's public record keeping service, anyone would be able to see it. It'd be totally verifiable. It'd be the best thing for satoshi and the best thing for bitcoin. It would be a almost Christ like thing to be able to do something like that. Or it's like throwing the one ring into. Into the volcano. But assuming they still have access to the keys. You know, all of this goes away if you do. If that were to happen.

[Kevin Roos]

Yeah, I think it would deflate the community if they knew that it was. You know, because so much of the myth around bitcoin and the reason that people love it is because it does have this kind of murky origin story. Like, you know, it just. People talk about it like an immaculate conception. You know, this thing just sort of basically sprang out of the ether into existence. And of course it didn't. Someone came up with it. Someone wrote the white paper. And I just think if you pull back the curtain and it's just some guy, I think that does actually maybe weaken the case for Bitcoin over time.

[Cullen Hoback]

I think you're right in the short run, but I think in the long run, this mystery actually is also starting to become an albatross. Hanging around Bitcoin's neck and getting. Getting over that would be probably a benefit to Bitcoin just to have some resolution there. Also, a lot of folks have had their privacy invaded over the years so that Satoshi could keep theirs. And there's an easy way to stop that, which is just to come clean, to burn the coins. So I think the ball's really in Satoshi's court here. There are some clear steps that could be made to bring this all to a poetic conclusion.

[Kevin Roos]

Thanks so much, Colin.

[Casey Newton]

Thanks, Colin.

[Cullen Hoback]

All right. Thank you, Kevin. Thank you, Casey.

[Kevin Roos]

When we come back, it's time to pack your bags and grab your tickets. The Hot Mess Express is pulling into town.

[Colin Hoback]

A place to call home. The freedom to live in safety. The opportunity to work for a better life. These are American dreams everyone deserves. But right now, across America, LGBTQ people could be denied the right to pursue their dreams. 65% of states have no laws that clearly protect LGBTQ people from being denied housing or other services. Get the facts and hear real [e-mail] brought to you by Love has no Labels and the Ad Council.

[Vanta Representative]

Be inspired. Read Lessons in Chemistry, the number one global bestseller with over 8 million copies sold. Readers everywhere named Lessons in Chemistry a New York Times best book of the 21st century. And it's now available in a special edition with bonus content, A brilliant holiday. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmas. In stores now.

[Casey Newton]

Well, Kevin, is it just me, or has this been a messy week for Silicon Valley news?

[Kevin Roos]

A very messy week.

[Casey Newton]

It seems like everywhere we look, there's one calamity after another. And when that happens on the show, we like to do a little segment that we call Hot Mess Express. All aboard. Well, if you're just listening, you cannot see that Kevin and I are wearing our train conductor hats. And we do have a child's train set laid out before us here in the studio. And on that train set, Kevin in a boxcar, are a series of paper slips. And what we are going to do is we are going to pull those slips out of the car, discuss the news, and then award them a rating on our official Hot Mess thermometer.

[Kevin Roos]

Yeah, and if. If you're not watching the video version of this show on YouTube, if you're just listening to the podcast, you are missing our gradual transformation into children's prop Comedians.

[Casey Newton]

I thought you were gonna say very hot people, but also that. Shall we draw the first slip out of the Hot Mess Express, Kevin?

[Kevin Roos]

Let's do it.

[Casey Newton]

All right, what do you have for us?

[Kevin Roos]

First up on the Hot Mess Express, Comcast discovers thing people hate more than paying $150 a month for cable.

[Casey Newton]

Well, I can't imagine what that could be, Kevin. What?

[Kevin Roos]

Well, there was a data breach that resulted in the leak of the Social Security numbers of over 230,000 Comcast customers.

[Casey Newton]

And we're actually going to read the names of those customers, just so you know, if you're affected. Okay. We're going to start off with Adam Adamson.

[Kevin Roos]

What's his Social Security number?

[Casey Newton]

Okay. I'm getting word we're not supposed to say that.

[Kevin Roos]

Okay.

[Casey Newton]

All right.

[Kevin Roos]

Casey, what do you make of this mess?

[Casey Newton]

Well, Kevin, I'll be the first to say it's bad. I'm coming out against data breaches, but I don't care who knows it. You know, Kevin, as bad as. As this is, I have to say I think that it's only going to be a warm mess for me. And the reason is because last October, Comcast had a data breach that affected 35 million Comcast customers, which, according to my research is actually most Comcast customers were affected by this. So 237,703 Comcast customers. Well, surely that is going to be a huge inconvenience to them. It is, frankly just a war mess compared to what happened to almost all customers just last year.

[Kevin Roos]

Yeah. And it's not very popular to defend cable companies in this day and age. But I think I will agree with you that this is only a warm mess in part because I don't think that Social Security numbers being leaked should be as big a deal as they are. This is sort of one of my hobby horses, is that it should not be a secret what your Social Security number is.

[Casey Newton]

Okay?

[Kevin Roos]

That number was never supposed to be sort of a unique identifier used for security purposes. That's not the point of Social Security numbers. And it should not be possible, if your Social Security number does get leaked, to use it to steal your identity. Identity. Or steal your money or anything else.

[Casey Newton]

I agree with you, Kevin, and I think it's time for you to be part of the solution. What is your Social Security number? Wait, we don't have time for that. There's another train coming down the tracks.

[Kevin Roos]

Okay.

[Casey Newton]

All right.

[Kevin Roos]

Actually, my. Can I say one more thing about Social Security numbers?

[Casey Newton]

Say it.

[Kevin Roos]

Do you know that Social Security Numbers go east to west.

[Casey Newton]

How so?

[Kevin Roos]

This is one of my favorite facts about Social Security numbers. So you were born in California, right?

[Casey Newton]

I was.

[Kevin Roos]

So that means that your Social Security number probably starts with a five or a six.

[Casey Newton]

It starts. Well, I guess I'm not gonna say, but let me just say, not a bad guess.

[Kevin Roos]

So the way they do it is that the first three numbers of your Social Security number correspond to where you were born. And numbers on the east side of the country start with zeros and ones. And numbers on the west side of the country start with fives and sixes.

[Casey Newton]

That's so interesting. And then the last three numbers are just your iq. So go ahead and look, and it'll tell you everything you need to know. All right?

[Kevin Roos]

All right, next up. You pull the next one.

[Casey Newton]

Can you pull it and hand it to me?

[Kevin Roos]

No.

[Casey Newton]

Okay.

[Kevin Roos]

I'm not your monkey.

[Casey Newton]

Okay, great. I'll just rearrange the entire stud.

[Kevin Roos]

You have longer arms.

[Casey Newton]

Okay.

[Kevin Roos]

Get back in front of the microphone.

[Casey Newton]

Okay. All right. Next up on the Hot Mess Express, Kevin who ordered Chinese Feud? Here's what happened, Kevin. News broke over the last weekend that Chinese hackers had penetrated the networks of a bunch of US Broadband providers, including Verizon, ATT, and Lumen. And, Kevin, do you know what group these hackers belong to?

[Kevin Roos]

What group do they belong to?

[Casey Newton]

Salt Typhooned. Salt Typhoon is how my friend Alex seasons his steak. But it's also a terrifying hacking group based in China. And they appear to have collected data on Internet traffic and the browsing histories of millions of Americans and businesses large and small. And the Wall Street Journal, Kevin, actually characterized this breach as potentially catastrophic. So, you know, what are the hackers doing with this information? We don't really know. The government is investigating. But here is where it gets a little messy. The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement act, or Kalea. Kevin, do you about this law?

[Kevin Roos]

No, but I know a child named Kalea. Oh, really? Hi, Kalaya.

[Casey Newton]

Hi, Kalea. What's your Social Security number? So, Kalea, the law was passed in 1994, when the Internet was still very young. And in fact, just the year previously, I had seen the Backstreet Boys perform at Washington Middle School. But, Kevin, here's why this law was important. It required communications officers to allow the government to tap into customer information when they were presented with a lawful order. So in other words, they have to make maintain what security professionals often call a backdoor. And if you talk to any security professional, what they will tell you is you do not want to install backdoors for law enforcement because inevitably those backdoors get exploited by our adversaries.

[Kevin Roos]

Right. This is a big talking point among security folks, is like it's impossible to build a backdoor into a piece of technology that only the good guys can use.

[Casey Newton]

Yes.

[Kevin Roos]

Invariably, whenever people try to design a backdoor into a piece of software so that law enforcement can sort of, you know, tap your phone or get access to your email or what have you, that ends up being exploited by malicious actors as well.

[Casey Newton]

That's right. And that appears to have been what happened here. China was able to use the. The sort of rails that were established by this law to penetrate our networks. And now apparently they're laying the groundwork for what could be a major cyber attack. So, Kevin, what kind of mess would you say this is?

[Kevin Roos]

This is. This is a hot mess. This is an official hot mess. It just seems to me like every year or two, we get evidence of some new massive hack related to China or the Chinese government. Like there was that hack a number of years ago of the Office of Personnel Management, OPM that resulted in a bunch of information about federal employees being stolen, apparently by China.

[Casey Newton]

So we have the ODB hack where old Dirty bastard did a guest verse on a Mariah Carey song.

[Kevin Roos]

I didn't hear about that one.

[Casey Newton]

Actually pretty good verse.

[Kevin Roos]

But I genuinely think this is a very messy story, and it goes to one of the biggest topics in cybersecurity today, which is the growing cyber war between the US And China.

[Casey Newton]

Absolutely. And what I will say about this hot mess is the next time that you hear some law enforcement agencies or some government regulators saying, we need to create a backdoor in your secure end to end encryption apps like WhatsApp and Signal. I want you to say, hey, remember how China used one of those exact backdoors to hack into our network?

[Kevin Roos]

Yep. Next up on the Hot Mess Express, Snoopy hates you.

[Casey Newton]

What? Snoopy hates me. What did I do?

[Kevin Roos]

So this is a story that came out over the last week or so about a major dust up, a major mess between two rival fan communities of Snoopy the Cartoon dog.

[Casey Newton]

Well, you know, Kevin, I've always thought of the Snoopy Phantom as a sedate and happy place for people to share warm childhood nostalgia. So I'm sure whatever they're feuding about could not possibly be that serious.

[Kevin Roos]

So the feud started recently when a Snoopy fan account called Snoopy Weekly posted an image of Donald Trump drawn in the style of Charlie Brown shaking hands with Snoopy, along with an endorsement that ended with Make America Great. Again, this, of course, was sort of very controversial in the bipartisan Snoopy coalition.

[Casey Newton]

Snoopy has generally stayed out of politics, and I believe he has not previously made an endorsement in a presidential race.

[Kevin Roos]

True. And so there were other communities of Snoopy fans who responded with comments on this post, including one that said, snoopy hates you, which is just a pretty harsh thing for a Snoopy fan to say to another Snoopy fan. Very much so. Others accused Snoopy Weekly of a recent quote, aggressive fascistic push and pointed people to another fan site, daily, Snoopy's, where Snoopy has appeared to show support for Palestinians and progressive causes.

[Casey Newton]

Oh, my goodness. Well, you know, Kevin, it just goes to show that we're living in such polarized times that politics can't help but find their way into previously sacred spaces such as the Snoopy fandom. Yeah, I just feel like the great thing about these fandoms is that they are, you know, a lot of these fan accounts are operated by, you know, individual people, and those people just have their own challenges in their lives. And so sometimes one of these fan accounts will go dark for a while and the person will come back and people like, oh, welcome back. Where have you been? They'll say like, oh, I was in prison, you know, or, oh, you know, I had like a major, like, mental health cris. And it's like, you know, but now I'm back. And here's more images of Taylor Swift. So, yeah, always, always a good time on the Internet.

[Kevin Roos]

What an inspiring Internet we've been.

[Casey Newton]

What kind of mess did we decide this is?

[Kevin Roos]

I don't know. What do you think?

[Casey Newton]

I think this is a hot mess. Like, like a Snoopy fan account went dark after endorsing in the presidential election. That's so needlessly messy. Yeah, ridiculous.

[Kevin Roos]

It's messy. It didn't. It didn't need to be this way. And actually, my understanding is that Charles Schultz, the crew creator of the Peanuts, took a lot of pains to keep Snoopy out of partisan politics. Basically, he wanted Republicans and Democrats to love the Peanuts universe, and so he sort of rarely waded into charged political topics.

[Casey Newton]

Yes, Snoopy refused to campaign for Warren Harding in 1926.

[Kevin Roos]

Okay, okay.

[Casey Newton]

Next, next up, Kevin. It's a WordPress nerd mess. You know WordPress?

[Kevin Roos]

Yes, the blogging platform.

[Casey Newton]

The blogging platform that powers much of the web. For the past few weeks, Kevin, two factions of the WordPress community have been in all out war. There have been public insults, cease and desist letters, and employees are accepting buyouts just to Escape the chaos.

[Kevin Roos]

So I saw some headlines about this and then I started trying to understand what was going on at WordPress and this mess, and I truly could not understand it. So maybe you can give me like the 22nd capsule version of what all the drama is about.

[Casey Newton]

Sure. So WordPress is free open source technology.

[Kevin Roos]

You have 18 seconds, I guess now 13.

[Casey Newton]

Okay. We call it the Hot Mess Express. It's not the Hot Mess long version. So WordPress is free open source technology, which means anyone can use it, including for commercial purposes. And one of the reasons that the WordPress ecosystem is so big, you know, some people say it powers up to 43% of all websites on the Internet, is because anybody can just take the software and build their own thing and they can make money with it, right? So so far that's great, everybody's winning, but here's the thing. Along comes a private for profit company called WP Engine, and they start to make lots and lots of money off of WordPress. But, and here's the catch, Kevin, they don't really contribute very much back to the ecosystem. So the etiquette of open source is if you use this product, you should be improving it, you should be forking it, you should be pushing your little changes and your little bug fixes. But WordPress's founder, Matt Mullenweg is arguing that WP Engine has been a bad actor in the ecosystem by essentially taking all of the good that WordPress ever created, hoarding it and reselling it and not contributing its fair share. So that is the argument. But here's the thing, that's not actually how open source software really works. So if you want to know, well, what is the argument against what Matt Mullenweg is saying, it's like, look, whatever they're complaining about, these are not the terms on which open source software is offered, right? The terms are, I'm giving you this, I'm making no warrant that it is, you know, safe or whatever. Like, it's essentially, you know, buyer beware. But once you take it, you can do what you want with it. And so for them to come in afterwards and say, well, we've just decided that you have to pay us percent of your revenues or we'll see you in court. If, if nothing else, it is a breach from how these kinds of disputes are normally handled. Kevin, what makes this even messier is Mullenweg's own entanglement with the broader WordPress universe. He is the owner of WordPress.com which itself sells these services commercially and so some people are arguing that he is being hypocritical, you know. Is WordPress.com contributing to the open source community? There's, there's sort of a lot in there and again, it's very personal and it's very entangled and it's very messy.

[Kevin Roos]

Wow.

[Casey Newton]

Yeah.

[Kevin Roos]

Okay. I almost understand what's going on at WordPress now. Thank you for that. How would you rate this on the hot mess thermometer?

[Casey Newton]

This is a very hot mess. I'm not going to say it's a nuclear mess, but I'm going to say it's a very hot mess. It is. Here's the thing, it is. Feels very personal for something that ultimately is just about open source software that makes websites. There is clearly so many hurt feelings here. There are so many actors, accusations, and at the end of the day, it's not really clear to me that it's going to matter that much to anyone who uses the Internet. So that just feels very messy.

[Kevin Roos]

Yes, I would say it's a very hot mess too, because if I've learned one thing over the past year, it is that open source software developers will get very, very angry at you for doing things they don't like. This happened to me. I'm not going to tell this story. I want to invite more of this.

[Casey Newton]

No. What's the worst thing that ever happened you because of open source software?

[Kevin Roos]

Well, I made a joke in a column about an open source database called postgres that sort of implied that it was too nerdy to understand and people got really mad. I got a lot of Linux developers emailing me. Let me just say that was a.

[Casey Newton]

Hot mess and that's why it's important that your Social Security number never leaves. Yes, it's true. All right.

[Kevin Roos]

Last stop on the hot mess express today, Chrome away from home. This is a story about Google and its seemingly endless antitrust struggles. This week, the DOJ made a court filing in its antitrust case against Google suggesting that one of the things that they want the Department of Justice to do is to force Google to break up.

[Casey Newton]

Mm. Yes, Kevin, we've now entered the remedy phase, which is of course Jason Mraz's favorite phase of ne antitrust trial. And the Department of Justice has put forth what it thinks would sort of right. The ship would prevent Google from having an unfair advantage in maintaining its illegal monopoly in search.

[Kevin Roos]

Yes. And one of the things that the DOJ wrote in this filing is that they are considering forcing Google to basically spin off certain products, including Google Chrome, Google Play, and Android to basically stop them from using those products to give an unfair advantage to their search business. So, Kasey, what do you make of this mess?

[Casey Newton]

Sounds great to. I mean, honestly, like, you know, I don't know what benefit I'm getting as a consumer from the fact that Google owns Chrome. Right. I'm not really sure what benefit I'm getting from Google owning Android. I see all the benefits from Google, you know, owning this sort of vast swath of the web, but for me, you know, it's much less clear. So, you know, Google put out a blog post today where they said this would harm consumers, it would be bad for privacy, and it would discourage innovation, suggesting essentially that Google would simply stop trying if it no longer owned, you know, all of these services. I think they're crocodile tears, and I'm very excited to see the DOJ make this full case in the weeks ahead.

[Kevin Roos]

Yeah, and who knows if this will stand up? Who knows if they'll actually go all the way toward forcing a breakup. A lot of people have sort of been speculating that they'll go for some sort of halfway remedies that would sort of make Google's life a little bit harder, but wouldn't force them to actually split off any parts of the company. This would be a big deal if it did happen. It would be the biggest deal since the Microsoft antitrust case.

[Casey Newton]

Certainly some are saying it'd be the messiest breakup since the Love is Blind season finale.

[Kevin Roos]

It's a great topical TV joke.

[Casey Newton]

I haven't watched the show, but people are saying that.

[Kevin Roos]

Yes.

[Casey Newton]

So what kind of mess do you think this is?

[Kevin Roos]

This, I would say for now, this is sort of a simmering mess. This is like a medium mess that has a potential to. To boil over if the DOJ does in fact decide to pursue the big remedies.

[Casey Newton]

I think that's fair. I would say that it is not a mess. This is actually just the wheels of justice turning in the manner that I wish they more often, which is to go tackle the biggest problems on the Internet and attempt to resolve them in favor of the consumer. So our thanks to the Department of Justice. And with that, Kevin, it's time for the train to once again leave the station.

[Kevin Roos]

Bye bye. Hot mess Express.

[Vanta Representative]

AI is coming to your industry, if it isn't already here. But AI needs a lot of speed and computing power. So how do you compete without costs? Spiraling. Upgrade to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, or oci. OCI is the blazing, fast and secure platform for your infrastructure, database application development and AI workloads. Right now, Oracle is offering to cut your current cloud bill in half if you move to OCI for new US customers with minimum financial commitment. AAVER ends December 31st first, 2024. See if your company [e-mail] NYT hey.

[John Chase]

It'S John Chase and Mario Ihara from.

[Casey Newton]

Wirecutter, the product recommendation service from the New York Times. Mari it is gift giving time, which means I am hopeless and need help.

[John Chase]

You're not alone, John. We have over 40 gift guides like gifts for people who love food. I really love this water warmer on that list.

[Casey Newton]

I didn't even even though these existed.

[John Chase]

It's this cute enamelware pot. If you're someone like me who explodes butter in your microwave, you can melt butter in it, but you can use it for a ton of other stuff. Making hot chocolate, warming soup and it looks great on the stovetop.

[Casey Newton]

This is useful, but it's also good looking.

[John Chase]

Yeah, definitely.

[Casey Newton]

What's an easy gift for someone like under 50 bucks?

[John Chase]

So in our gifts under 50 guide we have this super cute palm sized bluetooth speaker. Comes in an array of cool colors. It's waterproof. I want one for my garden.

[Kevin Roos]

Terrific.

[Casey Newton]

For all of Wirecutter's gift ideas and recommendations, head to NYTimes.com HolidayGuide.

[Kevin Roos]

Hard Fork.

[Casey Newton]

Is produced by Rachel Cohn and Whitney Jones. We're edited by Jen Poyant. We're fact checked by Will Peishel. Today's show was engineered by Chris Wood. Original Music by Pat McCusker, Rowan Nemasto, Leasha Dameron and Dan Powell. Our audience editor is Nell Galloway. Video production by Ryan Manning and Chris Schott. Go watch this whole show on [e-mail] hardfork Special thanks to Paula Schumann, Whewing Tam, Dalia Haddad and Jeffrey Miranda. You can email [e-mail] with your Satoshi Nakamoto theory.

[Vanta Representative]

Let'S talk about your holiday to do list. Preparing for guests means more time sweeping, vacuuming and mopping. You deserve some extra help cleaning with our most advanced two in one robot yet. The Roomba combo 10 max vacuums and mops with ease and even empties itself automatically automatically afterwards. Take more time back to enjoy the holidays while Roomba takes care of all those festive floor messes. Don't miss out on our greatest deals of the [e-mail].