Article URL: https://gwern.net/blackmail Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49172597 Points: 9 # Comments: 0

In September 201214ya, I was extorted for $48.76$322012 for being gwern; I declined to pay. In November 201313ya, I called an encryption bluff that I was Dread Pirate Roberts. In December 201313ya, a crazy person tried to blackmail me for billions of dollars for being Satoshi Nakamoto; I declined to pay. In March 201412ya, the DNM Evolution threatened to dox me if I did not reveal information about their security vulnerabilities. In February 201511ya, an Agora user doxed me in an unexpected way and I paid a small bounty. Weird things happen on the Internet, sometimes. I have long been interested in cryptographic topics, and in June 201115ya, I began researching the new darknet markets (DNMs), as epitomized by Silk Road 1 (SR). Between my sustained coverage of DNM topics, occasional interventions like my Sheep-MarketPlace/BlackMarket-Reloaded bet, and my minor role in the doxing of Sheep MarketPlace’s owner, and my essays Bitcoin is Worse is Better & Time-lock cryptography, I have been sometimes accused of being more involved than I appear - possibly Dread Pirate Roberts (really Ross Ulbricht), Satoshi Nakamoto1, a high-level seller, a law enforcement agent, or other things. While sometimes flattering (I wish I was Satoshi Nakamoto!), these are all quite wrong: I am but an impoverished writer who barely makes ends meet, and certainly not a Bitcoin billionaire or elite C++ P2P crypto programmer, though I write about Bitcoin/cryptography/DNMs. Still, some tinge of notoriety can be useful if it means people are willing to tell me private information. On the other hand, sometimes it is plain irritating. They don’t always go anywhere. Here are some examples of things that went nowhere, or at least, not where I wanted them to go. Prompted by my bounty to nwerg, I offered a bounty 2016–42020 of $18.87$152020 to anyone who can de-anonymize me in a way I do not already know about or which is impressive; I no longer offer this. (As of December 2017, I paid out 2 bounties, and 3 have declined payment; for the ~3 earlier deanonymizations, I did not have a bounty set up. There have also been a few wrong attempts to claim the bounty, some surprisingly convincing looking.) On 2012-09-10, I returned from my dinner to discover in my inbox news of a message someone sent me at 4:55PM using my anonymous feedback form: gwern I signed up usernames “gwern” and “gwernbranwen” at pivory.com I will release login info to you for a ransom. The ransom value decreases over time following exponential decay with a half-life of 365/2=182.5 days. It starts at 32 USD on 2012-09-11. I’ll allow a 1 day precision. Payment is to be sent as Bitcoin using MtGox average price to 1LtiftPcu3AjTbXf2XFCbvNTaeRFL1yBAy After 365 days I will start using the accounts. notgwern@tormail.org Oh no! I was being extorted over a username on some forum site called Pivory. Was I going to pay up $48.76$322012 to rescue my doppelganger from the clutches of a sinister extortionist? Did he plan to post threats against the President or child porn on this site to besmirch my good name? I knew I had to act swiftly to stanch the damage! More precisely, I posted the following signed message to Google+ and a private mailing list, publicly committing to not paying him a single satoshi: