Accounts controlled by Ciro Santilli Updated +Created
Ciro Santilli controls the following accounts.
With non-trivial activity:
Trivial activity only:
Profiles without URLs (OMG...):
  • Discord: username cirosantilli, previously cirosantilli#8921
Accounts in Chinese websites. These accounts might be banned or altered or offer other limitations, so Ciro only communicates briefly through them. All communication through those channels should obviously be assumed to be compromised:
Accounts in Russian websites:
Dead websites:
Alex Elbanna Updated +Created
Shady shady buyer of "vistomail.com". He sends emails as satoshi@vistomail.com without any disclaimers, Godlike.
He or someone with the same name is having some fun with the SEC: dockets.justia.com/docket/florida/flmdce/8:2023cv01638/416506 for "Securities Fraud".
The complaint: www.sec.gov/files/litigation/complaints/2023/comp25785.pdf (archive). Some pearls:
41. Elbanna told investors several other lies to gain investors’ trust. These included his claim that he had served in the U.S. Marines, when in reality he was discharged after just fifteen days of their thirteen-week recruit training. Elbanna claimed that he had worked at the U.S. National Security Agency (“NSA”). He further claimed that the NSA was aware of and participating in the Digital World Exchange enterprise. All of these claims were false.
42. Perhaps most incredibly, after claiming that he had “been in blockchain technology since the beginning” and “in the cryptocurrency space almost since its inception” in the May 2018 and March 2019 Whitepapers, respectively, Elbanna told investors in a chat program in April 2019 that he “was one of the first 4 creators of BTC.” He went so far as to tell another investor that he was the pseudonymous inventor of bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto himself. These statements were also false. Elbanna later admitted that he was not involved in blockchain technology from its beginning, and that he “didn’t even really know much about crypto” in 2018, the year he launched the Digital World Exchange enterprise.
The documentary Bitconned from Netflix comes strongly to mind, www.imdb.com/title/tt30317302/. It is unbelieveable people would fall for that kind of thing, the founders are not even sophisticated. And on top of that he agrees to appear on a documentary!!! OMG.
Ciro Santilli's Twitter accounts Updated +Created
Accounts controlled by Ciro Santilli on Twitter:
Custom encoded images of unknown source Updated +Created
Figure 1.
bitcoin.jpg
. Source.
A bitcoin logo on block 123573 (2011-05-13).
This is the very first ASCII string to show up at github.com/cirosantilli/bitcoin-inscription-indexer after only the Genesis block message.
This version of the image was just ripped from Hidden surprises in the Bitcoin blockchain by Ken Shirriff (2014).
Reconstructing it should likely be a simple matter of copy pasting the ASCII yEnc encoding present in the two transactions from tx ceb1a7fb57ef8b75ac59b56dd859d5cb3ab5c31168aa55eb3819cd5ddbd3d806 into a text file and decoding the yEnc, but after searching for 20 minutes Ciro couldn't find a working yEnc decoder on Ubuntu 21.10. How can a format be so dead, even after considerable extensive use in the Usenet??? It makes you think about life.
As mentioned by Ken, the logo is split across two transactions: ceb1a7fb57ef8b75ac59b56dd859d5cb3ab5c31168aa55eb3819cd5ddbd3d806 and 9173744691ac25f3cd94f35d4fc0e0a2b9d1ab17b4fe562acc07660552f95518.
There appears to be nothing strictly linking the two transactions, besides that they are very close by and the only ASCII strings around back in those pre-infinite-spam days, as can be seen at: github.com/cirosantilli/bitcoin-inscription-indexer/blob/master/data/out/0123.txt#L11, so you could just see both of them by eye.
Also the first one starts with:
=ybegin line=128 size=8776 name=bitcoin.jpg
and the second one ends in:
=yend size=8776 crc32=a7ac8449
so this is likely clearly part of the yEnc format for someone who knows it, and the filename bitcoin.jpg gives the file format.
They are not even in the same block:both from 2011-05-13. Also note that they ended up being committed reverse order, since you don't have a strict order control over the final blockchain.
Figure 2.
v27sSra.jpg
.
An image of a dozen people siting at a dinner table, with each person identified by a Twitter handle that was edited in.
This image is present tx 4be3a833ee83b4ca7d157d60fbf7411f7528314ce90df8a844f855118bc6ca11 from block 357239 (2015-05-20), an input transaction.
It contains a base 64 encoded image:
v27sSra.jpg

/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEASABIAAD/2wBDACgcHiMeGSgjISMtKygwPGRBPDc3PHtYXUlkkYCZlo+A
...
TAkBaMxbbhuYXGDMyXw/MIV84IqrE//Z
...
By manually copy pasting that into a file v27sSra.base64 we can obtain the image with:
base64 -d <v27sSra.base64 >v27sSra.jpg
The exact same content appears to be present on the next input transaction 56d23a230042c094bc54bb72fc4c10a3f26750030b9927994e741d3689f5c09e on the same block.
Google reverse image search leads to freedom-to-tinker.com/2015/05/21/the-story-behind-the-picture-of-nick-szabo-with-other-bitcoin-researchers-and-developers/ The story behind the picture of Nick Szabo with other Bitcoin researchers and developers by Arvind Narayanan (2015), in which Arvind (@random_walker) who attended the meeting clearly lists all names and handles, and talks about the background of gathering of Bitcoin devs that happened in March 2014. The article also contains a higher resolution version of the image uploaded to the blockchain.
It also links to a popular Reddit thread that contains the image from May 2015: www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/36hfu4/pic_coredevs_having_dinner_with_nick_szabo/
Googling v27sSra.jpg leads to bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1061926.220;wap "New York Times identifies Nick Szabo as Satoshi Nakamoto" which links to i.imgur.com/v27sSra.jpg so this is a Satoshi Nakamoto-real-identity thing.
Incoming links Updated +Created
By Ciro Santilli:
By others:
Elon Musk Updated +Created
Musk is a truly ambivalent personality. Some points are very good. Some are very bad.
Respect on the technical side by Ciro Santilli.
But the way he treated his first wife Justine Musk, is very very weird, incomprehensible: www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/a5380/millionaire-starter-wife/
Positive Cirocoins for possibly going to reverse Twitter's unfair Trump ban if his Twitter acquisition goes through:
Negative Cirocoins for according to Wikipedia:
Within the merged company [Thiel's Confinity + Elon's X.com], Musk returned as CEO. Musk's preference for Microsoft software over Unix created a rift in the company and caused Thiel to resign.
Video 1.
The REAL Reason Why Tesla Made All Patents Open-Source by The not so boring Man (2021)
Source. Supercut from various interviews/presentations in which Elon saying that Tesla has open source patents and pro open source stuff. Can we trust it? Maybe.
Evil Updated +Created
Things that are not nice such as:
Instagram Updated +Created
Ciro Santilli is just too old to understand what the point of that website is compared to Twitter. There must be one, right?
Also, it is impossible to use it on the browser without a cell phone, similar critique as Section "Messaging software that force you to have a mobile phone" but a bit more aggravating, because, well, you would expect creators want people to see their stuff on a browser unlike private messages?
Justin Helps Updated +Created
Creator of Primer
youtube.fandom.com/wiki/Primer gives real identity:
Feels exactly the background you'd expect: disilusioned by the educational system, and working to make education better! Great guy! Reminds Ciro Santilli of himself a bit.
LinkedIn Updated +Created
LinkedIn fully complies with censorship imposed locally by the Chinese government, and does so in a non-transparent way: cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship/linkedin.
It is hard to understand what the point of that website is, as it is basically just a more closed version of Facebook, but alas, it has flourished as the only place where people post more useful content compared to Twitter and Facebook. In any case, Ciro just applies the same unfollow policy to all of them: aggressively filter your social media follows.
Luke Dashjr Updated +Created
Accounts:
Author of the prayer side of the Prayer wars.
According to LinkedIn he studied at the Benedictine College in Kansas.
TODO is his real birthname "Luke Dash Jr."?
Apparently he had his coins stolen in January 2023, then worth $3.5m: blog.cryptostars.is/luke-dashjr-an-original-bitcoin-developer-loses-all-his-btc-88421c395ce5p...
www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/4936kw/lukejr_is_a_seriously_a_super_crazy_person_quotes/ "Luke-Jr is a seriously a super crazy person quotes gigathread." (2016) on Reddit. Apparently he has some fun views of life.
NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization Updated +Created
This post-quantum cryptography competition by NIST is a huge milestone of the field.
It was mind blowing when in 2022, after several years of selection, one of the 7 finalists was broken on a classical computer, not even in a quantum computer! news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30466063 | eprint.iacr.org/2022/214 Breaking Rainbow Takes a Weekend on a Laptop by Ward Beullens. Dude announced he had a break a few days before submission: twitter.com/WardBeullens/status/1492780462028300290 On Twitter. He's so young. Epic.
Edit: and then, after the third round, things were a bit unclear, so they made a fourth round with 4 choices out of the 7 from round 3, and in August 2022 one of the four was broken again on a classic CPU!!! OMG: arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/08/sike-once-a-post-quantum-encryption-contender-is-koed-in-nist-smackdown/
Social media feed that forces you to see posts by non-followed Updated +Created
During the early 2020s, many of the idiotic social media platforms started adding a non optional "feature" of suggesting feed posts by people you don't follow:
It must have been some A/B testing overload that made that decision to try and make things more addictive for everyone. Or perhaps as a way to drive revenue with people paying to cheat the algorithm and boost their posts.
European Union we need you.
Anonymity of the donation Updated +Created
The anonymity of the donation is mind blowing.
The first sensation Ciro Santilli got was as if God himself had come down from heaven to toy with an unsuspecting human being. God running an experiment. Or perhaps an AGI that had already secretly taken over. Not very different.
Like with God, this was the answer to Ciro's prayers on Twitter. A one way conversation that leaves you uncertain of the details.
Whichever the case, Ciro is going to put on the best show he possibly can for your money, documenting every step along the way in usual fashion!
Besides the awesomeness however, anonymity is a risk.
Ciro ran this over and over in his head, and the only big risk of anonymity is that if this money is ever proven to be from the proceeds of crime, he would have to give it back to the government and "lose one year's salary he would have otherwise gained".
However, that worst case scenario is not bad enough. If anything, it was a great excuse to quit his job for his family and wife is already worth it. Ciro could do it and survive, though situation would deteriorate slowly. But he was a coward previously.
Ciro does however feel that there is good chance that it is legitimate.
Ciro Santilli's Stack Overflow contributions are exceptional, he's amazing right! He deserves this! Of course, there is danger in this rationale which scammers could exploit. But bro, if scammers are going to send 100k USD to me, then please continue to do so!
Also which criminal would be stupid enough to donate proceeds of crime to a highly public person who is going to clearly announce it?
Just be warned, if you come with a baseball bat trying to get the money back by force, I will call the police immediately and by God you will not get it!!
Given this, Ciro just keeps thinking about the likely profile of the donor:
  • 10m+ net worth
  • either got rich with Monero, or thought Monero was interesting and wanted to test it out while doing something cool. Also perhaps he has a personal stake in Monero and is trying to advertise it?
But the "why anonymous if not criminal" question remains. Generally rich people want recognition both for:
  • reputation washing
  • to make their donation mechanisms higher profile which allows raising more and attracting better candidates and reach greater impact
Two options that come to mind:
The Machiavellian Stack Overflow contributor Updated +Created
  • always upvote questions you care about, to increase the probability that they will get answered
  • never upvote other people's answers unless you might gain from it somehow, otherwise you are just giving other high reputation users more reputation relative to you
  • only mark something to close or as a duplicate if it will bring you some advantage, because closing things creates enemies, especially if the OP has a high profile
    One example advantage is if you have already answered the question (and the duplicate as well in case of duplicates), because this will prevent competitors from adding new better answers to overtake you.
  • protect questions you've answered whenever someone with less than 10 reputation answers it with a bad answer, to prevent other good contributors from coming along and beating you
  • when you find a duplicate pool answer every question with similar answers.
    Alter each answer slightly to avoid the idiotic duplicate answer detector.
    If one of the question closes, it is not too bad, as it continues netting you to upvotes, and prevents new answers from coming in.
  • follow on Twitter/RSS someone who comments on the top features of new software releases. E.g. for Git, follow GitHub on Twitter, C++ on Reddit. Then run back to any question which has a new answer.
  • always upvote the question when you answer it:
    • the more upvotes, more likely people are to click it.
    • the OP is more likely to see your answer and feel good and upvote you
  • if a niche question only has few answers and you come with a good one, upvote the existing ones by other high profile users.
    This may lead to them upvoting or liking you.
    Even if they don't, other people will still see your answer anyway, and this will lead to people to upvoting you more just to make your great answer surpass the current ones, especially if the accepted one has less upvotes than yours. Being second is often an asset.
  • always upvote comments that favor you:
    • "I like this answer!" on your answers
    • "also look at that question" when you have answered that question
  • don't invest a lot in edits. They don't give you rep, and they can get reverted and waste your time.
    Why are you trying to help other people's answers to get rep anyways? Just make a separate answer instead! :-)
  • if you answer a question by newbie without 15 reputation, find their other questions if any and upvote them, so that the OP can upvote your answer in addition to just accepting
  • If you haven't answered a question, link to related questions you've answered on question comments, so more people will come to your answers.
    If you have answered the question, only link to other questions at the bottom of your answer, so that people won't go away before they reach your answer, and so as to strengthen your answer.
  • if a question has 50 million answers and you answer it (often due to a new feature), make a comment on the question pointing to your answer
  • if you get a downvote, always leave a comment asking why. It is not because you care about their useless opinion, but because other readers might see the comment, feel sorry for you, and upvote.
  • ask any questions under a separate anonymous accounts. Because:
    • intelligent people are born knowing, and don't ever ask any questions, so that would hurt your reputation
    • downvoting questions does not take 1 reputation away from the downvoter, and so it greatly opens the door for your opponents to downvote you without any cost.
Usenet personality Updated +Created
Ciro Santilli does the same via Google searches and Twitter/Reddit searches for himself, you can't invent anything new nowadays:
Kibo was known for his high-volume but thoughtful posts, but achieved Usenet celebrity circa 1991 by writing a small script to grep his entire Usenet feed for instances of his name, and then answering personally whenever and wherever he was mentioned, giving the illusion that he was personally reading the entire feed.
youtube-dl Updated +Created
This thing dowloads YouTube videos. The thing downloads Twitter videos. The thing downloads BBC videos. It is just Godlike.

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