Man, it's a good thing HN didn't fly off the handle and start obsessing over this man and try to invade his privacy using the excuse that NewsWeek started it and that makes it okay.
That was not my impression of the HN comments in the least. Most HN commenters seemed to think it was an egregious invasion of his privacy from what I read.
This was an egregious invasion of his privacy! Look, these postings from years ago on various message boards don't match his writing style -- these Amazon reviews don't match the style either -- his INS form doesn't match the timeline as close as expected -- From the streetview of his house, it doesn't look like the house of a hundred-millionaire -- this transaction made 3 years ago to buy juice in New York is off too -- I can't believe Newsweek invaded his privacy!
There was a separate post where a small business owner in New York claimed to have met the man in 2011 when he made a purchase at his store. People then started demanding the transaction ID so they could try to track down his wallet.
It was filled with claims that it's not doxxing because NewsWeek posted his address already, that Bitcoin users should have no expectation of anonymity, it could have huge ramifications to the economics of Bitcoin as a whole, etc.
> People then started demanding the transaction ID so they could try to track down his wallet.
All of the top comments in that thread[0] specifically asked not to publish the transaction id, but some people just want to interpret things the way they want to interpret things.
That would've been pretty embarrassing.