Talk:Adam Back

Zero RSes

There are zero RSes here. Surely there is verifiable, third-party evidence in non-cryptocurrency sources of Back's notability? - David Gerard (talk) 12:20, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

1 week autoconfirmed

There's a podcast going around claiming Adam Back is Satoshi Nakamoto, and we've already had one drive-by try to add it. Under WP:BLP, I've put the article under autoconfirmed for a week - if anyone thinks this should be otherwise, please do comment - David Gerard (talk) 18:21, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 May 2020 (declined)

He is also well known as Satoshi Nakamoto a pseudonym he has taken for creating bitcoin. 103.220.16.153 (talk) 19:25, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

N no, and lol no - David Gerard (talk) 21:39, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

David Gerard, this is not the proper way to answer such requests.

103.220.16.153, As I said in the edit summary when I reverted your edit, YouTube is not a source we use on Wikipedia. In addition, Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Idan (talk) 22:05, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

I just want to say that in order to include him being some online personality or the inventor of something we need a third party source to report it. So in this case if the BBC made an article about the podcast then it would go in the article. Idan (talk) 22:07, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

I understand that a third-party source would be helpful and proper, however there are numerous instances wherein Adam Beck gave inside information on Bitcoin not known to the general public, as well as having activity/inactivity logs which correspond with Nakamoto’s. Klayman55 (talk) 03:19, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Klayman55, is this reported in a verified new source? Independent research is also not included in Wikipedia. Idan (talk) 09:20, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

References

Poor sources

One way to deal with garbage sources may be to look first for ones pre-bitcoin: One challenge is that the cryptoanarchist movement has always largely eschewed traditional publishing avenues, favouring self publishing because for the first time in history that was a pretty good option. :) From a quick search a 1995 New Scientist article, "Cracking DES: Secrets of Encryption Research, Wiretap Politics, and Chip Design.", "Crypto How the Code Rebels Beat the Government--Saving Privacy in the Digital Age" all discuss Adam's pre-bitcoin work on cryptography, cryptoanarchy, remailers, etc. I believe I have all these books but the first one. He also has a number of peer-reviewed academic publications: e.g. [1]. I believe this approach can replace most of the problematic citations to his personal website (with independently published works ... which cite his personal website and mailing list posts! :P ). For any kind of major "person profile" you'll probably have to go post-bitcoin. --Gmaxwell (talk) 13:56, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

cheers to Jtbobwaysf for adding in a pile of good stuff - David Gerard (talk) 07:20, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

@Gmaxwell:, yes we wikipedia editors (speaking for myself) am sometimes lazy to go through the old magazine articles. I added a number of new sources today that are probably sufficient to prevent an WP:AfD. Is Back the creator of RSA, I see that in the New Scientific source your posted? I thought RSA is a company, pardon my ignorance on this issue. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 07:33, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

RSA_(cryptosystem), one of the things Adam is known for is creating a really small implementation of it that got put on t-shirts, mail footers, etc. to protest export restrictions. --Gmaxwell (talk) 15:52, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

@Gmaxwell: can you point us to a more biographical piece on Back? Maybe something in google books? Something about when, where born, if married, etc...I cant find anything in high quality sources such as NYT, WSJ, etc. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 20:41, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

@Ladislav Mecir: you re-added the tags to the article, which I had removed yesterday. Please justify here. Thanks!

• The article has 7 top shelf sources, what about notability is in question here? Also the article subject was one of two people named in the Bitcoin whitepaper. Do you believe there is any realistic chance this would fail WP:AFD?
• About the primary sources, are you proposing to remove all the primary sourced information?>

Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 15:19, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Regarding the sources:

• Jtbobwaysf, you probably missed that it does not suffice for the sources to be WP:IRS. They must also provide a significant coverage of the subject. To remind you, the subject of the article is Adam Back.
• The "Life" section is completely unsourced, which I see as very unfortunate and demonstrating that the significant coverage of the subject is not present in the article.
• While the "Cryptography software" section does cite some WP:IRS after your edits, the main claims in the section remain unconfirmed by a WP:IRS. On the other hand, the newly added claims confirmed by WP:IRS look unrelated to the subject of the section.
• The "Business career" section also does not refer to any WP:IRS. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 17:49, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

I added 4 more google books sources. Note there are probably at least another 5 more sources in google books. Your explanation doesnt justify the notability tag that you added, and the rest of the article looks horrible with all the inline tags, which I removed a couple where I found a better source. The company blog sources are sufficient (in my opinion) to talk about a BLP's personal life, etc as long as it is neutral. The key point is that the subject has sufficient high quality sources, the subject is connected to a handful notable events Blockstream, Hashcash, RSA (cryptosystem), Cypherpunk, Satoshi Nakamoto (via the whitepaper mention), etc. I dont see any realistic chance it gets deleted and thus dont see the justification for the WP:OVERTAGGING. Let's be serious, Wei Dai, Hal Finney, and Adam Back are not likely going to get their articles deleted for the long term given the notoriety of bitcoin and doing so would hurt wikipedia's coverage of bitcoin. This is silly, work on solving the issue instead of drive by tagging. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 20:33, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

@Jtbobwaysf: "Let's be serious, Wei Dai, Hal Finney,..." Indeed, let's be serious and not put irrelevant arguments here. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 07:28, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

@Jtbobwaysf: "Your explanation doesnt justify the notability tag that you added" Actually, the tag was there for some time. I just restored it, after your attempt to pretend that WP:IRS "provide a significant coverage of the subject" failed. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 07:32, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

@Jtbobwaysf: "The company blog sources are sufficient (in my opinion) to talk about a BLP's personal life" Well, for you, the company blog sources may be sufficient. For Wikipedia, they are not a proof that WP:IRS provide a significant coverage of the subject. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 07:35, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

I have added more sources and removed some primary sources. Please comment. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 15:12, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Satoshi

@David Gerard: Here is a new one Satoshi. BTW, are you ok to remove the tags on hte article now? I removed them a few weeks ago and Ladislav Mecir added them back. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 06:30, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

yeah, I added one line about that to Satoshi Nakamoto. I think it doesn't need the tags, Back is plausibly notable and there's a reasonable quantity of third party RSes - David Gerard (talk) 12:35, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

photo

Hi Voellzj1, Nwoodfine or Gmaxwell. Could one of you please upload a photo of Adam Back to wikimedia commons and share the link here(and ping me). Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 21:25, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Unsourced information

This edit inserted completely unsourced material to the article. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 16:03, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

It is kind of sourced, but to a YouTube video on some channel, which I wouldn't call a reliable source. Essentially it is a self-published blog. So I would support reverting this edit. Retimuko (talk) 16:37, 25 February 2021 (UTC)