On January 2, 2001, Jack Dorsey posted a list of 52 “signatures” that he uses online. A number of these had already been discovered through old posts he made on Usenet and mailing lists, but many had never been known before. The most significant one is “bit rot kid.”
As a self-described bit rot kid, it would not take a leap of faith to explain why he would name his p2p ecash system bitcoin.
Upon discovering this signature, a new post of his was found on the alt.cyberbunk Usenet board from 1999.
Using the name “tag dirt” and the e-mail address: [email protected], Jack comments on the Neal Stephenson book Cryptonomicon.
“oh it’s good. it’s really fucking good,” he says.
Oddly, Jack later comments in the same thread under one of his other pseudonyms, “jakdaemon.” His signature “data bomb kid” also appears on his list of signatures.
Now that it’s known that he was the bit rot kid, it pairs well with the discovery of how he chose the name Satoshi and the fact that he was a diehard cypherpunk and a fan of Hal Finney, Adam Back, and ecash since at least 1996.
Fifty two of Jack’s signatures:
mutable code rover
bit rot kid
member #64 of the yuppie eradication project
http://trakcore.net
living in pirate utopia
#40
close enough away
someday we’ll make it there, someday we’ll burn it down
virtual oddity
poetic terrorist
windy rooftop pirate
junk monkey
trak hacker
sniffing glue and stalking you
copywrong 2024
black-eyed schemes
insanity is everywhere
life support for the terminally bored
code rebel walking in the freezing night
data bomb kid
turn out the damn show
let’s put the future behind us
the world should be built for foot walkers
ether’s far secrets
intramuros
console jockey
everywhere available and nowhere present
collapsing the wave
zoom
functional secure free
orange crush
step off the curb
left foot first
noice!
word out
hobo generation
rep tagger
behind the curtain
scheme shower
0 day nomad
blast from the center
the bad touch
material girl
social bandit
temporary autonomous zone
copypirate 2040
shut’em down
mad mobility
nym runner
postcard flip instagator
peripatetic log daemon
release from central control