Craig Wright's LaTeX Documents Deemed Forgery in Bitcoin White Paper Claim

7. Conversions to LaTeX using the 2022 version of Pandoc {ID_004648} {PTR-F/5/1} and {ID_004687} {L1/236/1}

149. These are two LaTeX source documents presented by Dr Wright as if they are precursor work to the Bitcoin White Paper. {ID_004648} is presented as a draft or paper produced in his work on the MNSA programme at Charles Sturt University in 2004/5 P4/10/4, and it appears to be a paper on hash chains and security of voting. {ID_004687} is presented as an article on IT security with a face dating of June 2006 which refers to hash chains and Merkle trees (features of the Bitcoin system).

(a) COPA’s Reasons for Alleging Forgery

150. These are documents which were among the 71 New Reliance Documents that were inserted into the BDO Drive by the editing process and which the parties’ experts agree were manipulated [Madden / Lynch Joint Report1 [12] Q/6/5].

151. These documents have been backdated. They refer to LaTeX packages which were not released in 2007. In particular:

151.1. They specify code (‘\usepackage’) to use the package “selnolig”. Selnolig was not conceived of until 2011. It was not created until 2012-2013. It was not posted to the internet until May 2013 [Loretan1 [5], C/20/2]. They also refer to the package “xurl”, which had not been released at the stated dates of these documents [Madden3 [30] G/5/16].

151.2. Selnolig requires a then-recent (2012-2013) version of LuaTeX to be used. [Loretan1 [6], C/20/2]

151.3. There was no previous package called ‘selnolig’. [Loretan1 [7], C/20/2]

152. These documents have been created with the Pandoc document conversion software. Pandoc is an open-source piece of software that can convert documents between different formats. It can generate LaTeX documents automatically [Macfarlane1 [3] C/19/1]. In particular:

152.1. {ID_004687} contains a line which states that it was created as LaTeX via Pandoc, which is characteristic of the use of Pandoc. [Macfarlane1 [5] C/19/1]. Although {ID_004648} does not include that line “LaTeX via Pandoc”, it includes the other code from the same October template.

152.2. The template for conversion to LaTeX was not introduced into Pandoc at all until 2010 [Macfarlane1 [5] C/19/1].

153. The documents have been created during the course of these proceedings:

153.1. Inspection of the (open-source) source code of Pandoc allows for more precise dating. The document was created after October 2022. The version of Pandoc used for creation of this document uses code that was not committed to Pandoc until October 2022. [Macfarlane1 [9] C/19/2].

153.2. October 2022 is after the commencement of these proceedings.

154. The documents were sourced from BDOPC.raw. The section “BDOPC.raw” above is repeated. These documents were added by the Manipulation User.

(b) COPA’s Reasons for Inferring Dr Wright’s Knowledge / Responsibility

155. The effect of the tampering is to create documents which appear to be supportive of Dr Wright’s claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, contrary to fact.

156. These documents were added to BDOPC.raw by the Manipulation User. The Manipulation User is Dr Wright, as explained in the section “BDOPC.raw” above.

157. The further effect of tampering is to lend support to Dr Wright’s new position that the Bitcoin White Paper was created in LaTeX, by providing other LaTeX documents alongside it. That story is a recent product of Dr Wright’s invention.

158. Dr Wright has attached particular importance to these documents:

158.1. Both are said to be important to Dr Wright’s case because they are “Notes, drafts and articles addressing technical concepts that underpin the concepts developed in the Bitcoin White Paper” [Wright 6 E/21/3; Schedule 1 to Field 1, L20/223/4].

158.2. {ID_004648} is said to be one of Dr Wright’s “drafts and papers written by Dr Wright during his Masters of Network and System Administration (MNSA) programme at Charles Sturt University, which he pursued between 2004 and 2005. These papers show an interest in the problems in distributed in distributed computing systems and considers solutions that are precursors to the consensusbased system that underpins Bitcoin." [Wright6 E/21/3; Schedule 1 to Field1, L20/223/4]

158.3. {ID_004687} is said to be a version of “a paper prepared for a 360º Security Summit on 15 June 2006 concerned with “Implementing Effective Risk-Based Controls”, which Dr Wright prepared in his role at BDO. The hash chain technology discussed in the paper is analogous to the blockchain technology used in Bitcoin." [Wright6 E/21/3; Schedule 1 to Field1, L20/223/5]

158.4. None of Dr Wright’s explanations above is compatible with the forensic evidence, and each is shown by that evidence to be false.

159. The documents were not disclosed at the proper time. They were disclosed instead from the BDOPC.raw image. BDOPC.raw is not a reliable source because it has been manipulated by Dr Wright. The section “BDOPC.raw” above is repeated.

(c) Dr Wright’s Explanations and COPA’s Rebuttal

160. Dr Wright claimed that references to selnolig and xurl were present in these files because someone had accessed them at a later date. As for the inclusion of Pandoc, Dr Wright claimed that the words “pdfcreateor…LaTeX via pandoc” was not a Pandoc marker, and instead claimed that this was a manually added comment. Dr Wright claimed that there is no LaTeX compiler version known to him (including Overleaf) that adds that statement. He suggested that he understood how Pandoc worked better than its creator, Professor Macfarlane. He also again blamed Mr Ager-Hanssen for the presence of the references:{Day5/106:6} and following.

161. COPA submitted that this explanation should be rejected as dishonest for the following reasons:

161.1. If the BDOPC.raw is accepted as being forged, it follows that documents on it should be treated as being forged unless they are documents which Mr Madden says are original to the image that was taken in October 2007.

161.2. Dr Wright was compelled to accept that selnolig and xurl both postdate these the dates of these files.

161.3. Professor Macfarlane, creator of Pandoc, gave evidence (unchallenged) that the source commits he implemented dated the template for these documents to a template that was first made available at some point between March and October 2022. Macfarlane1 {C/19/2}.

161.4. No explanation was given by Dr Wright as to why a user would choose to write “LaTeX via pandoc” in the pdfcreator field. His excuse that someone would happen to add, for no reason, that a document was created by a genuine piece of software, simply makes no sense. Pandoc is a LaTeX convertor. There were also numerous other documents that had “pdfcreator = {LaTeX via pandoc}}” contained in them.

161.5. Dr Wright never mentioned that his documents had been accessed and manipulated in this way until his cross-examination.

161.6. Mr Lynch agreed with Mr Madden that ID_0004648 & ID_004687 were manipulated: {Q/6/5}.