Nakamoto Research

Hal Finney 		Version v0.3.0
Updated
Author obxium License BY-NC-ND

Introduction

Harold Thomas Finney II (May 4, 1956–August 28, 2014) was a pioneering cryptographer, software developer, and one of the earliest contributors to Bitcoin, who received the first Bitcoin transaction from Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009.

Before his work with Bitcoin, he was a key figure in the cypherpunk movement, developing some of the first reusable proof-of-work systems and working as the first developer hired by the PGP Corporation to help develop their encryption software. He was also known for his optimistic views about technology and his interest in life extension and cryonics.

Although diagnosed with ALS in 2009, Finney continued to program and contribute to Bitcoin using an eye-tracking system to write code even as his health declined. His significant contributions to cryptography, digital currency, and privacy technology, combined with his resilience in the face of illness, have made him a respected and inspirational figure in the cryptocurrency community.

Finney denied that he was Satoshi Nakamoto.

Fact matrix

Detail Value Notes
Full name Harold Thomas Finney II Known as “Hal”
Birth date May 4 1956
Birthplace Coalinga, California, USA
Family: parents Harold Thomas and Virginia Finney
Family: siblings
Family: spouse Fran
Family: children Jason, Erin
Education BS Engineering 1979, California Institute of Technology
Employment M Network, Network Associates Inc., PGP Corporation
Affiliations Cypherpunks mailing list
Residence Phoenix, Arizona, US Cryopreserved at Alcor Life Extension Foundation
Website http://finney.org/hal Offline
Social

finney.org

The Finney family website appeared at finney.org, with pages for each of the 4 family members. The verbatim text of Hal’s page from a Wayback Machine 2001 archive follows in its entirety.

Bio

Born May 4, 1956. BS Engineering 1979, California Institue of Technology. Married, two children.

Cryptography

Much of my free time and effort these days are devoted to my activities in cryptography. In the past, I have participated actively on the Cypherpunks mailing list. Cypherpunks Archives seem to go down suspiciously often; too much “burn before reading” stuff there, I guess.

PGP

I was one of the original programmers on PGP version 2.0, working directly with Philip Zimmermann, author of the program. Today, I work for Network Associates, developing the crypto library for the commercial version of PGP.

Zero Knowledge Systems is a startup which is attempting to commercialize many cypherpunk related technologies. I wish them good luck! ZKS can be accessed through the button above.

An excellent crypto link farm is operated by Peter Gutmann of New Zealand.

Bruce Schneier’s Counterpane Systems has a good set of pointers to online crypto papers.

When you read papers, you often find interesting references to other papers. A good way to find those papers is by looking for the authors’ web pages. There are several lists of cryptographer’s home pages. A good one is the list by Claude Schnorr’s group, which also has links to some other lists.

It’s interesting to note that Finney misspelled the name of his Alma Mater with a typo in the word ‘institute’.

The finney.org domain resolves to an IP address, but no website is available at this domain today.

PGP public keys

uid fingerprint key packets
Hal Finney 70e82a9051b7857d17a35fcf44e14901a012dca2 key packets
Hal Finney dc437f94093349643fae7837ab127ca438d44e2a key packets

Request For Comments

English usage and writing quirks

Here are some observations about Finney’s English usage and a comparison of writing quirks.

Select cypherpunks mailing list posts

The American money capture

From: Hal hfinney@shell.portal.com Sun, 1 May 94 10:07:14 PDT

There are a couple of things I disagree with in Gary Jeffers’ post. (Mild spelling flame - it’s “fiat” money, not “fait” money.) I am interested not from the conspiracy aspects, but from the private- versus public-money angle.

PAPER MONEY BACKED BY PAPER There is only one cause of inflation; it is officially - but not constitutionally - authorized counterfeiting of money, the official issue of paper money substitutes that are not fully backed by & redeemable in the real lawful money they purport to represent.

Until 1850, there was no official paper money in the United States. The US government controlled coinage, but they had a lot of problems getting enough money into circulation, especially in the fast-growing frontier area. Between 1800 and 1850 a great number of private banks were started whose main function was to issue paper money. Although this money was not a legal tender (meaning simply that people could refuse to accept it) it did circulate widely as cash, often displacing coins.

Although ostensibly backed by lawful money (e.g. US coins), this did not stop the bankers from engaging in fractional-reserve banking. Indeed, if they had not done so, their banks would have been of no value, as they would not have helped remedy the shortage of circulating money.

(Today, with our experiences of inflation in the 1970’s and 1980’s, it is hard for us to appreciate the problems with deflation. But I think deflation was much worse. The effects are similar to what we see today when the Fed tightens the reins on the money supply - a halt to economic growth, business bankruptcies, growth of unemployment, debtors unable to pay off their debts, mortgage foreclosures, etc.)

(Also, note that a constant money supply in a growing economy is effectively deflationary. The money supply must increase at least as fast as economic growth or it will serve as an active brake on the economy, IMO. I don’t know what economic school this view comes from, but I first heard it from Milton Friedman.)

Even though the cash was not “official”, inflation was a problem. In fact, it was a chronic, overwhelming problem. Once a bank realizes that it can buy things simply by printing money, it takes more self-restraint than most institutions (private or public) have to keep from doing so. Things were made worse by the fact that our understanding of the inevitable bad results of such inflation was simply absent back then. The bankers did not under- stand that printing more money would inevitably devalue the currency. They thought that the inflation they saw was due to psychological factors, people not trusting the bank, or greedy merchants trying to take advantage of the public. (These arguments were echoed in the 1970’s and 1980’s, but they have of course been widely discredited now. The issue was far less clear in 1850.)

Throughout the private-banking era, runs on banks, booms, busts, and panics, all the traditional extreme manifestations of the business cycle, were seen. And all this occured at a time when the only lawful, legal tender money was hard currency: gold, silver and copper coins. Clearly having such a money is no proof against the pernicious effects of inflation.

Despite this historical record, I think that private currencies today would have the potential to succeed. The increased economic sophistication about the effects of different monetary policies would help bankers steer clear of the most egregious errors of the 1800’s. Digital cash signatures avoid the widespread counterfeiting and discounting which also plagued that era.

Hal Finney hfinney@shell.portal.com

Ring signatures

Bram Cohen mentioned he thought that Hal Finney and Len Sassaman could have introduced a ring signatures scheme on the cypherpunks mailing list jointly as the persona “Product Cipher”.

2004-08-11 0:18:08

A few weeks ago Adam Back sent me a pointer to a paper with what was basically a new anonymous credential system, by Brickell, Camenisch and Chen, HPL-2004-93.pdf. I’ve followed Jan Camenisch’s work pretty closely over the years and although he is only the 2nd author here, the paper is very much based on his ideas.

…

Crypto is next week and I hope to see Jan there and ask him about this. If he thinks it would work then this is another project I might try in the near future. I would really like to see some kind of anonymous credential system available for people to experiment with. I had looked into doing one with ring signatures but it would not be very efficient. Camenisch’s technology is far superior.

  
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  │ ⚠ THIS CONTENT MAKES NO CLAIMS ABOUT THE IDENTITY OF SATOSHI NAKAMOTO │
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