Nakamoto ResearchHal Finney |
Version | v0.3.0 | |
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| Author | obxium | License | BY-NC-ND |
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.
| 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 |
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.
Born May 4, 1956. BS Engineering 1979, California Institue of Technology. Married, two children.
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.
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.
hal@finney.orghal.finney@gmail.comhfinney@shell.portal.com| uid | fingerprint | key | packets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hal Finney hal@finney.org | 70e82a9051b7857d17a35fcf44e14901a012dca2 | key | packets |
| Hal Finney hal@finney.org | dc437f94093349643fae7837ab127ca438d44e2a | key | packets |
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”.
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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