Verifying a message with Bitcoin

Craig Write claimed the 145 messages weren't signed, so it got me thinking, I had better verify this myself. Not everyone has the tools at their fingertips. Everyone who does, had better check. You don't want to do this kind of thing vicariously, if you have the tools and the understanding.

It's important because we use the exact same process to verify things like logins by Hive Keychain. If this process is wrong, according to CSW, then the entire ecosystem of all blockchain technology is wrong.

So how do you verify a message with Bitcoin? Here's the process I used:

1. Get a copy of the messages in question. A copy of them are here: archive.org
2. Let's just use the message itself and the first address/signature.
   1. Address: 1FbPLPR1XoufBQRPGd9JBLPbKLaGjbax5m
   2. Signature: G3SsgKMKAOiOaMzKSGqpKo5MFpt0biP9MbO5UkSl7VxRKcv6Uz+3mHsuEJn58lZlRksvazOKAtuMUMolg/hE9WI=
   3. Message: "Craig Steven Wright is a liar and a fraud. He doesn't have the keys used to sign this message.\n\nThe Lightning Network is a significant achievement. However, we need to continue work on improving on-chain capacity.\n\nUnfortunately, the solution is not to just change a constant in the code or to allow powerful participants to force out others.\n\nWe are all Satoshi"
3. Run this ruby command: Bitcoin::Key.verify_message(addr, sig, msg)
4. Observe that verify_message returns true, meaning that the address + signature + message are correlated, which can only happen if the person who created the signature has the private key for the address in question.

It's really that simple. From there, all you have to do is check if the address matches the claim. Did Craig Write claim this was his address? Yes, he did indeed. Therefore he's a liar and a fraud.

The only other point (smoke screen) to consider is that CSW is challenging the criteria used to verify DPR. I.e., we should either accept both methods or throw them both out. Accept that DPR signed the messages and therefore CSW is a fraud or DPR didn't sign the messages and CSW isn't a fraud.

But those are two different situations because nobody is asserting that these 145 messages were signed under duress and CSW isn't claiming that he lost control of the keys at any point.

Full process: gist