The point of the thread is to see what is the view of this forum's users on Satoshi's identity.

I am surprised that 15 % of the users that voted (at the time of writing this) considers Craig to be a viable candidate for Satoshi, although he has been caught presenting fabricated evidence and declines to present independently verifiable evidence  to support his claims.

I feel certain sympathy for Satoshi apparently wanting to stay away from publicity, but I guess it is human curiosity to want to know who he is.

To keep it simple... I think these two persons are the most obvious choices.

What do you think?

I believe that he genuinely thought he could pull it off by carefully timing Gavin & co public announcement about SN true identity and his own blog post. He didn't realize his complicated cryptographic "proof" was so easy to debunk. Additionally he had to assume that the real SN wouldn't post any message disputing his identity.

One more possibility: Gavin knows who real Satoshi is and doesn't want to reveal his identity. Gavin saw Wright as a way to distract public to wrong path (but unfortunately it backfired, as the public "proof" was so clumsy).

They must have been on Leah's long list and eliminated as candidates in the process.

As said, the evidence presented is all circumstancial.

Regarding your example, the reporters would be searching Satoshi based on this random guy's name. If they found a person with same name and who has the credible attributes to be the Bitcoin founder, it would obviously be a false positive. Yes, it is possible that Dorian is mistakenly identified as Satoshi.

You have understanding comprehensive skill? If I say that the Sheriff's deputies corroborate her story what else could it mean besides that the Sheriff's deputies corroborate the quotes? And as said, a recording would not make any difference, as if somebody is not willing to believe the Sheriff's deputies they would not believe a recording either.

So you are basically claiming that the Sheriff's office is intentionally misleading the public here? I am pretty sure that the Sheriff's deputies were fully aware whether Dorian understood Bitcoin being discussed or not, otherwise they would not have made the statement.

The sheriff's deputies are already corroborating her story. What a difference would a recording make? Dorian could always claim that he mistook Bitcoin for a secret government project (and that is in fact what he is claiming).

Yeah, if your birth name were Satoshi Nakamoto, you would be a possible match. But your birth name is not. And that is the one-in-a-ten-million circumstance.

If you were using an alias nobody seeking Satoshi Nakamoto would ever find that track. But in case your name can be connected to Satoshi Nakamoto on-line and you want to avoid that, it makes sense posting something that is not consistent you being Satoshi Nakamoto. Then any casual researcher will eliminate you as a potential 'suspect'.

As some others have noted, Satoshi probably didn't understand how big Bitcoin would eventually evolve, and it was only later that he wanted to cover his tracks.

I considered only the circumstancial evidence; not any statements from either party after the Newsweek allegation.

Satoshi p2p account is not evidence for or against; it is consistent regardless of Dorian being Satoshi or not.

As I said, the most compelling piece of evidence is the name match. Regarding the other pieces, they are weak as you say, but still consistent.

EDIT: Regarding
5.    Common sense that the guy who encrypted everything even his email address would not use his real name.[/quote]

Yes, this is the most compelling piece of evidence against Dorian NOT being Satoshi.

Let's have a look at the circumstancial evidence for and against Dorian S Nakamoto being the Bitcoin founder.

For:
1) His birth name is Satoshi Nakamoto.
2) He appears to have education and skills required for inventing and programming the first version of Bitcoin.
3) He appears to hold libertan views in line with the Bitcoin ideology.
4) His time zone is consistent with the analysis of Satoshi Nakamoto's postings.

The matching names is the most (perhaps the only) compelling piece of the circumstancial evidence. Without the name match, it would not have been possible to locate him without somebody who knew him directly during the Bitcoin development (if there were any who knew him directly).

Against:
1) Some of his on-line writings show lack of mastering English adequately. However, there are examples of other on-line writings of his where he clearly masters English. If Dorian is indeed the Bitcoin founder, he either enjoys trolling or those poorly written excerpts are decoys to divert any on-line researchers seeking Satoshi Nakamoto off track.

I really can't find any other circumstancial evidence that would be against him being the Bitcoin founder.

I wonder how they got Dorian S. in the long list in the first place. He is not an academic whose research could be connected to cryptocurrency. And on-line he is known by his current name Dorian S. Nakamoto, not Satoshi Nakamoto? Did they make the connection just based on the similarity of the names and later researched that he in fact has changed his birth name?

At least it is clear that one of them is lying about the conversation. Both of the accounts (his & hers) can't possibly be true.