How Forensic Experts Exposed Dr. Wright’s Alleged Document Forgery

12. False LLM Proposal “Proposala.rtf” {ID_004697} {L2/54}

253. The document purports to be a version of Dr Wright’s LLM dissertation Proposal dating to 2007. There are versions of that proposal among his original Reliance Documents, some of which appear in COPA’s original Schedule of Forgeries. Dr Wright’s evidence is that his LLM dissertation Proposal featured ideas which contributed to his development of Bitcoin.

(a) COPA’s Reasons for Alleging Forgery

254. This is a document which was 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 Report [12] Q/6/5].

255. The document has been backdated. It is a Rich Text File created with the editor version Riched20.dll v10.0.19041. That version of Riched20 is the version associated with the May 2020 update of Windows 10. [Madden3 [86-91] G/5/34]

256. The section on BDOPC.raw above is repeated. Comparing the deleted version of this document to the disclosed version shows that this document did not exist in this form on 17 September 2023. It was entirely added to BDOPC.raw at some point between 17 September and 19 September 2023. This was done with the computer clock set back to 2007, in order to backdate the document.

257. At the same time of adding this document (in RTF format), another version of Dr Wright’s supposed LLM Proposal was deleted (in MS Word format). The deleted version of the document remained recoverable from within BDOPC.raw [PM46 [101-105] H/278/35]. The deleted document was called “LLM_ProposalA.doc” and is hashidentical to a document previously analysed by Mr Madden {ID_003935}. It contains indicia of tampering, including the presence of a Grammarly timestamp dating to 18 August 2019, and was shared on Slack by Dr Wright on 18 August 2019. [PM43 [45-49] H/219/18].

258. The document was sourced from BDOPC.raw. The section “BDOPC.raw” above is repeated. This document was added to BDOPC.raw by the Manipulation User.

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

259. The effect of the tampering is to make the document appear to be supportive of Dr Wright’s claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, contrary to fact.

260. This document was added to BDOPC.raw by the Manipulation User. The Manipulation User is Dr Wright. Paragraph 45 of the section “BDOPC.raw” above is repeated.

261. The version of this document which was deleted within BDOPC.raw {ID_003935} was addressed in the Madden Report and shown to be inauthentic. It is to be inferred that Dr Wright deleted that document from BDOPC.raw in response to the findings in the Madden Report.

262. Dr Wright has attached particular importance to this document:

262.1. It is said to be important to Dr Wright’s case because it is “an early version / draft of Dr Wright’s LLM proposal on “Payment Providers and Trusted Third Parties as Defined in the Law of the Internet”. Dr Wright’s LLM Proposal uses language similar to language found in the Bitcoin White Paper, for example the phrase: “What is needed is an electronic payment system based on some form of cryptographic proof that allows two willing parties to transact electronically directly with each other without the need of a trusted third party or Internet intermediary”, which appears in the Introduction section of the Bitcoin White Paper.” [Wright6 E/21/3; Schedule 1 to Field1, L20/223/2)].

262.2. It is said to be one of Dr Wright’s “Versions of Dr Wright’s LLM Proposal” [Wright6 E/21/3; Schedule 1 to Field1, L20/223/2].

263. The document was not disclosed at the proper time. It was 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.

264. The document was sourced from BDOPC.raw. The section “BDOPC.raw” above is repeated. This document was added to BDOPC.raw by the Manipulation User.

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

265. Dr Wright attempted to explain the Grammarly tags found in this version of his LLM Proposal by saying that what Mr Madden was looking at was a copy that was on another machine (and presumably then copied onto the BDO Drive by Mr Ager-Hanssen): {Day5/78:20} and following.

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

266.1. 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.

266.2. There is no evidence that any of the various versions of Dr Wright’s LLM dissertation proposal were actually used as part of his LLM. The actual LLM dissertation does not include the part of the LLM proposal on which Dr Wright relies as containing language and concepts similar to those of the Bitcoin White Paper.

266.3. Dr Wright accepts these documents have been tampered with but blames Mr Ager-Hanssen. As set out above, that story lacks any credibility.

266.4. This document was created with a version of Windows from 2020: Madden3 at {G/5/36}.

266.5. There was a similar deleted version with a Grammarly timestamp from 2019: Madden4 {G/6/34}.

266.6. Mr Lynch agreed with Mr Madden that ID_0004697 was manipulated: {Q/6/5}.

(d) Conclusion

267. I found the agreed expert evidence to be convincing. Accordingly, I was and am entirely satisfied that ID_0004697 was forged by Dr Wright.