The man who claims to have written the Bitcoin (BTC) whitepaper may not have written his ain law degree dissertation.

That'south the picture painted past "PaintedFrog," the pseudonymous writer of a Medium post on April ix. This post demonstrates large-calibration similarities between Wright's dissertation and several other publicly available sources.

Wright's dissertation for his LLM in International Commercial Constabulary for Northumbria University was written in 2008, titled The Bear on of Internet Intermediary Liability.

All the same the following screenshot suggests much of Wright'southward newspaper was lifted wholesale from Hillary E. Pearson's 1996 newspaper, Liability of Internet Service Providers.

Left: Wright's 2008 dissertation; Right: Pearson's 1996 paper

Left: Wright'south 2008 dissertation; Right: Pearson's 1996 newspaper. Source: Medium

Left: Wright's 2008 dissertation; Right: Pearson's 1996 paper

Left: Wright's 2008 dissertation; Right: Pearson's 1996 paper. Source: Medium

Other sections of Pearson's newspaper were less patently copied. Withal, as Craig Wright himself wrote in 2022:

"Plagiarism varies in its extent. Information technology goes from but rephrasing the ideas of another without referencing your sources right through to the literal block re-create of paragraphs of text and the theft of entire passages."

The epitome below shows numerous examples of Wright paraphrasing Pearson'due south piece of work, all without referencing her paper every bit a source.

Left: Wright's 2008 dissertation; Right: Pearson's 1996 paper

Left: Wright'southward 2008 dissertation; Right: Pearson's 1996 newspaper. Source: Medium

As noted in the expository Medium article, the vast majority of Pearson's newspaper was either copied verbatim or paraphrased by Wright - all without attribution:

"Pearson's Liability of Net Service Providers contains 58 paragraphs. Wright appropriated 45 of them; 25 in full and xx in large part. This plagiarism is extensive and methodical, and cannot be explained away every bit an oversight in neglecting to cite the writer."

And some other 1

Wright's paper cites The Promise of Internet Intermediary Liability by Ronald Mann and Seth Belzley (2005) every bit one of its sources. Even so, wholesale portions of the newspaper's footnotes can exist institute in Wright's 2022 paper, copied verbatim.

Mann & Belzley's 2005 paper

Isle of man & Belzley's 2005 newspaper: Source: Medium

The above department from Mann and Belzley'south paper tin be constitute repeated wholesale in Wright'due south dissertation below:

Wright's 2008 dissertation

Wright's 2008 dissertation: Source: Medium

The mail service goes on to certificate similarities betwixt Wright'due south work and that of another academic newspaper written in 2001, as well as a Wikipedia page.

The Medium post claims that Wright's paper also plagiarized, to a lesser extent, numerous other original public works, including Courtroom: Yahoo! Must Bar French From Nazi Sites (2006) by Crispian Balmer; Sale of production through an intermediary tin can create personal jurisdiction for patent infringement (2005) by Dennis Crouch, and many more than.

Plagiari-ception

Almost ironic of all is the exclamation that Wright plagiarized his very ain public denunciation of plagiarists. Wright'south 2022 posts on InfosecIsland.com, in which he excoriates cyberspace plagiarists, was apparently besides reused from the alleged plagiarism of Pearson'due south 1996 paper.

Left: Wright's 2022 Infosec Island post; Right: Wright's rephrasing of Hillary E. Pearson's original work in his dissertation

Left: Wright's 2022 Infosec Island post; Right: Wright'southward rephrasing of Hillary Eastward. Pearson'due south original work in his dissertation. Source: Medium

Cryptocurrency enthusiasts accept long disputed the notion that Craig Wright is really the anonymous Bitcoin creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. These latest findings are unlikely to change that any time soon.

Cointelegraph reached out to Craig Wright for comment. This commodity will exist updated if any reply proves forthcoming.