– The founding text of Bitcoin is hiding in your Mac
Discovered by chance, the famous document is hidden in Apple’s macOS software. And it has been for five years. Here’s how to find it.
This is the buzz that agitates the crypto community on this eve of Easter weekend: a copy of the white paper, or “white paper”, of the Bitcoin would hide in modern Apple Macs! As a reminder, this document is the founding text of the famous blockchain, and cryptocurrency of the same name, written in 2008 by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto.
Since this Thursday morning, articles regarding this discovery that we owe to Andy Baio, a former technical director of Kickstarter, have been flourishing in the media dedicated to crypto news, such as Cryptoast. The blogger would have come across it by chance while trying to repair a printer.
The “white paper”, which details all the functioning of Bitcoin, comes in the form of a PDF file hidden in each copy of the macOS operating system, since the Mojave version of 2018.
Here’s how to flush it out:
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Open the app “Finder»
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In the search tool of the window that has just opened (small magnifying glass at the top right), type «terminal». The icon of theapplication «Terminal», with the signs >_ on a black background, will be offered to you. Double click on it.
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A new window will open with information regarding your last connection and your first and last names. Following this information, copy/paste the following sentence (see picture below): open /System/Library/Image Capture/Devices/VirtualScanner.app/Contents/Resources/simpledoc.pdf
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Click “Enter” and the Bitcoin whitepaper should appear on your screen.
Who might hide this document in macOS and especially why? Speculation regarding this is rife. For many, it would be an engineer from the Cupertino firm, a fan of cryptocurrencies, who decided to use a copy of the white paper to carry out tests, without telling anyone.
Reported to Apple last year, the file has not yet been removed.
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