Hal Finney

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Harold Thomas Finney II (born May 4, 1956 in Coalinga , California , † August 28, 2014 in Scottsdale , Arizona ) was a long-time software developer at PGP Corporation and the company's second employee after Phil Zimmermann, as well as a pioneer of Bitcoin development. In the early years of his career he worked as a lead developer on numerous console games, including a. Adventures of Tron , Armor Ambush , Astroblast and Space Attack .

Youth and education

Finney was born in Coalinga, California in 1956. He attended the California Institute of Technology and graduated there in 1979 with a Bachelor of Engineering .

Career

After completing his studies, he began to work as a software developer in the field of console game development and was involved in the development of the games Astroblast and Space Attack , among other things . He was later hired by PGP Corporation as the second developer after Phil Zimmermann. He worked for PGP Corporation until his retirement in 2011.

Finney, who has also been referred to as a crypto activist and cypherpunk , already ran two anonymized remailers in the early 90s and wrote regularly on the Cypherpunk Listserv . Besides Satoshi Nakamoto, he is also the only known developer of the crypto currency Bitcoin , who developed the source code and the entire security protocols of Bitcoin together with Satoshi Nakamoto and is known as the first recipient of a Bitcoin transaction. There were even speculations as to whether he would be behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, which he himself vigorously denied.

He continued to work as a programmer until his death, most recently on an experimental software called bcflick, which uses Intel's Trusted Computing Platform to better protect Bitcoin wallets.

Private life and illness

In October 2009, Finney reported in an essay on the Less Wrong blog that he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in August 2009 . Before he became ill, Finney had been an active runner. He and his wife Fran Finney ran the Santa Barbara International Marathon to raise funds for research into ALS.

In March 2013, Finney posted on the Bitcoin Forum that he was practically paralyzed but still programming.

In the last year of his life, Finney received anonymous calls from a blackmailer demanding 1000 bitcoins from Finney. He and his wife were also victims of fake emergency calls to direct police and rescue workers to his home.

Hal Finney died on August 28, 2014 in Scottsdale, Arizona and was cryopreserved by the Alcor Life Extension Foundation .

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ AtariAge - Programmer - Hal Finney . Archived from the original on February 25, 2015. Retrieved on February 13, 2015.
  2. ↑ Hal Finney Home Page - archived from the original . Archived from the original on April 3, 2014. Retrieved February 13, 2015.
  3. ^ A b Popper, Nathaniel: Hal Finney, Cryptographer and Bitcoin Pioneer, Dies at 58 . In: The New York Times , August 30, 2014. Retrieved January 3, 2015. 
  4. ^ David Brin: The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom? 1999, ISBN 978-0-7382-0144-3 , pp. 20 .
  5. ^ Prospects for Remailers . Archived from the original on April 9, 2013. Retrieved February 13, 2015.
  6. ^ R .: Give Us Some Credit: Your Card is Safe . In: The Washington Post , 1996. Retrieved February 15, 2015. 
  7. ↑ Bitcoin Pioneer and First Bitcoin Recipient Hal Finney Passes Away . Retrieved February 13, 2015.
  8. ↑ Bitcoin pioneer has died and was cryogenically frozen . Archived from the original on February 24, 2015. Retrieved on February 24, 2015.
  9. ^ Hal Finney received the first Bitcoin transaction. Here's how he describes it. . Retrieved February 13, 2015.
  10. ↑ Obituary Hal Finney . In: The Economist , September 6, 2014. Retrieved February 24, 2015. 
  11. ^ Obituary Hal Finney, computer scientist, 1956-2014 . In: Financial Times , September 6, 2014. Retrieved February 24, 2015. 
  12. ↑ ANN bcflick - using TPM's and Trusted Computing to strengthen Bitcoin wallets . March 17, 2013. Retrieved February 15, 2015.
  13. ↑ Hal Finney: Dying Outside . Retrieved February 15, 2015.
  14. ^ Fight for a Cure for ALS: A Marathoners Story . Archived from the original on January 22, 2013. Retrieved February 15, 2015.
  15. ^ Hal and Fran Finney Are Running for a Cause . Retrieved February 15, 2015.
  16. ^ After a Year of ALS, Reality Begins to Hit Home for Hal and Fran Finney . Retrieved February 15, 2015.
  17. ^ Bitcoin and me (Hal Finney) . March 19, 2013. Retrieved February 15, 2015.
  18. ↑ Robert McMillan: An Extortionist Has Been Making Life Hell for Bitcoin's Earliest Adopters . In: Wired , Condé Nast, December 29, 2012. Retrieved January 3, 2015. 
  19. ↑ Max More: Hal Finney being cryopreserved now . August 28, 2014. Archived from the original on February 12, 2015. Retrieved on February 16, 2015.
  20. ^ Andy Greenberg: Bitcoin's Earliest Adopter Is Cryonically Freezing His Body to See the Future . August 28, 2014. Retrieved February 16, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Finney, Hal
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Finney II, Harold Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American game developer and cryptologist
DATE OF BIRTH May 4th 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH Coalinga , California
DATE OF DEATH August 28, 2014
Place of death Scottsdale , Arizona