Project Blacknet
In addition to the forged Blacknet documents, there are some authentic ones. These provide a very useful backdrop against which to assess Dr Wright’s claims.
Dr Wright claims that he began his journey with working at OzEmail on the implementation of a payment protocol known as Millicent. This led, in 1998, to him embarking on a project known as “Project BlackNet”, the purpose of which he says was to create a fully secure encrypted internet explicitly for business-to-business transactions. Dr Wright says the concept of “crypto credits” in BlackNet was conceived by a combination of ideas Dr Wright says he took from Millicent, and he adds that this “laid the foundational groundwork” for Bitcoin. He says little else in Wright1 about Project BlackNet, but it features heavily in his Reliance Documents and is as prominent in Madden1.
The documents which appear to be authentic suggest that Project BlackNet was a (real or purported) project based on his IT security work and involved creating an end-to-end encrypted network. This can be seen in the document dated Thursday 3 October 2002 called “ITOL Project “BlackNet”, with the stated objective being “to integrate a number of off the shelf products in a clever and unique way to develop a product that will provide Fire-walling, IPSEC VPN’s, Intrusion Detection and SSL Acceleration Management.” {L1/80/5}. Some other versions of Project BlackNet documents, on which Dr Wright relies, contain sections which appear to foreshadow elements of Bitcoin, but (a) those documents have been backdated; (b) the sections are incongruous (as well as being absent from genuine versions); and (c) the new sections envisage a further phase involving a peer-to-peer transaction system, but that phase is absent from the budget (which describes the previous phase as the “final” one).
Cross-examination of Dr Wright confirmed that Project Blacknet had nothing to do with Bitcoin. Dr Wright’s attempts to tie Blacknet to being “premised on crypto credits”, suffer from the flaw that none of the authentic Blacknet documents says anything about such crypto credits.
As for the forged versions of Project Blacknet, these are addressed in section 5 of the Appendix. It is clear that the supposed extra “Stage 4” of the project has been added to try and retrospectively make Dr Wright’s Project Blacknet appear to be tied to cryptocurrency concepts.
Other than the documents which I have found to be forged, my attention was not drawn by Dr Wright’s Counsel to any other reliable contemporaneous document which has been shown to be authentic to support his evidence on these points. As I have already said, Dr Wright’s lies have been so extensive and pervasive I do not find myself able to place any weight on something he has said unless it is corroborated by some other source which I find reliable.
Furthermore, the matters relied upon under this heading morph into those under the next heading, so I move to the next heading.
Precursor work and discussions
‘5. Dr Wright worked on a number of projects from the late 1990s onwards that are relevant or related to the technology and concepts underpinning Bitcoin, including:
(a) At the Australian Stock Exchange (1996), Dr Wright built the “NIPPA network” that involved creating a distributed “peer network” protocol to send transactions across Australia. {Day 2/65/24 to 66/23}.
(b) At Lasseters online casino (1998), he developed “advanced security measures and logging systems” that were “an early precursor to the blockchain” {Wright 1 [38]-[44] {E/1/9}ff}
(c) At Vodafone (around 1998 to 2002), he worked on advanced logging systems that involved a “hash chain-based system” {Day 6/13/6 to 14/11}.
(d) At BDO (2004-2008), he discussed proposals for a network-based immutable ledger system with Mr Matthews (who at the time was CIO of Centrebet); and worked on projects with Dr Pang concerned with “small-world networks”. {Wright 1 [53]-[55] {E/1/11}}.
(e) At the University of Northumbria (2005-2008), he produced his LLM Dissertation (2005-2008), the proposal for which contains passages that closely reflect passages in the White Paper. The LLM Dissertation itself was on the liability of internet intermediaries which are also known as ‘trusted third parties’ and are referenced in the White Paper. {The Impact of Internet Intermediary Liability: {L20/178/1}.’ (emphasis added).
‘6. In parallel with this precursor work, Dr Wright was engaged in discussions with a number of individuals about digital cash and concepts similar to those that would appear in the White Paper (or related concepts):
(a) Mr Jenkins had discussions with Dr Wright about “eGold” in around 2000-2002; about “grid computing” in around mid-2007; and about “achieving trust other than in a central bank” towards the end of 2007 or early 2008. {Day 9/54/5 to 65/24}; {Day 9/73/21 to 77/1}; Jenkins 1 [16]-[25] {E/6/5}ff.
(b) Mr Archbold had discussions with Dr Wright about digital currency in around 2004 or 2005, during his second stint at Lasseters. {Day 10/27-28}; {E/11/5} [15-16].
(c) Mr Yousuf had discussions with Dr Wright about digital currency and how the financial system was flawed as far back as 2006; and, prior to 31 October 2008, they spoke about the problem-solving capabilities of “distributed networks”. {Yousuf 1 [8] and [15] {E/7/3-4}}.
(d) Dr Wright mentioned blockchain to Dr Pang on 1 August 2008, when Dr Pang purchased a Batman Lego set (for which he has the receipt). {Day 9/24-33} & the receipt dated 1 August 2008 is at {L3/57/1}.
(e) Mr Matthews had relevant discussions with Dr Wright about digital cash systems in the latter part of 2007 and into 2008.’
In relation to paragraph 5(e), I refer to the following sections in the Appendix which contain my findings that the following documents, relevant to these matters, were forged by Dr Wright:
Section 8: LLM Dissertation Proposal 2.
Section 12: False LLM Proposal ‘Proposala.rtf’.
I also refer to my findings above ([582] and following) in relation to his LLM Dissertation.
In relation to paragraph 5(c), Professor Meiklejohn observed in her first report that secure logging had been a standard recommended practice in the IT industry for decades, and she referred to guidance published in 1996.