Will Craig Wright’s Purchase Order Forgery Blow Up The Pineapple Hack Lawsuit?
More legal drama to expect after exposure of key evidence being forged by Craig Wright.
To give more weight to one exhibit in the Pineapple Hack lawsuit, Craig Wright’s counsel ONTIER hired AlixPartners’ Forensics who declared that the WMIRK 1Feex purchase order file was genuinely created by Lynn Wright in February 2011.
But is it?
And what will happen when Craig Wright is losing this important, if not key exhibit in this high profile lawsuit about alleged ownership and theft of digital assets currently worth a stunning $3,300,000,000 (yes, you read that correctly: 3.3 billion dollar), and presumed fiduciary duties of open source developers towards users of these digital assets, because these same open source developers exposed Craig’s evidence as being fraudulent in court?
This event — the exposure of another Craig Wright forgery — might have ramifications that we can not foresee yet.
Written by Arthur van Pelt
ABOUT EDITS to this article: as more material may become available after the publication of this article, it could have edits and updates every now and then. In that sense, this article can be considered a work in progress, and become a reference piece for years to come.
June 2020, the prelude to “The Pineapple Hack” lawsuit
It started all the way back in 2020. Out of the blue, well known Bitcoin infrastructure company Blockstream (satellites, mining centers, physical wallets and cold storage devices, Bitcoin Core development) received a letter from Craig Wright’s counsel ONTIER. We notice that the 1Feex address is mentioned (red arrow). A more indepth history of Craig Wright’s fraudulent dealings with the 1Feex address can be found in my article “The Faketoshi Tale of 1Feex”.
The Blockstream letter of June 12, 2020:
How did the press respond? The press did hardly respond, actually. Only online magazine FullyCrypto paid attention to the alleged heist of Craig Wright’s property, and here we learn why the lawsuit has the nickname that it has.
“A Fruitful Hack
News of Wright’s supposed billion-dollar Bitcoin theft emerged in June 2020 when his law firm, Ontier, wrote to Bitcoin company Blockstream telling them that Wright had been the victim of the hack four months previously and he wanted his bitcoin back. The story, as Wright would later clarify, went like this.
Around February 8, 2020, a gang of hackers broke into Wright’s house and planted a Wi-Fi ‘pineapple’ behind his TV, a device used by network penetration testers which allowed the hackers to infiltrate his home network. They used this to swipe, and then delete, 37GB worth of cloud data, which may or may not have included the keys to two cryptocurrency wallets holding a total of ₿111,000 as well as the equivalent in BCH and BSV tokens. The haul was worth over £850,000 million, smashing the record for Britain’s biggest ever heist.
Wright claimed that “several outages across multiple (security) companies occurred right at the same time”, which he says explains how the hackers managed to get into his property to plant the device. This suggests that it wasn’t just one or two people that were involved in the hack on Wright, but an entire Oceans 11-style operation was conducted – one team knocked out the security company networks while the other bypassed the other security features and broke into his house to plant the device.
Stolen Bitcoin Hasn’t Moved
Having discovered the theft, Wright, for some reason, didn’t phone the police but instead wiped his entire computer, which is the first thing they would have told him not to do. He then reported it the next day, giving time for key digital and physical forensic evidence to be potentially lost. He also didn’t simply re-download the private keys from the online rubbish bin into which they had been placed by the cloud providers, or contact them to see if they could help get the keys back so he could move the funds before the hackers did.
Wright also never solicited the public for their assistance in potentially identifying the gang, which someone must have seen given that they would have looked out of place in a leafy part of the English countryside.” — Mark Hunter, FullyCrypto “The Billion-dollar Bitcoin Theft That Nobody Talks About”
Ultimately, Craig Wright decided to push through with this threat almost a year later, and he started to sue a number of parties in what is now known by many as “The Pineapple Hack” lawsuit.
May 2021, The Pineapple Hack lawsuit kicks off
The undersigned will not bother the reader with all the material that the defendants in this lawsuit received, as it is quite the package:
In summary, Craig Wright — or in this lawsuit his vehicle Tulip Trading Limited (a Seychelles company), claims in the Particulars Of Claim of this case that:
“Between 5 and 8 February 2020, without the knowledge, consent or authorisation of TTL or Dr Wright, unknown persons (the “Hackers”) unlawfully accessed Dr Wright’s personal computer and network, which was held by Dr Wright at an address in Surrey, England. Having done so, the Hackers accessed and deleted the TTL Private Keys and the Keys Access Material (amongst other matters) (the “Hack”). It is inferred that they made copies of the TTL Private Keys and/or the Keys Access Material before deleting them.
The Hack was part of a broader hack of Dr Wright’s system. Various other information and assets were stolen from Dr Wright and others. TTL does not currently, in these proceedings, pursue remedies in respect of such other information and assets. Nor does TTL, in these proceedings, bring claims against the Hackers directly, but it, and the other victims of the Hack, reserve the right to bring further claims in due course in these or other proceedings.
The misappropriation of the TTL Private Keys and the Keys Access Material was discovered on 8 February 2020. Steps were immediately taken to secure Dr Wright’s personal computer and the matter was reported to the Surrey Police by Dr Wright under crime reference number 45200015992.
As a result, TTL no longer has possession of or access to the TTL Private Keys, or the Keys Access Material and, even though it remains the owner of the Bitcoin in the Addresses, it is unable to deal with it.
While TTL has, by letters dated 12 June 2020, put various of the Developers on notice of the misappropriation of the TTL Private Keys and the Keys Access Material, and notwithstanding that TTL has sent pre-action letters to the Defendants dated 24 February 2021, none of the Defendants has accepted that it or he is subject to the fiduciary and/or tortious duties set out below, or agreed to take the steps required of them as requested, as particularised below.”
<snip>
“TTL is owed fiduciary obligations by each of the Developers. […] Therefore, in accordance with their fiduciary duties, the Developers are required to:
a. Provide access and control to TTL of the Bitcoin in the Addresses, including through (1) effecting a transfer of the Bitcoin to an address in respect of which TTL is able to access the private keys; and/or (2) effecting amendments to the software so as to allow TTL access to and control of the Bitcoin.
b. Take all reasonable steps to ensure that TTL has access to and control of the Bitcoin in the Addresses.
c. Take all reasonable steps to ensure that effect is not given to the fraud, by ensuring that the Bitcoin in the Addresses cannot be dealt with by anyone other than TTL (including the Hackers who have appropriated the TTL Private Keys and/or the Keys Access Material).”
So the lawsuit is about Craig Wright trying to ‘regain access’ to tokens on the 1Feex and 12ib7 addresses, and he demands that the developers of Bitcoin and several forks and spinoffs (BCH, BSV and eCash) are going to help him, because, well, ‘fiduciary duties’.
At first, Justice Falk threw the case out in March 2022 because she thought that the case had no merits. Craig appealed, and won the appeal end of 2022 so the case continued early 2023.
The undersigned is not going to dive into this lawsuit and discuss every angle why Craig Wright is wrong (because he certainly is) with the reader. No, we are going to dive into one of the forgeries in the case: a file that is alleging to be a February 2011 purchase order for the 1Feex bitcoin tokens that Craig Wright claims to own after he bought them from a Russian exchange called WMIRK. And Craig Wright also claims that this 1Feex purchase order was created back then by Lynn Wright, Craig’s then-wife from which he divorced in 2012.
Why exactly this purchase order file, the reader might ask? Because it is a very important if not key piece of evidence for Craig Wright. It’s probably very fair to say that the whole Pineapple Hack case falls apart when it is proven without any doubt that Craig Wright never obtained the bitcoin tokens as mentioned on the purchase order forgery, and in the lawsuit Particulars Of Claim. Furthermore, the purchase order file is fully endorsed by a forensics company called AlixPartners, and it is also endorsed by a lawyer from Craig his counsel in his witness statement. That material will follow shortly.
So debunking this purchase order file not only puts the spotlight on the forger of the file (Craig Wright) and gives reason to the judges of the case to immediately throw it out as it is — again — based on false evidence (like in the Wright v McCormack libel lawsuit), it also instantly ruins the reputations of several professionals who have been hired by Craig Wright to represent him in a court of law!
“He brings the IQ down of any group he is in.”
Indeed.
Now buckle up, dear reader. The case-ruining purchase order forgery in every juicy detail.
The Purchase Order file
First let’s have a look at an image of the purchase order. At first glance, this looks like a genuine purchase order, right?
The Forensic Report of AlixPartners
AlixPartners was asked, by Craig Wright’s counsel ONTIER, to do a full inquiry of the WMIRK purchase order file. What follows is their full forensic report about this PDF file called PO-16555.
Please take note of a highlighted part on page 7 of this report.
To cut a long story short, what we just have been reading in this detailed forensic report, an exhibit added to Craig Wright’s Particulars Of Claim, is that ONTIER’s forensic expert AlixPartners — Senior Vice President Kevin Madura no less — is fully endorsing Lynn Wright’s February 27, 2011 purchase order on which the purchase of the bitcoin tokens of the 1Feex address at Russian exchange WMIRK is confirmed.
At the same time, and despite AlixPartners’ full technical endorsements, we all know that Craig Wright didn’t even know that Bitcoin existed before July 2011. We also know that his Bitcoin fraud started in the second half of 2013, and we know that his Satoshi Nakamoto cosplay only started in 2014.
Indeed, fact is that Craig Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto.
So this February 2011 bitcoin purchase order *MUST* be a Craig Wright made forgery, that is 100% certain beforehand. But then, how do we prove that fact *AFTER* a senior forensic expert has already gone through all the ins and outs of the purchase order file in a detailed forensic report?
It all started when one of the Bitcoin developers asked my opinion on the whole lawsuit package. And the moment I noticed the 1Feex purchase order with the AlixPartners’ forensic endorsement, I placed myself in the Modus Operandi of Craig “plagiarize is my middle name” Wright. So I did a Google Search for “purchase order template”. Because Craig Wright never invents something himself, he plagiarizes almost everything from the internet.
Aaand… bingo.
On top of page 1 of this Google Search, we immediately find the exact same purchase order that Craig Wright, or his then-wife Lynn Wright he claims, had used in 2011. Note that the purchase order template hosted on the website of “Vertex42” is highlighted in the screenshot below. Reason is, while the same template is offered on other places too, Vertex42 is the original author of this template.
Let’s zoom in a bit on that template we just found with Google Search. We notice at first glance that font, color, layout, everything is exactly the same. Even the second line from the template with an amount of $75 has been reused!
So there’s no doubt, going along with Craig Wright’s false storyline a bit more, that Lynn Wright has been using this exact template to create the WMIRK purchase order. Note that for the moment we can still presume that the WMIRK 1Feex purchase order was created in 2011.
But that presumption will be destroyed in a bit, though.
But firstly, how do we know that Vertex42 is indeed the author, the original builder and provider of this specific template? Let’s go back to the highlighted part of the AlixPartners forensic report. Note that they found a hidden text, I would like to call it a sort of watermark, in the WMIRK purchase order. Here is where I was helped by another Bitcoin community member. Remember, there are many Craig Wright debunkers active, most of them wish to remain unknown or anonymous for obvious reasons (take for example The CryptoDevil Case).
Now please go to the online page where Vertex42 is offering this purchase order template. Then from here, download the purchase order template file (called “purchase-order.xlsx”) and open it with Microsoft Excel or a compatible software tool.
Now click on cell “E38”. Note there is a hidden text “[42]” in this cell. This is, as we will learn later, a Vertex42-unique watermark.
Let’s recap. At this moment we can conclude that not only the visible elements of the purchase order template file (font, color, layout, second line) but also the hidden elements of the purchase order template file (watermark) are a match with the WMIRK 1Feex purchase order.
Secondly, let’s inquire a bit more. How old is the page of Vertex42 where the purchase order template is offered? Can we try to find out in which timeframe this exact file was offered by Vertex42?
We are going to use the Internet Archive, WayBack Machine for this inquiry.
The Vertex42 webpage with the purchase order template is in use since at least December 2003, it appears. So if we don’t look any further from here, it might appear that Craig Wright, or Lynn Wright, went to this page in or before February 2011, downloaded the Vertex42 purchase order template and used it to create the WMIRK purchase order.
Right? No, not right. Because we are going to dig a bit deeper. Because we want to know if at all times between 2003 and 2023 this very same Excel template has been offered online. So we are going to check each and every one of the 184 saved pages with the WayBack Machine.
To cut a long story short, the template that Craig Wright (and Craig Wright alone, as Lynn Wright was not around anymore in this era) used to create the WMIRK purchase order was snapshot with the Wayback Machine for the first time in September 2015. Let’s compare with the previously saved March 2015 template. We notice numerous little but still very obvious differences in text and layout.
We can now conclude that between March 2015 and September 2015, the purchase order template was substantially updated — graphically and technically — by Vertex42. Indeed, technically also, because the March 2015 version of the template file was Excel 2003 compatible (XLS file type) while the September 2015 version of the template file was Excel 2007 compatible (XLSX file type).
So it is becoming pretty clear that Craig Wright (and as said, most certainly not Lynn Wright) used the September 2015 template file version to create the WMIRK purchase order around September 2015 (or later) and, after saving the XLSX file as PDF file, forged/backdated the WMIRK purchase order PDF file to February 2011 to fool AlixPartners into thinking it is a genuine February 2011 purchase order file.
But it isn’t a genuine February 2011 purchase order file, of course. And ultimately, no one should have been surprised here.
Allow me to repeat: it could never have been a genuine February 2011 purchase order file, because in February 2011 Craig Wright didn’t even know yet that Bitcoin existed. Craig only learned about Bitcoin around July 2011, and he first wrote like a noob about Bitcoin in August 2011. At that moment he misspelled ‘Bitcoin' no less than 4 times even! And talking about buying Bitcoin, Craig Wright bought his first Bitcoin on Mt Gox in April 2013, more than 2 years after the alleged purchase at WMIRK. More about Craig Wright and Bitcoin, including all the anecdotes aforementioned with links to their sources, around the 2011–2013 era in “Faketoshi, The Early Years — Part 1".
And the Vertex42 story didn’t end here either. Vertex42 was contacted to comment on these findings, and to see if they had additional information. And oh boy, did they have more information about their purchase order template! This information will follow shortly in the upcoming “witness statement of Timothy William Elliss”.
Russian exchange WMIRK
And there’s more to the WMIRK purchase order forgery. As WMIRK didn’t even trade in Bitcoin in February 2011. They only started trading Bitcoin on September 25, 2013. They announced that on several online places, for example here:
Now let’s have a look at a witness statement of Craig Wright’s counsel, part of the lawsuit package that the developers received in 2021. And let’s pick some quotes from this witness statement, where lawyer Oliver James Cain is touching on WMIRK and the 1Feex purchase order.
“First Witness Statement of Oliver James Cain dated 30 April 2021
TTL’s position is also supported by other materials. Firstly, there is a contemporaneous documentary record of the purchase of the 1Feex Bitcoin in the form of a Purchase Order prepared by Dr Wright’s former wife, Lynn Wright (“Purchase Order”). Dr Wright has explained that the Purchase Order may have been uploaded to the exchange’s website or emailed to one of its support staff, but might not actually be used to process the transaction from the relevant exchange’s website.
The Purchase Order, which exists as a PDF file, has been examined by independent forensic experts from AlixPartners, who confirm that:
a) the PDF metadata of the Purchase Order has a creation date of 27 February 2011 (which is the date stated on the face of the document); and
b) there is no evidence of modifications to its metadata.
In the section on full and frank disclosure below, I set out some discrepancies in the Purchase Order. However, the point remains that the metadata of the PDF file supports the invoice having been created on 27 February 2011 and that it has not been modified since its creation. This therefore appears to be contemporaneous evidence that TTL bought the Bitcoin in the 1Feex Address.”
<snip>
“The Purchase Order which evidences purchase of the 1Feex Bitcoin
I have explained above that the metadata of PDF of the Purchase Order has been considered by AlixPartners and appears to support TTL’s case. I should, however, point out some issues with the Purchase Order.
The price per Bitcoin recorded in the Purchase Order is $21.01 (Liberty Reserve dollars), which is very high for prices at that time as price indices appear to show a price of approximately USD $0.91 at the time. In this regard, the Liberty Reserve dollar was an electronic currency in use at the time which was pegged to the US dollar, one to one. The total consideration shown in the Purchase Order of approximately $1.681 million (Liberty Reserve dollars) is considerably greater than the transaction value shown on the Blockchain of approximately US$77,000 (albeit my understanding is that figure must be based on an index as the actual values used by transacting parties could not be known). Dr Wright explains in paragraphs 74 to 75 of his witness statement that he is unsure as to the reason for this but it may be down to a number of factors:
a) while the Liberty Reserve dollar was pegged 1-to-1 to the US$, its value to Dr Wright (or any other holder) was potentially significantly less, as they could only be spent in limited circumstances;
b) it may have been an error made by his ex-wife who prepared the Purchase Order; or
c) it may be down to the volatility of prices during the early years of Bitcoin and/or the price indices not reflecting the market at that time.
In addition, the address of WMIRK contains Cyrillic text with the apparent meaning “[Service News]”. It is not clear why this is.
The Purchase Order also shows 80,000 Bitcoin but the entry on the Blockchain is for 79,956 Bitcoin. The Purchase Order also contains a “mining fee” of US$75 but no such fee is shown on the Blockchain.
While these are discrepancies, which the Defendants would doubtless say show that the Purchase Order is fraudulent, as I have already explained, Dr Wright’s evidence is that his ex-wife prepared the Purchase Order and she may well have made errors in putting it together; and the document itself may not have been necessary to execute the transaction. It is also unclear how the transaction was executed by the exchange.
There is also no express reference to Bitcoin services on the WMIRK website’s homepage (using a “Wayback” internet archive capture of the website as at 16 February 2011), but it does refer to electronic currency. I note also that there is a blog post purportedly from a member of staff at WMIRK on 15 November 2013 which states: “Recently we have started working with Bitcoin”. I believe that this is ambiguous, given that, overall, WMIRK would only have been working “recently” with Bitcoin if it had been doing so in the years immediately before then. Certainly, the rise of digital assets was “recent” in 2013. It would also not be surprising if the content of website was out of date.
I wrote to WMIRK.ru, which we understand was connected with the now defunct WMIRK.com, requesting evidence of the purchase but no response was received despite a chaser. However, this is not surprising given that it is a Russian exchange. The fact that TTL was more than happy for these requests to be sent is, if anything, confirmatory of the fact that the transaction did take place.
It is possible that the Defendants may say that the creation date shown in the metadata of the Purchase Order (i.e. the date and time of the local system clock of the computer that generated the file) could have been falsified by creating the file on a computer on which the local system clock was not accurate. However, there is no evidence that that has occurred and Dr Wright’s evidence is that his ex-wife created the document, which is consistent with the metadata and her administrative role at the time (Wright 1, 73).
Ultimately, however, I believe that these matters do not outweigh the forensic analysis undertaken by AlixPartners, which is supportive of the Purchase Order having been created in the form now produced, back in 2011. That is, in my view, a good piece of evidence in support of TTL’s ownership.”
It will not surprise the reader that the Bitcoin developers, who ultimately received all the information that we gathered, also put some effort in this Russian Exchange. Our combined efforts lead to the following conclusions:
- WMIRK can be reached, personel is available to chat with
- WMIRK firmly denies ever having done Bitcoin trading as early as February 2011
- WMIRK indeed only started with Bitcoin trading in September 2013
Now is the Pineapple Hack lawsuit doomed for Craig Wright from the get-go?
I’m asking, because this is how all the information ended up in court. As recent as July the 11th of this year, the Bitcoin developers filed a document called “FIRST WITNESS STATEMENT OF TIMOTHY WILLIAM ELLISS DATED 11 JULY 2023” (click the link to read the full must-read document) which goes like:
“I, TIMOTHY WILLIAM ELLISS, a solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales, of Enyo Law LLP, Fifth Floor, 1 Tudor Street, London, EC4Y 0AH, WILL SAY as follows:
I am a partner of Enyo Law LLP and I am instructed in these proceedings by the Second to Twelfth 2 (35) Defendants (the “Enyo Defendants”).”
Knowing that, let’s check out what solicitor Elliss has to say about the whole situation around the 1Feex address, WMIRK and Craig Wright’s purchase order file, a file that we now know is thoroughly fraudulent.
“The 1Feex address
38. TTL’s case is that it purchased the assets in the 1Feex address from WMIRK, an online Russian exchange, in February 2011. Dr Wright’s evidence states that he telephoned WMIRK and asked them how much Bitcoin he could buy using his Liberty Reserve Dollars. Dr Wright says he then instructed WMIRK to make the transfer. He says he left the rest of the transaction for his then wife, Lynn Wright, to arrange.
39. Dr Wright says the purchase of the Bitcoin in the 1Feex address is evidenced by a contemporaneous purchase order (the “Purchase Order”). He says that he does not recall the creation of the Purchase Order but is clear that he did not create it. He believes it was created by Lynn Wright. There are no other documents that evidence the transaction.
40. Dr Wright acknowledges that the Purchase Order has “some discrepancies”. It is the Enyo Defendants’ case that the document is a forgery for the following reasons:
40.1. WMRIK did not sell Bitcoin at the time of the alleged purchase. The Enyo Defendants have used the “Wayback Machine” (a digital archive of the internet) to establish the currencies in which WMIRK were trading in at the time of the alleged transaction. WMIRK did not offer trading services for Bitcoin until October 2013, some two years after Dr Wright allegedly purchased Bitcoin from the exchange, when the service list on their welcome page was updated to offer the sale and purchase of Bitcoin. This is further confirmed by a post on the WMIRK website, dated 15 November 2013, which states “Our service started buying and selling Bitcoin”. On the same date, user “WMIRK”, claiming to represent the WMIRK exchange service, posted an advert on the Bitcointalk forum noting “Recently we started working with Bitcoin: buying and selling.” This alone is fatal to TTL’s claim to ownership of the 1Feex address.
40.2. Dr Wright’s explanation for how he acquired the Bitcoin from WMIRK is not plausible. WMIRK is an online exchange located in Russia. It is difficult to understand how a transaction of this nature could have been agreed via telephone and then effected without creating any documentation. The entire story is illogical and appears to have been created by Dr Wright in order to explain why there are no documents that support it. In this regard, I note that WMIRK’s website stated in November 2013 that: “At the moment, you can buy / sell Bitcoin only through the operator via e-mail or via ICQ / skype”38 (emphasis added).
40.3. The Purchase Order was created based upon a free online template released in 2015 (which is four years after the alleged transaction). The Purchase Order is based on a free online template available for download from www.vertex42.com being one of the top Google results for “purchase order templates”. This is confirmed by the existence of the watermark “[42]” on the Purchase Order, as identified by TTL’s own expert evidence, which is added by the author of the template as invisible text in order to trace his work. There have been three versions of the template: 12 May 2011; 17 September 2015, and 15 May 2019. The Purchase Order provided by Dr Wright is based on the version published in 2015, some four years after Dr Wright says he purchased the Bitcoin in the 1Feex address.
40.4. The limited metadata within the Purchase Order has signs consistent with fabrication. The Purchase Order has been produced by TTL in these proceedings as a PDF document. This PDF has been created from an excel file. The original native format document (i.e. the excel) has not been produced, despite requests from the Defendants to do so. This is significant because a PDF has less metadata than an excel or word document and as such is easier to manipulate. In any event, analysis of the limited metadata of the PDF indicates that the metadata of the document is highly questionable. By way of example, the PDF Creation and Modification dates have UTC+10 time zone, however due to Daylight Saving Time Eastern Australia was UTC+11 during February when Dr Wright alleged the Purchase Order was created, so the document should have reflected this.
40.5. The document has various other anomalies which demonstrate that it is not a genuine contemporaneous document:
40.5.1. It includes an image of “НОВОСТИ CEРВИCA”, which translates to “SERVICE NEWS”. This has been copied from the WMIRK website, seemingly in the mistaken belief that it is some kind of company logo. This makes no logical sense given the Purchase Order was not prepared by WMIRK (even on TTL’s case). The only reason I can imagine for adding such an image to the document would be to give it an element of legitimacy.
40.5.2. It states that there is a mining fee of US$75, but no such fee is shown on the BTC blockchain.
40.5.3. It states that 80,000 Bitcoin was purchased but the BTC blockchain shows only 79,956 Bitcoin to have been transferred.
40.5.4. The address listed in the Purchase Order uses lowercase letters. Bitcoin addresses are case sensitive and the valid address is with an uppercase “F”, so this particular address is invalid and would not have worked.
40.5.5. The price on the Purchase Order of $21.01 does not reflect the market price of Bitcoin as at the date of 27 February 2011. TTL’s own evidence is that this was “very high” for the value of Bitcoin at the time and that the market price of Bitcoin at the time was $0.91.
41. The PDF Purchase Order has been examined on behalf of TTL by a forensic expert from AlixPartners. TTL claims that this report confirms that:
(a) the metadata of the Purchase Order PDF indicates the document was likely created on 27 February 2011 (which is the date stated on the face of the document) and
(b) there is no evidence of modifications having been made to its metadata. This will be addressed in submissions as necessary but I would note that the report itself states that PDF contents cannot be validated with 100% certainty and, critically, that the timestamps of the PDF document are unreliable. This is because there is no technical barrier to making changes in the original Excel version and generating a new PDF document with the system clock set to a time of the user’s choosing. The report also fails to explain the time zone discrepancy in the PDF referred to at paragraph 40.4 above.”
Now, to cut a long story short: if you ask me, Craig Wright will soon hear the judges of this case rule that he is not allowed to continue with the Pineapple Hack lawsuit in its current form or shape. And if the judges have some balls, they will also forward the case including all its false evidence for determination of criminal intent by Craig Wright.
EDIT AUGUST 1, 2023
As it happens, yesterday July 31, 2023 Craig Wright filed his Defense. He’s trying to handwave away the 2015 template as a “coincidence or the result of the template being based on a format already used for purchase orders” (see point 95 in image below).
That’s not how it works, of course. The Vertex42-unique hidden watermark “[42]” already tells the whole story.
EDIT DECEMBER 15, 2023
Talking about blowing up the case… Justice Mellor issued a CMC Order on November 15, 2023. With this order, he halted the Pineapple Hack/fiduciary duties proceedings, and instead he ordered there will be a Preliminary Issues Trial first. After this trial we will see rulings about the following subjects:
As it looks now, this trial is scheduled for early 2025.
EDIT JULY 16, 2024
Since COPA won the Identity Issue lawsuit in March 2024 (with a full judgment plus appendix on paper by Justice Mellor in May 2024), all related lawsuits — including the one described in this article, the Pineapple Hack lawsuit — are either discontinued or, like in the CobraBitcoin case, all previous rulings have been set aside.
And all these cases will be forwarded to Crown Prosecution Service.
Welcome to law, Craig Wright (and Stefan Matthews).
Thanks for reading!
