Hello all. I've been following this thread for a while, and I just made an account to share my thoughts with everyone. Most of my thoughts turned out to be exactly like Cassius' analysis, but I'll share them anyway. I am not a cryptography expert, coder, engineer, or anything of the sort, so I'm looking at this through fresh eyes and from a different mindset.
THIS WILL BE LONG.
Part 1: The Potential Watashi Kokoto / Blockladder Connection1. From Watashi Kokoto's posts, and Blockladder's (OP) old posts (cached on google search), they both seem highly technically knowledgable. Blockladder in one of his old posts says he is "not an academic", but despite this, he and Watashi seem extremely knowledgable about advanced cryptographic concepts, algorithms, coding, etc. This to me is a +1 for the argument that they're the same person.
2. However, if Watashi truly is Blockladder, why was he the very first to reply in the thread with a hint nobody asked for? If I were OP, I'd wait a bit to see if people were struggling or something, then drop the hint, I wouldn't have jumped the gun with the anagram hint before anyone had even commented. Furthermore, the anagram was immediately obvious to everyone and is very clear, I don't think such a hint would be necessary from OP at all? -1 for them being the same person.
3. Watashi never denies being Blockladder later on in the thread though. Maybe he enjoys people thinking so? Maybe just doesn't care? Maybe missed the posts about the connection? Not sure...but I'll give it a +1 for them being the same person.
4. If Watashi is OP in disguise giving hints, the hints are super bad. I'm sorry, but it's true. The anagram was super obvious, and the image posted later didn't contain much. I ran it through steganography analysis and didn't find anything hidden in it. Despite another user pointing out the coincidences between the image post and the bitcoin mailing archive, I don't think the picture amounts to anything (Although...why would Watashi take the time to create and post such an unsolicited image? And if Watashi is OP, wouldn't he know that an image clue coming from Blockladder's account would be a million times more significant to us hunters?) - 1 for them being the same person.
Conclusion: I do not believe Watashi and Blockladder are the same person. Perhaps they are both technical geniuses however, and perhaps they are friends, given how they comment in each others' threads as discovered by f8man. It would be kind of psychotic for Watashi to comment on his own threads as Blockladder outside the context of a riddle, no?
Part 2: The Question1. Could the answer be something obvious in the question? For example, could "21 teeth" mean the number of straight edges of letters or something like that?
2. Why is the question phrased as such? The correct grammar for the question is any of the following:
Why
DOES The Comb of Natasha Otomoski
HAVE 21 teeth? (Where Natasha is the owner of the comb).
Why
DOES the
COMBINATION of “Natasha Otomoski” have 21 teeth? Implies the subject of the sentence is the combination of the letters/words making up “Natasha Otomoski” i.e reorganizing the order of letters would somehow yield 21 variations or teeth or SOMETHING.
In statement form, the grammar checks out. E.g:
This Is The Reason Why The Comb Of Natasha Otomoski Has 21 Teeth. However, this discards the question mark at the end...so there must be a reason OP deliberately used this spelling, and in question form. The words must have been very carefully chosen, perhaps in order to be transformed into the solution later? In other words, phrasing the question in the correct grammar would yield the incorrect solution if we solve it using the mysterious method OP has in mind.
Part 3: The ".txt"1. The .txt might not mean the white paper at all. Perhaps the sentence “WhyTheCombOfNatashaOtomoskiHas21Teeth?” is supposed to be decoded into a filename. The file then becomes “filename.txt”. Perhaps this could be searched for online, and inside it contains the private key or the 8 word 32 char answer.
2. The .txt might be a hint to converting chars to ascii codes during the solving process, or to use plaintext directly?
Please help me expand upon the .txt theories, it might unlock the secret to everything.
Part 4: The Anagram.1. OP must’ve absolutely known that people would pick up on that anagram right away. It is the first thing that stands out and is obvious.
2. Could the code table in Watashi's first post be needed for something?
3. Could the meaning of the made up name “Satoshi Nakamoto” mean something for the solution? The following analysis of the name is from
https://www.fastcompany.com/1785445/bitcoin-crypto-currency-mystery-reopened ” First, most believe that Satoshi Nakamoto is a made up name, and it seems a person as learned as Bitcoin’s creator might be tempted to choose a pseudonym that encompasses a deeper meaning. In Japanese, Satoshi translates into “clear-thinking; quick-witted; wise.” “Naka” can mean “inside” or “relationship” while “moto” is defined as “the origin; the cause; the foundation; the basis.” So we have “clear-thinking” “inside” “the foundation.
Part 5: The Hint.1.
8 camel case english words, no special symbols.
Is this the seed phrase that will unlock the wallet? Is this merely an intermediary step that must then be converted through some kind of algorithm into the final solution? Alas, no one knows but OP.
2. It seems the hint created more questions than answers, but it is, in the end, OP's hint. So for the sake of taking things at face value, I will assume the hint is about the final answer, which will be an 8 word english phrase amounting to 32 chars, written in camelCase. Or is it CamelCase? (notice the difference?)
3. camelCase (e.g. iPhone, eBay) would result in a different answer than CamelCase (e.g. WhyDoesThe). It's worth noting, however, that OP wrote the riddle in CamelCase, with the first "W" being capitalized.
4. Idk if this means anything at all, but if we follow this:
Obviously she isn't him, but
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
S A T O S H I N A K A M O T O
8 2 3 9 1 6 11 4 14 13 12 15 5 10 7
N A T A S H A O T O M O S K I
who do you all think is she anyways?
and extract the letters at the positions of the 2nd row numbers in the original question:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42
W h y T h e C o m b O f N a t a s h a O t o m o s k i H a s 2 1 T e e t h ? . t x t
we end up with:
8 2 3 9 1 6 11 4 14 13 12 15 5 10 7
o h y m W e O T a N f t h b C
Reorganized in ascending order, it's simply: WhyTheCombOfNat. I'm shooting in the dark guys, pls don't hate.