Bitcoin Whitepaper Hidden in Every MacOS Since 2018

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• The Bitcoin whitepaper has been secretly distributed with every copy of MacOS since 2018
• Tech blogger Andy Baio discovered the whitepaper while fixing his printer
• It isn’t yet known if Craig Wright plans to sue Apple as he has done with other companies over copyright infringement

The Bitcoin whitepaper appears to be hidden inside every MacOS operating system since the Mojave update in 2018, according to a tech blogger. Andy Baio revealed that a PDF of the Bitcoin whitepaper has been embedded within the files of the OS since this update under the filename ‘simpledoc.pdf’, with Apple engineers seemingly offering their own nod to Satoshi Nakamoto and his creation. The rationale is not clear, but it seems that it was initially picked up in November 2020 but nothing was ever done about it.

Find the Whitepaper Yourself

Baio revealed that he was fixing his printer when he stumbled across the PDF, which he has since confirmed on several other Macs running more recent software. Baio revealed two ways in which the whitepaper can be tracked down:

Open a Terminal and type the following command:

open /System/Library/Image Capture/Devices/VirtualScanner.app/Contents/Resources/simpledoc.pdf

or

Open Finder and click on Macintosh HD, then open the System→Library→Image Capture→Devices folder. Control-click on VirtualScanner.app and Show Package Contents, open the Contents→Resources folder inside, then open simpledoc.pdf.)

Baio points out that there is “virtually nothing about this online” with only one person spotting the Bitcoin whitepaper back in November 2020, which inspired an Apple Community post in April 2021.

Rationale Remains Unknown

Due to the secret nature of the whitepaper’s addition and the fact it hasn’t been removed since it’s impossible to tell what the motives are behind its continued presence. Baio says that the issue has been raised internally at Apple but no action has ever been taken to remove it. Now in the public domain, we might finally, sadly, see action taken to remove it.

One man who won’t be happy with this news is Australian Craig Wright, who has recently sued 26 people and entities, including Coinbase and Block, for infringing his copyright by encouraging the downloading of the Bitcoin blockchain and running a full node. Wright claims that, as Bitcoin’s creator, the whitepaper belongs to him and that, because it is embedded inside a block of the Bitcoin blockchain, these companies and Bitcoin developers are continuing to infringe his copyright.

If he’s really serious about stamping out copyright infringement crim, Wright should be suing Apple on the same grounds. But then, as we know, he prefers his targets much smaller and liable to buckle under the weight of his financial backing from Calvin Ayre.