Technology blogger Andy Baio recently discovered that Apple’s Mac devices have been hiding a copy of Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin (BTC) white paper for the past five years.
From Mojave to Ventura, the BTC white paper has been hidden in their operating system for half a decade. According to Baio, he wasn’t even looking for it when he found it, he was only trying to fix his printer.
The technician confirmed that while he was trying to fix his printer, he tried to scan a document with a wireless printer. Instead, a device dubbed “Virtual Scanner II” showed up and he emphasized that he had never encountered that device before that time. The default media type for the “Virtual Scanner II” was “Photo”, but when Baio changed it to “Document”, the Bitcoin whitepaper showed up.
Ok, found this in /System/Library/Image Capture/Devices/ pic.twitter.com/CjTXMjrfMW
— Josh D (@schwa23) November 28, 2020
Baio went ahead to highlight a 2020 Twitter post by designer Joshua Dickens who had also found the BTC white paper. Joshua Dickens outlined how to find the folder in the Mac device. “Ok, found this in /System/Library/Image Capture/Devices/,” Dickens tweeted.
Modern Mac Users Confirm BTC White Paper
Two years ago, a user of the MacOS Community Forum who was identified as bernd178 discovered this “Virtual Scanner II” embedded in the Image Capture Utility. He also identified that this function was not enabled by default. Apart from the hidden PDF copy of the Satoshi Bitcoin white paper, there is also a nondescript image of a bay in San Francisco.
“Weirdly, there is also a PDF with the original Bitcoin white paper from Satoshi Nakamoto in the VirtualScanner.app Package Content,” Bernd178 wrote at the time.
The technology blogger has now made it easier for other MacOS users to spot the whitepaper by creating a prompt in Terminal. It has been tested by a couple of other Mac device users and they have all confirmed the presence of the Bitcoin white paper.
Apparently, the presence of the document on Apple Mac modern devices have sparked concern however, it is not known whether or was an intentional action or an oversight.
In the meantime, the Bitcoin rally which started at the beginning of this year is still ongoing. It has reached a point where institutional investors are becoming more interested and attracted. At the time of this writing, the market price of BTC was at $27,847.90, according to Coinmarketcap.
