Apple Removes Bitcoin Whitepaper From MacOS In Latest Update: 9to5Mac

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Apple Removes Bitcoin Whitepaper From MacOS In Latest Update: 9to5Mac
  • Apple removed Virtual Scanner II, which resulted in the removal of the Bitcoin white paper from MacOS.
  • The inclusion of the Bitcoin white paper in MacOS has sparked conspiracy theories and questions about Apple’s motives.
  • Craig Wright alleged that Apple violated his copyright by including the Bitcoin white paper in MacOS.

According to a report from 9to5Mac, on April 25, Apple has reportedly removed Virtual Scanner II, a test scanner app, from the latest MacOS Ventura 13.4 beta. As a result, the Bitcoin white paper has also been removed from the app.

As per a blog post by technologist Andy Baio on April 5, it was disclosed that a PDF version of the Bitcoin white paper by Satoshi Nakamoto had been included with every version of MacOS for the last five years. Baio also questioned why the Bitcoin whitepaper was chosen among all the documents and pondered if there was a secret Bitcoin enthusiast at Apple.

Meanwhile, in Apple Insider some more outlandish conspiracy theories have arisen, including one that suggests Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was actually Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious individual or group behind the creation of Bitcoin.

Despite the speculation, it seems that Apple did not find the inclusion of the Bitcoin white paper PDF to be a laughing matter and has since removed it from the latest version of the Mac operating system.

9to5Mac shared that the Bitcoin white paper PDF was found in a folder located within the Image Capture application, along with several other seemingly unrelated files, including images and PDFs.

This pretty much confirms our original theory that both the Bitcoin white paper and the internal tool were never meant to be found by regular users.

On the other hand, the revelation of the Bitcoin white paper PDF’s inclusion in MacOS even led Craig Wright, who has consistently claimed to be the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, to allege that Apple was infringing on his copyright. Wright had obtained a court order earlier in 2021, which compelled the website Bitcoin.org to take down a copy of the white paper, but the site declined to do so.

Additionally, Baio confessed that an inside source from Apple told him that the presence of the Bitcoin whitepaper was filed as a developer work ticket in 2020, and assigned to the person who placed it in the system.

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