If you happen to’re utilizing a Mac and desire a refresher on the fundamentals of Bitcoin, excellent news—blogger Andy Baio has found that “each fashionable copy of macOS” has included a replica of Satoshi Nakomoto’s unique Bitcoin white paper, hidden away in macOS system folders and accessible with a simple Terminal command.
Here is the command you should utilize to open it by yourself Mac:
open /System/Library/Picture Seize/Gadgets/VirtualScanner.app/Contents/Assets/simpledoc.pdf
We have confirmed that the doc exists on a totally up to date Mac working Ventura 13.3, and Baio says the 184KB PDF file seems up to now all the way in which again to 2018’s Mojave (it isn’t current in 2017’s Excessive Sierra).
The file is included in a system app referred to as VirtualScanner.app. That is nearly actually associated to the “import from iPhone” Continuity Digicam function that allows you to insert photos or paperwork “scanned” along with your iPhone or iPad’s digital camera instantly right into a macOS app. That function was initially launched in Mojave, the identical macOS model that added the Bitcoin white paper.
Baio says that “just a little hen” advised him that the presence of the Bitcoin white paper was filed as a problem internally at Apple “practically a 12 months in the past,” and that it was assigned to “the identical engineer who put the PDF there within the first place.” It has apparently gone unremarked upon since then, and the white paper continues to be there.
The Bitcoin white paper is not the one secret doc that has been included in macOS. For years, the Pages app included a small “apple.txt” file with the complete textual content of the speech from Apple’s outdated “here is to the loopy ones” advert, plus former CEO Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford graduation speech. The doc not seems to be included within the present model of Pages.
We have contacted Apple to see if the corporate has something so as to add. Absent a response, the best clarification is that the weird however in the end innocent inclusion of the white paper is an Easter egg tucked away by some cryptocurrency fanatic at Apple, and we might count on it to fade in a future replace now that it has been seen.
