Apple removes original Bitcoin white paper

Apple's recent update to its operating system has removed the original Bitcoin white paper, which was hidden in the system files of some older versions. The white paper was first discovered by blogger Andy Baio on April 5, while trying to fix his wireless printer, which wasn’t showing up in Image Capture after he upgraded his MacOS. Baio used a command he wrote for Terminal to confirm the location of the files, and his friends confirmed that they could see the same.

The white paper, which was written by an unknown person or group using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, laid out the foundation of Bitcoin as a decentralized peer-to-peer electronic cash system. It was originally published in 2008 and has since been widely circulated and referenced in the cryptocurrency community.

The discovery of the white paper in Apple's system files generated lively discussions in an Apple online forum, marked by a mixture of bemusement and indignation at the presence of "a Bitcoin manifesto." Some users expressed concern about why such a file would be allowed into any kind of app code on OS X, while others suggested that it was likely the work of a developer with a keen interest in Bitcoin technology.

The white paper can still be located by executing a command in Terminal or unpacking the contents of a hidden file, simpledoc.pdf. However, Apple has removed the document from the latest beta version of the operating system, Ventura 13.4 beta 3, which was rolled out to developers on April 25.

The VirtualScanner internal tool, which enabled Apple's engineers to replicate the process of scanning and exporting documents and images using the Image Capture app without the requirement of a physical scanner, has also been eliminated from the beta version. The tool reportedly provided a sophisticated scanner test.

9to5Mac, a popular tech news site, said the revelation confirmed its hypothesis that the Bitcoin white paper and the internal tool were not intended to be accessed by ordinary users. The site suggested that Apple's engineers may have disregarded removing this tool from previous public releases of MacOS as it didn’t contain any confidential information.

The removal of the white paper from the latest beta version of the operating system has led to speculation about the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, with some imagining that Apple CEO Tim Cook could be the pseudonymous bitcoin developer. However, this theory has no basis in fact and is purely speculative.