Have you ever wanted to go on a scavenger hunt but didn’t know where to start? Well, if you own a Mac, you might want to start by typing in the following command into your Terminal:
>open /System/Library/Image\\ Capture/Devices/VirtualScanner.app/Contents/Resources/simpledoc.pdf
If you have macOS 10.15 or later, you’ll be surprised to find that this command opens a PDF about Bitcoin in your Preview!
It’s a pretty crazy concept that there are secrets hidden away in our computers. It’s almost like going on an adventure to find something new! Not only that, but if you hit the Shift and Command keys together followed by a period, all the hidden directories on your Mac will open.
But where did this Bitcoin PDF come from? It turns out that the owner of the Virtual Scanner app added it, not Apple. This means that if you have an older computer that hasn’t been updated, this PDF could be on there too. In fact, it looks like this PDF has been on Macs since at least 2017!
Of course, this discovery has led to the Steve Jobs was Satoshi conspiracy theory. Satoshi is the mysterious creator of Bitcoin and his last post was December 12, 2010. Not long after, Steve Jobs announced that he was taking a medical leave of absence in January of 2011, and sadly passed away later that year.
So, who knows? Maybe it was Steve Jobs who created Bitcoin? Or, maybe it was just a coincidence. Whatever the case, it’s interesting to explore the hidden secrets of our computers and the possibilities of who might have created Bitcoin.