Bitcoin’s original white paper, which outlines the network, seems to be hidden within every modern version of Apple’s Mac operating system. According to a blog post by technologist Andy Baio on April 5, a PDF of the Bitcoin white paper has “apparently shipped with every copy of macOS since Mojave in 2018.” Baio discovered it when he was trying to fix his printer and scan a document with a wireless scanner, and a device called “Virtual Scanner II” appeared that he’d “never seen before.” By default, Virtual Scanner II showed a photo, but when Baio changed the media type from “Photo” to “Document,” Nakamoto’s white paper appeared.
It’s unclear why Nakamoto’s white paper is included in modern versions of macOS. Baio speculated in his post that it was “just a convenient, lightweight multipage PDF for testing purposes, never meant to be seen by end-users.” The inclusion of the white paper could be a simple oversight by Apple, or it could be a nod to the growing popularity of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Regardless of the reason, the presence of the white paper in every modern version of macOS highlights the far-reaching influence of Bitcoin and its creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.
