Here's a quick litmus test when someone proposes a Satoshi candidate X: "how did $X pay for DigiRock hosting of bitcoin.org in August 2008 when DigiRock accepts only yen and has no English language support?"

I think that's a misleading litmus test.

Only yen could be worked around through a prepaid card, stolen card number, gratis account, and probably other methods I'm not aware of.

Lack of English support doesn't necessarily make the person Japanese. Westerners can learn Japanese or use translation tools.

Well, of course you can excuse it away (at the cost of adding complicating details and raising the question of why, if they used one of your suggestions, they later switched to the 21x more expensive Anonymousspeech hosting).

The point of the test is to quickly asses whether the person trying to dox Satoshi has done even their basic homework and realized that it's an issue for their theory? If they haven't even looked at the Bitcoin.org WHOIS history, that says something important about the depth of their research into the question.

However, the null hypothesis here should be clearly:

The NSA is SN.

Crypto knowledge? Check.

Ability to hide identity? Check.

Cultural expertise? Check.

Everything else that could possibly be needed? Check!

No, that's not the null hypothesis. The NSA does not dabble in digital currency, nor does it release vast complex systems with huge bugs in them

Presumably the same reason they chose a Japanese name--that at least one of them speaks Japanese. I'm not really sure where you're going with this, but if you read the analysis in the article I linked to, as well as King's response to the author's email, I think you'll agree that they're a likely candidate.

It's very unlikely that it's Neal King. He doesn't fit the profile at all, and his patent doesn't have anything to do with Bitcoin.

How do you have access to his profile? Could you be mistaking him for the Neal King of Sofia University or the Neal King who was a marijuana grower who recently disappeared?

yes, bitcoin originated in germany