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Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs'

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Re: Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs'

#71
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can be done in following way. Orb can have a baked-in private key (on hardware level). Public keys are stored in the blockchain. Each hash is signed by the private key stored in the orb.

That implies a centralized signing authority though. We could do all of that without the retina scanning using normal old KYC

The orbs are centralized either way. And I personally am less worried about someone having a hash of my eyeball data than my passport and everything else.

Re: Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs'

#72
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably the orbs produce a verifiable type of hash. E.g. whatever output it has is also encrypted with their private key + some salt and you can always check if what a user provides has that.

You don't understand what a hash is.

Your confidence in your own reading comprehension is unjustified. They are simply describing signing the hash.

Re: Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs'

#74
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you can't. The whole point is to every everybody have only 1 entry / key. The concept is simple: give everybody an equal amount of coins. You need a unique identifier / derivative of it

> You need a unique identifier / derivative of it What prevents anyone from mass-generating unique identifiers?

Scanning one's eye.

Re: Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs'

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First, retina scanning output hash is deterministic - it is supposed to generate the same result for the same eyeball. So it can't be replaced with random number generation. His argument is valid, what stops you from replacing the retina scan with a random hash replicating a different person scanning each time and collecting new tokens? What ties the hash to the actual retina other than the device that you can mess…

DRM magic inside the Orb.

Who's to say that employees (physical orb administrators) won't be in on it?

Re: Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs'

#76
post #8

Worldcoin issues tokens to people for scanning their retinas. Their magical orb device sends a biometric hash to their network. Here's my take on it: You can possibly replace their biometric device with a random hash generator. * If it works, it means the currency is not fairly distributed, but anyone sending valid hashes to their network is issued tokens, irrespective of whether the eyeballs described by those hashe…

I wouldn't call the coin distribution fair if the creators can allocate arbitrary amounts to themselves, which the Worldcoin creators appear able to do.

Then again, even PoW coins with no premine can be unfair if most of the long-term supply gets distributed in just the first few years, leaving only crumbs for late adopters.

Re: Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs'

#77
post #8

Worldcoin issues tokens to people for scanning their retinas. Their magical orb device sends a biometric hash to their network. Here's my take on it: You can possibly replace their biometric device with a random hash generator. * If it works, it means the currency is not fairly distributed, but anyone sending valid hashes to their network is issued tokens, irrespective of whether the eyeballs described by those hashe…

Correct but efficacy of this process is pretty much irrelevant for the founders because the whole "fair distribution" is just a marketing gimmick to promote yet another shitcoin. Only losers will provide their real retinas. Smart players will obviously game the system and then dump the shitcoin on yet another group of losers.

Wait until you see the retina mining camps they set up in China.

Re: Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs'

#78
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you can't. The whole point is to every everybody have only 1 entry / key. The concept is simple: give everybody an equal amount of coins. You need a unique identifier / derivative of it

> You need a unique identifier / derivative of it What prevents anyone from mass-generating unique identifiers?

Presumably the fact it needs be done via The Orb which is (pinky promise) tamper-proof.

Re: Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs'

#79
post #55

I like the idea of a unique identity per person but I'm unsure about security: - Iris scans have false positives at scale - You can have eye surgery changing your iris - Cheap scanners can be fooled by photos, so you'd need to require live-tissue scanners which are really expensive

The single biometric identity per person is a terrible idea because it cannot be discarded once compromised.

I'm also slightly unsure that Iris -> Hash is correct, I don't see why it wouldn't be Iris -> [Hash]. Maybe scanners are that good but I'd have thought depending on things like light reflection you'd end up with different hashes. Maybe not!

Re: Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman's Worldcoin: 'Don't Catalogue Eyeballs'

#80
post #58
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably the orbs produce a verifiable type of hash. E.g. whatever output it has is also encrypted with their private key + some salt and you can always check if what a user provides has that.

It can be done in following way. Orb can have a baked-in private key (on hardware level). Public keys are stored in the blockchain. Each hash is signed by the private key stored in the orb.

That's orthogonal to the point. Here's the scenario:

1. User has a "fake" biometric A, generated via GAN or [1], that's cheap and easy to produce.

2. Suppose they can present A to any orb device, generating hash(A), which signs hash(A) using its built-in private key as usual.

As long as the user can generate a fake iris biometric scan accepted by an orb, no other part of the system needs to be compromised for this attack to work.

1: http://iab-rubric.org/papers/ICPR14_1649_FI.pdf , note that liveness detection is a cat-and-mouse game

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