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

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171–180 of 318 posts

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

#171
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think it will fail, because they are solving the problem that does not exist Admittedly I never bothered to read about it but the problem they are solving is purely the distribution. Currently there's just no way to do a fair distribution where everyone gets equivalent amounts of it except perhaps with KYC but then they have to store way more personal data. I'm much more comfortable with someone having a hash base…

Well a passport can always be faked. If the world became a totalitarian dystopia and you were a freedom fighter that had to elude detection, you can always use a fake passport. Faking biometrics is much harder if they already have your data.

I don't think I'd consider "it's harder to fake" a negative for the project if I was involved.

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

#172

I just need to write a GAN to generate plausible looking irises, then - Profit!

I imagine this attack is more difficult than is assumed. The device itself is likely tamper resistant, has built in DRM and will have a high fidelity camera + signal processor. So you will need a system to write a 200MP image on the surface the size of an eye ball. Also, since the light passes through a lens in your eye, there are probably optical tricks that can validate the surface is curved like a retina and has b…

How about contact lenses similar to those like for halloween but just don't look creepy? I'm pretty sure you can already buy those and they should generate different hash. Face probably can also modify with makeup/mask/beard etc - after all face recognition is not perfect on iPhone any many times cannot automatically detect faces.

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

#173

The worst privacy honeypot of all times. You should never let your minors or relatives or friends close to this app. If somehow they scanned their eye with this Blockchain app, it will stay. Your personality and opinions may change but this will be a mistake you will always regret.

Are you aware that the biometric data isn't stored or linked with the wallet that receives the distribution?

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

#174
post #142
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not here to support worldcoin because I think it's a bad idea. However, proof-of-work is also a bad idea. What bitcoin is is a decentralized clock rewarding random machines every tick. It produces bad dynamics. Parento distribution of reward, huge amount of energy waste. All so rich people (Yes, most bitcoin is held by a few rich people) can transfer wealth. It's a stupid idea. You can appreciate it's simplicity…

It's not a stupid idea. It's the invention of digital scarcity. It is supposed to be real world costly. High energy use in itself is not the issue, it's CO2 emissions. Energy can be locally abundant, renewable, yet remote, hard to transport to civilization. That would be an idealistic example of sustainable mining. Bitcoin mining isn't fully at that level of sustainability yet, but it's a solvable problem. Bitcoin is…

The dollar is highly popular in inflationary regimes, crypto is a popular thing to write about, and a few use it but the main defacto backup currency almost always becomes the dollar. (For instance in Venezuala)

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

#175
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. Maybe the scanners have a key that only it's creators can derive from some master key. The hash could come signed and all the public verification has to do is match against a public key. You don't need a database of hashes and you don't need a centralized db of source scans. Each scan hash could even chain with a previous scan hash and you can limit the number of times a key is good for, hence limiti…

Which, as always, raises the question of why a blockchain is necessary. If the creators' master key can be trusted with the power to decide who gets new coins, why don't the creators just store everyone's account balance in a database, and get rid of the enormous performance and energy costs of a distributed ledger?

> raises the question of why a blockchain is necessary

For marketing, of course. Blockchains are magic, the rubes won't flock otherwise.

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

#176
post #120
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> even PoW coins with no premine can be unfair if most of the long-term supply get distributed in just the few years The number of early adopters with “diamond hands”, as they say, who resisted the temptation to sell at $2, $10, $100, … is vanishingly small. History is littered with early adopters who bailed out. Everyone has had years of opportunity to buy into Bitcoin at a fraction of its current value, and if the…

I had dozens of Bitcoins in 2010 when you could mine them like they were nothing. I lost them all and didn't care, because.. worthless. RIGHT?

I weep daily for my zombie coins.

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

#177

The worst privacy honeypot of all times. You should never let your minors or relatives or friends close to this app. If somehow they scanned their eye with this Blockchain app, it will stay. Your personality and opinions may change but this will be a mistake you will always regret.

Are you aware that the biometric data isn't stored or linked with the wallet that receives the distribution?

Are you aware that companies lie to make money off you?

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

#178
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…

> So, do not support this biometric-gathering enterprise.

I wonder if the NSA is one of their investors?

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

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DRM magic inside the Orb.

Quality shitpost. We’ve really come full circle when a blockchain relies on DRM to work.

It is a thing of beauty. "The DMCA says you aren't allowed to circumvent our attack on a central pillar of the modern nation state."
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