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

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211–220 of 318 posts

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

#211
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Computing power, or capital to buy the coins. But I don't think this level of "fairness" is productive to discuss. Every human being on the planet having the exact same amount of wealth is an impossibility.

I'll buy "undesirable", for the sake of the argument. But I'm really not clear why you think it is "impossible". We have had repeated instances throughout history of groups of people practicing common ownership, and they do seem to work reasonably well. (I completely grant they aren't super-popular, but, again, I'm not advocating change, I'm trying to understand why you think this qualifies as "impossible") What do y…

> We have had repeated instances throughout history of groups of people practicing common ownership

We also have repeated instances throughout history of groups claiming to try to implement common ownership, and instead killing millions and installing tyrannical governments (see: most communist revolutions), of consistently larger scale (orders of magnitude) than the successes.

Historically, it's far more probable that such a common ownership experiment will result in death and tyranny (and not actual common ownership!) than a success - and, given the relative difference in scale between the successes and failures, there's a strong argument to be made that as the scale goes up, the probability of tyranny goes up.

This is one of the justifications for it being impossible in a practical sense (yeah, it's annoying that there's more than one definition for "impossible"). It's a fact that power attracts corruption, and it's also a fact that planet-level-scale common ownership would require more power to implement than any government has achieved so far. So, while not "impossible" in the hard-science sense, it's improbable (with a correspondingly large chance of a catastrophically bad alternative) to the point that it's not reasonable to attempt.

That said, your comment is a measured and thoughtful answer to a potentially-inflammatory topic, and I hope that my response is equally thoughtful.

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

#212

Snowden is assuming that Worldcoin is saving hashes of eyeballs. That is not what Worldcoin is doing. Zero Knowledge proofs allow the system to prove that an eyeball exists without actually tying the biometric hash directly to an ID. From the article: "We use the open-source Semaphore[19] zero-knowledge proof system to transfer the uniqueness of IrisHashes to the uniqueness of user accounts, without linking them." No…

> one needs to trust that Worldcoin is actually doing what they say they are doing

Right, and that's a big part of the problem.

With all of the data abuse that the industry has already engaged in, it's silly to trust any company just because they say "trust us". Worldcoin has given no reason to trust them.

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

#213
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"One CPU, one vote" doesn't imply decentralization either - if you have lots of money, just buy lots of CPUs.

Sure, but that doesn't give you the disproportional advantage bitcoin miners get with their specialized hardware. With two CPUs you get two votes. Bitcoin miners get god knows how many.

It really doesn't matter to the game theory of the system.

If bitcoin somehow managed to create a system in which general CPUs were the only thing that can be used to mine, it would just mean that we'd have CPU shortages as the people with wealth and power would buy them all up. Or at least, they'd buy up all the best ones and the plebs would get the low clock speed units that can only hash at a fraction of the rate.

The "one CPU, one vote" idea sounds nice to those of us with democratic ideals believing all humans should have an equal vote, but it just fundamentally doesn't work in practice.

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

#214
post #25
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids or coworkers are not going to make fake fingerprints to mess with me. What they can do is to see password or pin code while I am typing those over my shoulder. Someone on the street also won't be able to see my pin code for unlocking phone if I use fingerprint. Those are scenarios that biometrics are handling really well. Biometrics against sophisticated attackers is not good idea. I don't encounter in my life "…

But you can "forget" your PIN, you can't forget your iris.

Yes that is also one additional point - people will pick pin like 0000 or 12345 not to forget them which makes pins in general less secure.

Some people would set their pin the same as their debit card just to remember one number instead of multiple.

That is why finger print unlocking is quite great for day to day use.

Of course it is not enough for more complex security scenarios, but as someone else mentioned lock on my doors is quite easy to pick but still it is good enough for most of people.

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

#215
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proof-of-work is also the only way to preserve decentralization. One CPU, one vote. Everyone can and should participate. Bitcoin failed at this because the hashing algorithm can be accelerated by specialized hardware, leading to professional miners setting up large centralized operations and taking over the network.

you are implicitly excluding proof of stake... is it an omission or do you have an actual argument for that?

GP is explicitly excluding everything other than proof of work.

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

#216
The retinal scan is used to issue a e-ticket (identical for everyone) which allows you to create an account and then the scan is immediately discarded.

The scan is in no way tied to your account at any time.

Many of the comments here would be better informed by reading how this process works. There are issues to discuss, but a lot of what's in these threads has nothing to do with the actual workings of the project.

https://worldcoin.org/privacy-by-design

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

#217
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Everything everyone else said plus e-waste. My lord, Bitcoin produces as much e-waste as the entirety of the Netherlands to scribble a few bytes into a ledger once every 10 minutes lol. 97% of all mining devices will never successfully mine a single block. Each transaction produces as much e-waste as throwing out an iPad. That's on top of the power demand. You cannot make that sustainable. It's grey goo.

We're going to need to figure out how to recycle e-waste at massive scale irregardless of bitcoin.

Silicon brains are the spice of civilization. The only limit on who much e-waste we produce is how fast we can churn them out.

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

#218
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's "fair" if you're referring to equal opportunity, not equal outcomes. Fairness and equality are different. Imagine 2 people of different heights who can't see over a wall - equality is giving them both a ladder of exactly the same height even if that means just the tallest person can now see over the wall, while fairness is giving them each potentially different height ladders so they can both see over the wall…

Regarding your first paragraph, from Oxford Dictionary, "fairness" means "impartial and just treatment or behavior without favoritism or discrimination." The above poster was right — it's fair if you're referring to equal opportunity, not equal outcomes. I've seen this whole ladder analogy commonly used in radical socialist, communist, CRT-type Instagram accounts, used to reframe discrimination in a positive light.

Which version of the OED includes the phrase "without favouritism or discrimination" in the definition of "fairness"? The one I have access to, oed.com (OED Third Edition, December 2013; most recently modified version published online September 2021) doesn't include the phrase "without favouritism or discrimination" - its full definition of "fairness" (meaning 6) is "Honesty; impartiality, equitableness, justness; fair dealing. In quot. c1450: sound judgement, good sense."

I'm not an expert on "radical socialist, communist, CRT-type Instagram accounts", but I'd have thought they would be more into equality rather than fairness, e.g. everyone gets the same pay irrespective of how much effort they put in or the quality of results.

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

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but that doesn't give you the disproportional advantage bitcoin miners get with their specialized hardware. With two CPUs you get two votes. Bitcoin miners get god knows how many.

It really doesn't matter to the game theory of the system. If bitcoin somehow managed to create a system in which general CPUs were the only thing that can be used to mine, it would just mean that we'd have CPU shortages as the people with wealth and power would buy them all up. Or at least, they'd buy up all the best ones and the plebs would get the low clock speed units that can only hash at a fraction of the rate.…

Indeed. Fiat currencies issued by central banks are in many ways more democratic than Bitcoin, because at least every citizen has a chance (albeit an indirect one) of influencing their policy via traditional voting, using the desired “one person, one vote” basis, which is common in countries whose currency you might want to use.

Any form of computing power, whether CPU-based or GPU-based or ASIC-based or memory-based, is a possession that can be accumulated by the wealthy in order to grant themselves power.

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

#220
post #150
post #144

"20% of all Worldcoin tokens will be set aside for the development team. In crypto, this used to be known as a “premine” and ranks among the biggest red flags that a project is intended to enrich insiders." https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2021/10/25/why-everyone-is-mad...

So basically XRP but with even worse privacy implications.

Also ethereum.
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