Why does signing things stop someone from generating content using AI and then signing it?
Sign Everything
21–30 of 90 posts
Re: Sign Everything
#22Stupid idea for signing: use invisible characters to embed GPG signature (or signify(1) or whatever) inside any text you publish. This way, when the text is copy/pasted, your signature is still attached.
You can even make browser and text editor plugins to make it ubiquitous.
(yes you can make a screenshot, remove invisible chars, etc.)
Re: Sign Everything
#23I think signing things will become a lot more commonplace. At my workplace we sign code using Metamask to prove that someone made a commit. Allows us to build something like a decentralised Git
Isn't git distributed to begin with?
The state is stored on every dev's machine. How does additional signing in addition to what git does deal with storage and keeping a main repository in a known state?
Re: Sign Everything
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Signing everything is only meaningful if you can distribute your public key in a way trusted by those who will check your signature. And not just one time; you want to be able to rotate the key sometimes. A blockchain with a proof-of-work validation may be overkill. But some kind of Merkle tree, like that offered cy TLS certificate infrastructure, is needed anyway. If it can be trustless at a moderate expense, the be…
I like the Keybase model of linking multiple online identities to a keyholder. The PGP web-of-trust model could also work, and mobile apps to ease keysigning could make adoption more feasible than the old keysigning party idea.
When these sorts of questions come up I'm often quite frustrated keybase is no longer under active development. It felt like it really did have a reasonable solution to a hard problem (proof of identity), and it had what was needed to start making cryptography tools easier to use for people. It wasn't perfect, and I wasn't a fan of their drift towards cryptocurrency towards the end, but it's a real shame they decided to sell to zoom for an acqui-hire.
Re: Sign Everything
#25Great example of the danger of talking about a solution before you’ve truly defined the problem. What problem is Fred trying to solve? The example he gives of writing he would sign is a blog post. The blog post is already authenticated because it’s on avc.com. Fred Wilson has the tokens, social authority etc to ensure what shows up there under his name is from him. Technically speaking, it was already signed via TLS…
Signing everything is not terrible advice. But here the problem Fred is trying to solve is very simple. He is an investor in mirror.xyz and needs to make his money back. This is the only reason someone interested in signing something would also ask you to go through the hassle of using a blockchain.
Re: Sign Everything
#26Web3! Does AVC have anything riding on that?
Meanwhile, from 2004, on Web1:
On the other hand, say you’ve already established something of an online identity, perhaps through your own web site, or as a frequent commenter at this or some other blog(s). What prevents someone else from coming along and posting a comment here, leaving your name and your website’s URL to identify himself? Put another way, how can readers determine the authenticity of comments left here? …
Well, now there’s a way to reassure them. If you have a PGP public key (if you don’t, create one for yourself), put a link to it in the section of your web page:
1. Compose and preview your comment as before.
2. Edit it, as needed, and preview again.
3. Use your favourite PGP tool to clear-sign the text in the comment-entry box.
4. Paste the clear-signed comment into the comment-entry box, replacing the unsigned version.
5. Click PREVIEW once again, and then click on POST.
-- February 28, 2004, https://golem.ph.utexas.edu/~distler/blog/archives/000320.ht...
Re: Sign Everything
#27Great example of the danger of talking about a solution before you’ve truly defined the problem. What problem is Fred trying to solve? The example he gives of writing he would sign is a blog post. The blog post is already authenticated because it’s on avc.com. Fred Wilson has the tokens, social authority etc to ensure what shows up there under his name is from him. Technically speaking, it was already signed via TLS…
I think it's funny that if everyone signed their blog posts, ChatGPT would try to "sign" its blog posts as well, and fail.
Re: Sign Everything
#28Stupid idea for signing: use invisible characters to embed GPG signature (or signify(1) or whatever) inside any text you publish. This way, when the text is copy/pasted, your signature is still attached. You can even make browser and text editor plugins to make it ubiquitous. (yes you can make a screenshot, remove invisible chars, etc.)
Why would that be stupid? It sounds great and I want to learn more. Got any links, ideally with code, that demonstrate the idea?
Re: Sign Everything
#29Idea: signing should signify not just that a particular person is attesting that they wrote this, but also that brain waves or eye movements or something else were detected during its creation, indicating it came from a human mind. Obviously could still be faked, but maybe more difficult.
Re: Sign Everything
#30Great example of the danger of talking about a solution before you’ve truly defined the problem. What problem is Fred trying to solve? The example he gives of writing he would sign is a blog post. The blog post is already authenticated because it’s on avc.com. Fred Wilson has the tokens, social authority etc to ensure what shows up there under his name is from him. Technically speaking, it was already signed via TLS…
Signing everything is not terrible advice. But here the problem Fred is trying to solve is very simple. He is an investor in mirror.xyz and needs to make his money back. This is the only reason someone interested in signing something would also ask you to go through the hassle of using a blockchain.
To add to this a bit - I do think an embedded steganographic-type “signature” of chatgpt output could be enormously valuable - without it we can wave goodbye to the efficacy of things like school assignments. Such a signature is very different than a typical cryptographic one we have today however.
But I expect instead of embedding such a signature they will just save hashes of generated content and sell a billion dollar “checking” service to schools.