Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy

Post by DougN7 » Sun, May 14, 2023, 11:05 AM UTC

M95D wrote: post #226

throw101010 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this will come off as cynical, but aren't the customers of these 3 companies doing what you suggest here? "Putting their money where their mouth is", and since they have a lot of money their voice gets heard over the ones of individuals with no money. I don't think it's your goal. So your second intuition about proof of identity is better, but the minute you invent a foolproof identity system and it gets widly…

No. Public/private keys can be under the control of the individual. You only need the public key to be signed by a trusted 3rd party. That only gives them the power to revoke it, but even the revoking can't cancel what you already signed while the key was valid.

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 » Sun, May 14, 2023, 11:16 AM UTC

DougN7 wrote: post #241

M95D wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Public/private keys can be under the control of the individual. You only need the public key to be signed by a trusted 3rd party. That only gives them the power to revoke it, but even the revoking can't cancel what you already signed while the key was valid.

Imagine your “trusted third party” is or becomes a dictator, who logs all signed keys. This doesn’t solve anything I’m afraid.

Post by eternalban » Sun, May 14, 2023, 11:26 AM UTC

Jupe wrote: post #98

> LCX and Lead ID were responsible for many of these fake comments, letters, and petition signatures. Across four advocacy campaigns in 2017 and 2018, LCX fabricated consumer responses used in approximately 900,000 public comments submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) at the U.S. Department of the Interior. Similarly, in advocacy campaigns between 2017…

Post by nine_k » Sun, May 14, 2023, 11:30 AM UTC

withinboredom wrote: post #224

nine_k wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why, I think, the future is either putting your money (or at least provable identity) where your mouth is, or not being heard (e.g. because everyone will assume a petition without hard proofs of identity fake). Yes, this is disenfranchising. But not being heard while some company pretends to speak for you is even more disenfranchising.

> This is why, I think, the future is either putting your money (or at least provable identity) where your mouth is, or not being heard Oh, I assume this will be run by companies. What is stopping them from impersonating you? Or impersonating you after you're dead? How can we trust these companies not to sell access to identities? Further, why not sell/rent your access to your own identity?

Post by nerdponx » Sun, May 14, 2023, 11:32 AM UTC

bob_theslob646 wrote: post #161

1101010010 wrote: post #29

This is only the tip of the iceberg. A majority of the "user content" (product reviews, brand engagement, comments on social media sites, etc) is completely fake, bought for and paid by big money interest aka bots. No different than automated scans of the IPv4 address space: simple, unsophisticated, low-cost and without any repercussion.

It's such a double-edged sword anonymity on the internet, but it really is starting to come to be a massive problem where you have no idea whether someone is a person or a bot and now with LLMs, I fear the fake review spam will be next level where it'll be almost impossible to tell real from fake.