Live data from Hacker News

Europe has opened a door to a universal wallet

thenextweb.com

31–40 of 44 posts

Re: Europe has opened a door to a universal wallet

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google &c already own most people's data. This makes it possible for it to be portable and network based.

Not so. Google most of your data. If you have your tax records on gdrive, google so far cannot target ads based on that content (i can't say forsure if you attach your tax form in gmail nowadays) With SOLID any site can simply say "we need your tax records to prove you're a human or combat fraud whatever". SOLID and all other not-solutions like it make your consent as useless as android app permissions. Accept a huge…

> With SOLID any site can simply say "we need your tax records to prove you're a human or combat fraud whatever".

This is not true. But there are human factors issues to solve. Personal AI will help.

Most of what google &c possess is inference and real-time metadata, which is the real dark magic. Giving people precise control over their identity and information via standards will be a huge gain, but it's not an easy task.

Re: Europe has opened a door to a universal wallet

#32
post #29
post #23

Wow, some pretty strong opinions here. Did somebody say Nazis? Tech innovations are always a mixed bag, but there are some great ideas in this, like selective disclosure, where you don't have to reveal all your personal info (address on driver's license) when proving your age. Is uploading a picture of your physical credentials to pretty random web sites supposed to be a better solution? I also think people deserve t…

> great ideas in this, like selective disclosure How will a centralized wallet used for everything solve the human factors problems? We know there's a deep human factors issue here. Web sites and apps ask for permission seemingly all the time for as much as they can, and most people just agree, because they've learned that usually works. Until it doesn't. Here's a Fortune article of how BankID, a widely-used electron…

User education, personal AI, responsible vendors will be part of the solution. Seamless and safe transactions are very much desirable, there is a whole world to build on once they're in place, so there is a lot of motivation to solve them, but the solution shouldn't come from a few vendors that have no real regard for the collective outside their customers.

Re: Europe has opened a door to a universal wallet

#34
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> great ideas in this, like selective disclosure How will a centralized wallet used for everything solve the human factors problems? We know there's a deep human factors issue here. Web sites and apps ask for permission seemingly all the time for as much as they can, and most people just agree, because they've learned that usually works. Until it doesn't. Here's a Fortune article of how BankID, a widely-used electron…

User education, personal AI, responsible vendors will be part of the solution. Seamless and safe transactions are very much desirable, there is a whole world to build on once they're in place, so there is a lot of motivation to solve them, but the solution shouldn't come from a few vendors that have no real regard for the collective outside their customers.

So you think that selective disclosure isn't all that useful without all of the above?

Who will do the education? The banks? The schools? If the latter, what subjects will be removed from the curriculum?

Who will verify the AI is trained correctly? Who is liable of it is not? How will it be updated as new frauds are discovered?

Will the solution require everyone to buy new phones? How much more will be destroy the world?

Re: Europe has opened a door to a universal wallet

#35
While I feel the need of a nation-wide (EU-wide) digital identity because it's damn absurd to have eIDs and being not able to use them for all public services as mere keys, I do reject full strength the wallet concept.

IDs are serious business, smartphones are surveillance devices, out of the government and the citizen controls and connected 24/7/365, they MUST NOT be used for anything serious. I do want to have a simple NFC reader for public authority and activities needed some data from the citizens (like a bank to open an account, or just a major-age verification to sell alcohol at a supermarket, being just able to to se age) but FROM MY eID card, not from a mobile app.

The system could be pretty simple, a grocery store authenticate as itself to a public service, the public service get the citizen ID, and know the grocery store can only get a "major age or not", no privacy issue in the process, no needs to flash Qr and so on. Similarly a police officer can read ANY eID document (let's say driving license, national ID card, passport, even a public school card) and from it accessing other docs depending on the activity he/she declare, again no privacy issue. But again no damn need of mobile stuff.

Oh, and aside, public money, public code, so all IDs MUST be open hardware and open-source, the chip, the middlewire and the service as well. So the "no privacy issue" is a thing any citizen can acknowledge or not.

Re: Europe has opened a door to a universal wallet

#36
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

User education, personal AI, responsible vendors will be part of the solution. Seamless and safe transactions are very much desirable, there is a whole world to build on once they're in place, so there is a lot of motivation to solve them, but the solution shouldn't come from a few vendors that have no real regard for the collective outside their customers.

So you think that selective disclosure isn't all that useful without all of the above? Who will do the education? The banks? The schools? If the latter, what subjects will be removed from the curriculum? Who will verify the AI is trained correctly? Who is liable of it is not? How will it be updated as new frauds are discovered? Will the solution require everyone to buy new phones? How much more will be destroy the wo…

The same thing that did the education for people to learn a credit card or their smartphone, it's a mixture of banks, friends, work. It's a gradual thing, there's no need to remove curriculum.

I don't know what you're imagining as an alternative.

Re: Europe has opened a door to a universal wallet

#37
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you think that selective disclosure isn't all that useful without all of the above? Who will do the education? The banks? The schools? If the latter, what subjects will be removed from the curriculum? Who will verify the AI is trained correctly? Who is liable of it is not? How will it be updated as new frauds are discovered? Will the solution require everyone to buy new phones? How much more will be destroy the wo…

The same thing that did the education for people to learn a credit card or their smartphone, it's a mixture of banks, friends, work. It's a gradual thing, there's no need to remove curriculum. I don't know what you're imagining as an alternative.

My question remains: to what extent is selective disclosure useful given the demonstrable human factors failures in existing selective disclosure systems?

User agreements are another example of failure. They give full disclosure, on a take-or-leave-it basis. Few people say no to GitHub when it means being blocked from participating in most software development projects.

Plus, very few actually read that full disclosure. I can guarantee you that most people do not come out of high school with sufficient training to read those agreements, much less immigrants like me who never received training in the Swedish legalese I am required to agree to use digital healthcare.

All these experiences tell me that a central personal information store as described will have exactly the same failures, and that selective disclosure will in practice be equally meaningless.

"Learn a credit card" is misdirection. We know from the number of people who declared bankruptcy due to credit card debt that they didn't all learn how to use it correctly, or had no alternative than taking on ruinous debt.

Re: Europe has opened a door to a universal wallet

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not so. Google most of your data. If you have your tax records on gdrive, google so far cannot target ads based on that content (i can't say forsure if you attach your tax form in gmail nowadays) With SOLID any site can simply say "we need your tax records to prove you're a human or combat fraud whatever". SOLID and all other not-solutions like it make your consent as useless as android app permissions. Accept a huge…

> With SOLID any site can simply say "we need your tax records to prove you're a human or combat fraud whatever". This is not true. But there are human factors issues to solve. Personal AI will help. Most of what google &c possess is inference and real-time metadata, which is the real dark magic. Giving people precise control over their identity and information via standards will be a huge gain, but it's not an easy…

You just highlighted how the narrative really coopt smart people into not seeing the externalities.

Re: Europe has opened a door to a universal wallet

#39
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same thing that did the education for people to learn a credit card or their smartphone, it's a mixture of banks, friends, work. It's a gradual thing, there's no need to remove curriculum. I don't know what you're imagining as an alternative.

My question remains: to what extent is selective disclosure useful given the demonstrable human factors failures in existing selective disclosure systems? User agreements are another example of failure. They give full disclosure, on a take-or-leave-it basis. Few people say no to GitHub when it means being blocked from participating in most software development projects. Plus, very few actually read that full disclosu…

I think this discussion is going in a few unhelpful directions. These "wallets" are not used for financial transactions, they're for credentials. They are an alternative to paper/plastic driver's licenses, proof of majority, etc. Selective disclosure is a specific thing, it's not relevant to compare it to "full disclosure." If you must compare, it is much easier to understand what it means to use a very fine grained proof ("the person in this picture is over 21") compared to handing over many personal details on a typical physical ID (full name, exact birth date, medical conditions, address, country of birth, etc).

People going bankrupt through credit abuse is a separate issue from learning how to technically use such instruments. Many know how to "properly" use it, but have a weakness where the only solution may be to impose limitations. Many others are taken in by misleading tactics. Fine grained digital approaches can help those situations.

It is partially how you look at it. I want information systems to become coherent á la the semantic web, but in a specifically user-specific way (which is one of the ideas of Solid). I think that well defined digital credentials are an opportunity to give people a better view of the information they hold, and to enable ways to make issuers more accountable with a fine grained approach; eg evaluable axioms per credential fashioned after "law as code" approaches. This could be connected to a neuro-symbolic AI so the user can discuss scenarios outside transactions. Especially with an increase in inter-related credentials, that will make it easier to manage and less of a separate world that some institutions and companies control, which I think is incredibly valuable. Some of these ideas aren't possible yet, but we aren't going to get there by continuing to produce grey goo systems.

While credit has harmed some people (which is regrettable and should be resolved) it has enabled the vast majority of users to build better lives past other forms of capital. With digital systems and well defined data, the user can walk through clear, directly relevant, and private scenarios of what their next action will yield, without any dependency on a particular provider. But only if there is a forceful move to coherent data.

Re: Europe has opened a door to a universal wallet

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With SOLID any site can simply say "we need your tax records to prove you're a human or combat fraud whatever". This is not true. But there are human factors issues to solve. Personal AI will help. Most of what google &c possess is inference and real-time metadata, which is the real dark magic. Giving people precise control over their identity and information via standards will be a huge gain, but it's not an easy…

You just highlighted how the narrative really coopt smart people into not seeing the externalities.

Companies will drag this forward anyway. Apple into their proprietary tent, everyone else in every direction they can. It's a very legitimate role of government to try to put some controls on this mess, and the ideas behind those controls is a better next generation system.
Post reply on HN