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Worldcoin isn’t as bad as it sounds: It’s worse

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Re: Worldcoin isn’t as bad as it sounds: It’s worse

#91

Post by phire »

gonehome wrote: post #7

[flagged]

But it doesn't achieve that goal. It can't.

Worldcoin only verifies someone is a real human once, when the identity is created. There is nothing stopping someone from lending or selling their verified identity to a bot.

It already happens. Identity dealers will go to poor areas and buy people's proof of identity for just a few dollars, before selling them on the black market.

A company I used to work for had a massive problem with this. I'd detect a fraudulent user and check their proof of identity, and in retrospect it was obvious these were black market identities. They always fell into clusters, one vendor always sourced their IDs from an area of southern Russia.

Another vendor sourced their IDs from a city in northern China. They weren't trying very hard, you would find a bunch of new users all created on the same day, the users were always retirement age women and the photos would show them all in the same room.

Re: Worldcoin isn’t as bad as it sounds: It’s worse

#92

Post by Finnucane »

brian_cloutier wrote: post #59
cguess wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's crypto, and it's Peter Thiel and Sam Altman, but definition it's a scam.

What do you mean when you say scam? Are you claiming this is fraudulent in some way?

As in, the promises they claim are different from the actual results, and they know this as they are saying them. It is a con, like everything crypto.

Re: Worldcoin isn’t as bad as it sounds: It’s worse

#93

Post by yreg »

scohesc wrote: post #56
yreg wrote: post #15

I don't think Worldcoin is the solution, but I'm interested in hearing what the rest of you think the solution to the bots-indistiguishable-to-humans problem could look like? Or should we just accept that the times of interacting over internet with strangers you can believe to be humans is over? The only idea I see is for some certificates handed out by government to citizens and I absolutely hate it even in a democr…

I think your idea of certificates handed out by government is horrifying, but I agree it seems to be the only way to guarantee that you are who you say you are - even though it comes with several potential avenues for abuse. I think we'll see two "tiers" of internet. One tier will be for day to day usage for "normal" users - banking, social media, news, etc. A tier that you digital ID will be used to verify you are w…

Well hopefully the system could be semi-anonymous. So reddit doesn't get your identity, they are just able to prevent you from making another account (or perhaps limit it to a few accounts per real person). If they are nice, they don't even need to track which accounts belong to the same person.

Of course there is a lot of space for abuse. And it would unfairly lock many/most people out, because services can only accept certificates from the governments they trusts.

Re: Worldcoin isn’t as bad as it sounds: It’s worse

#94

Post by PurpleRamen »

brian_cloutier wrote: post #69
PurpleRamen wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, the biometric information are only used for the creation of the wallet, not the later usage? Then isn't this scam? What is the actual value of using biometric for this?

Why does that make it a scam? "Scam" implies some kind of fraud or lie, I don't believe worldcoin has ever claimed biometrics were required for later usage. The value of the biometric is in ensuring a ~ more fair ~ airdrop. With bitcoin the people who discovered it first and who were able to run miners received an outsized reward, and consequently the distribution of bitcoin is extremely unequal. The usage of biometr…

> The initial distribution of wld will be much more fair than the initial distribution of any other token or currency I know of. That is the value of the biometric.

And how is this not a lie when it's so easy to game? It's only shifting the distribution from people who were running a computer early to people who buy biometrics early, steal biometrics or find ways to fake biometrics. And even worse, if you were once robbed of your biometrics in that system, you have lost it forever as I understand it? Is there even any way to get back what was robbed from you?

And just out of curiosity, does this system handle collisions of biometrics? Or is it just assuming and hopes for none to happen?

Re: Worldcoin isn’t as bad as it sounds: It’s worse

#96

Post by gsky »

brian_cloutier wrote: post #59
cguess wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's crypto, and it's Peter Thiel and Sam Altman, but definition it's a scam.

What do you mean when you say scam? Are you claiming this is fraudulent in some way?

Personally I think most coins are scams and the remaining are 50% scam

Re: Worldcoin isn’t as bad as it sounds: It’s worse

#97

Post by bjelkeman-again »

fvdessen wrote: post #33
yreg wrote: post #15

I don't think Worldcoin is the solution, but I'm interested in hearing what the rest of you think the solution to the bots-indistiguishable-to-humans problem could look like? Or should we just accept that the times of interacting over internet with strangers you can believe to be humans is over? The only idea I see is for some certificates handed out by government to citizens and I absolutely hate it even in a democr…

In Europe there's eIDAS. You install an app on your phone that can be used to identify yourself. This is used to sign documents, payments, single sign on to other apps / websites, etc. During onboarding you will need to verify your identity with the help of the government, banks, or other recognised authorities. Afterwards it's just the app. It works very well.

The thing is that in some cultures people are strongly against ID cards. In the UK for example, for a long time there was a fight against a national identity card. Even though you have to get one (a passport) to travel abroad. Instead they would use electricity bills to prove things like you actually live somewhere. Or the driver license was a pice of paper, with no photo. With fraud as a result.

I think it is based on that in some countries there is less trust in the government than in other countries.

Where I live, Sweden, it is very hard to live without an ID card/passport and starting to get hard without a digital ID.

However, the privacy laws and prevention against abuse is fairly good. Not perfect I am sure but pretty good, compared with the US or even the UK (both places I have lived).

Re: Worldcoin isn’t as bad as it sounds: It’s worse

#98

Post by alexpotato »

I think it's interesting to describe the process to establish your identity in the United States if you lost ALL of your identification documents (e.g. in a house fire).

It essentially boils down to:

- Get a bunch of people you know who can verify that you are indeed who you claim to be

- Have them sign legally binding documents that attest that, yes, you are you

- Start building your paper documents all over again

We never really talk about any of this given that it's pretty rare for this to happen to someone but I think it's interesting to point out that it eventually boils down to your IRL social network.

Re: Worldcoin isn’t as bad as it sounds: It’s worse

#99

Post by notShabu »

No state can manage identities without the consent of the individual because individuals have to actively protect and manage their identities and not sell them.

E.g. we protect our social security numbers against identity theft because the economic benefits of having one outweigh selling it. But when there isn't a benefit, then the identity can just be sold.

Solving the identity problem and solving the "good governance" problem are likely the same problem.

Re: Worldcoin isn’t as bad as it sounds: It’s worse

#100

Post by EthanHeilman »

arketyp wrote: post #21
arcticbull wrote: post #5

Like any other non-coin crypto tech, Worldcoin doesn't do what it set out to do because it doesn't solve the oracle problem. If you trust their orb, it generates a wallet for you - but anyone, human or otherwise - can use that wallet. There's a black market in China for these identities already [1] and of course the response from Worldcoin was there's nothing they can do - because there's nothing they can do. So this…

It's funny how, in the end, the ultimate and perhaps only proof of personhood is being a person, engaged in the world. Sort of how the ultimate decentralized currency is encompassed in the global market of rising and falling economic powers. The oracle problem is a problem because there are no oracles. There is only the test of time. Or something along that line.

> the ultimate and perhaps only proof of personhood is being a person, engaged in the world

I buy this.

Daniel Suarez had a very similar idea, although he referred to it as the bot problem[0]. I believe this approach of identities withstanding "the test of time" solves the oracle problem but at the cost of a delayed solution. Initially you have lots and lots of bots and Sybil attacks are common. Then after a while, identities/nyms that exist and interact with the world increase in trustworthiness. Trustworthy identities will eventually be stolen or sold to bad actors, but like fake identities today they will be expensive.

My identity on hackernews is over 11 years old. Creating such an identity with the comment history, connection to a true name, and content over 11 years would be very expensive. Likely more expensive that a fake passport.

For instance Islamic State terrorists were buying counterfeit passports allowing them to enter the EU for 15,000 USD [1].

The major downside of such a system is that isolated people or people with few resources would be at a major disadvantage and we would essentially be replicating much of inequality of the credit score system.

[0]: Daemon: Bot-mediated Reality, Daniel Suarez, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS5i1S8FXno

[1]: "One such network, run by an Uzbek with extremist links living in Turkey, is now selling high-quality fake passports for up to $15,000 (£11,132) purporting to be from various countries. In at least 10 cases the Guardian is aware of, people who illegally crossed the Syrian border into Turkey have used his products to depart through Istanbul airport.", https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/31/revealed-how-f...

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