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When an open source package author releases a pile of source code, that person typically also releases a cryptographic checksum of the code. In the future, whe
by Diederich 9y ago
When an open source package author releases a pile of source code, that person typically also releases a cryptographic checksum of the code.
In the future, when the President (or CSPAN, or CNN, or Fox News, or whoever) releases a segment (which they do all the time), they'll need to release (in a public, 'timestamped' way) a cryptographic checksum of the content.
I have many of the same fears as people here about future fake news, where the reality of something already comes as a distant second behind the outrage produced. So even if we had this big pile of content and checksums, the outrage echo chambers will still be going nuts.
But it's at least a partial technical solution to these problems.
(And I'm glossing over all kinds of other complications too, such as 'what format' and 'where does it get stored' etc etc)
- tudorw 9y agoI think it's reasonably certain some alternative network with these kinds of features will emerge, validating authenticity of the contents origination was a known requirement of theoretical networks , because it's hard, both technologically, but more fundamentally the sociopolitical aspects are mind boggling, loss of privacy, trust in the state, etc etc, this will take a while to resolve, but someday people will be looking back and laughing :)
- Diederich 9y agoI spend a non-trivial amount of time hoping that people, myself included, in the future will look back at many things and laugh. (: