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I've been thinking a lot about trust, reality, and sourcing. I wonder if we'll move towards cryptographically signing content and facts so we have a verificatio

I've been thinking a lot about trust, reality, and sourcing. I wonder if we'll move towards cryptographically signing content and facts so we have a verification of legitimacy. Maybe a blockchain single source of truth, using tiered identity verification where one can accumulate identifiers and use this ID to sign content (biometrics, other verified IDs can vouch for your verification etc higher score = less risk of fake). Seems like these things all already exist the big problems would be putting it together, scale, and easy clarity. For instance making it so my mom's browser or email automatically verifies signed content (and maybe more important denotes unverified or verified false) and clearly presents this like the green lock key in internet browsers. I wonder if something like this could be extended to verify beyond like an MD5 checksum saying this email or photo is real - i.e. solving problems like 'fake news.'

cuckcuckspruce 9y ago
Can't wait to tell my (future, 10-15 years from now or so) kids stories about the Internet from when I was a kid and have them ask, "daddy, is it really true that you could post on the internet without giving a blood sample, retinal scan, and fingerprints to your ISP and didn't have to tie your real name and address to all of your comments?".
- dillondoyle 9y ago
  Lol. I refuse to use the face scanner on my new iPhone for similar ideological reasons. But we also already do this across platforms: TW verified, banks/Coinbase verification using IDs etc.
  - cuckcuckspruce 9y ago
    There's a difference between having some platforms requiring personal information and having Internet access predicated on everyone knowing your identity. For example, I want my bank to know my email address, phone number, and physical address because I want to receive fraud notifications, to make telephone banking transactions, and to receive paper statements. I do not want forums that I shitpost on to have any of that information, nor do I want it to be written into law that any service I access over the Internet is required to ask for and log that information.
brucephillips 9y ago
Probably not, since most news is derivative.
- dillondoyle 9y ago
  Yeah I think this source of truth/verification would have to be an economy where trust and truth is the capital. For instance the WaPo can sign an article or post and PolitiFact could sign the work as factual (allow for non-binary labels). Using the ID system mentioned above, anyone could vouch for something. NyTimes would have more capital compared to some ID with low history/verification. Of course selling trust like this produces problematic externalities so this system would need large scale to overcome bad actors - if it could at all. Child works and reposts are problematic too. Maybe could nest below origin content in a blockchain. Obviously re-saving jpgs & different video wouldn't hash to original so maybe it's more like you're cryptographically signing a perma-linked piece of content which is archived in something like IPFS or on this single source of truth blockchain. Maybe this would need scale and uniformity to create content standards; common meta tags to standardize media (og:video -> ipfs:mp4). Hard to get to content outside of always changing format and code let alone dealing with content which has changed in substance. Much more difficult than just PGP sign a block of text!

cuckcuckspruce 9y ago

Can't wait to tell my (future, 10-15 years from now or so) kids stories about the Internet from when I was a kid and have them ask, "daddy, is it really true that you could post on the internet without giving a blood sample, retinal scan, and fingerprints to your ISP and didn't have to tie your real name and address to all of your comments?".

dillondoyle 9y ago
Lol. I refuse to use the face scanner on my new iPhone for similar ideological reasons. But we also already do this across platforms: TW verified, banks/Coinbase verification using IDs etc.
- cuckcuckspruce 9y ago
  There's a difference between having some platforms requiring personal information and having Internet access predicated on everyone knowing your identity. For example, I want my bank to know my email address, phone number, and physical address because I want to receive fraud notifications, to make telephone banking transactions, and to receive paper statements. I do not want forums that I shitpost on to have any of that information, nor do I want it to be written into law that any service I access over the Internet is required to ask for and log that information.

brucephillips 9y ago

Probably not, since most news is derivative.

dillondoyle 9y ago
Yeah I think this source of truth/verification would have to be an economy where trust and truth is the capital. For instance the WaPo can sign an article or post and PolitiFact could sign the work as factual (allow for non-binary labels). Using the ID system mentioned above, anyone could vouch for something. NyTimes would have more capital compared to some ID with low history/verification. Of course selling trust like this produces problematic externalities so this system would need large scale to overcome bad actors - if it could at all. Child works and reposts are problematic too. Maybe could nest below origin content in a blockchain. Obviously re-saving jpgs & different video wouldn't hash to original so maybe it's more like you're cryptographically signing a perma-linked piece of content which is archived in something like IPFS or on this single source of truth blockchain. Maybe this would need scale and uniformity to create content standards; common meta tags to standardize media (og:video -> ipfs:mp4). Hard to get to content outside of always changing format and code let alone dealing with content which has changed in substance. Much more difficult than just PGP sign a block of text!