3 ms·

Is it possible to prove that one is human on platforms via some kind of zero knowledge proof? i.e. Guaranteed human, while preserving pseudonymity?

by agd 5y ago

VLM 5y ago
No because as long as two sites exist, a malicious actor can cross them over. Alice thinks she's posting to a Mongolian basket weaving forum, and as such she solves a captcha-type proof, and her post appears, so all seems well to her. Actually that captcha-type proof came from Mal-the-Malicious-One who is trying to influence opinion by posting political stuff on a Japanese Anime forum. His political masters fund both Mal and the Mongolian basket weaving forum. Given modern tech it doesn't cost much of anything to fund a small.. or even large.. forum. Alice incorrectly thought she was performing a proof to post on a Mongolian basket weaving forum but she was actually performing a proof to post someone else's political content on someone else's Japanese Anime forum. Interesting meta question: Who wins and who loses? Clearly, the people ignoring political content win because they got someone else to pay for their Mongolian basket weaving forum. Mal-the-Malicious wins because he's got a job. The owners of the Japanese Anime forum win because they "got more clicks" so the ad revenue pours in. The people paying for this win because their political spam got posted. The only losers in this are the general public whom are getting political spam cluttering up their Japanese Anime forum. But they've got nowhere to turn because everywhere is clogged with spam, and they're paying $0 for the service and the forum, being more wealthy, can afford better features. People who are not gullible are not hurt by the political spam. Only dumb/gullible people are hurt by the political spam. So its one of those eugenic slash tragedy of the commons type of scenarios, at least WRT who loses. Eventually in the long run there is systemic collapse. Certainly, "reviews" on the internet are now useless and I generally ignore them, and once everyone does that, "reviews" as a system will go away. Comments on propaganda outlets were turned off a long time ago, plenty of publishers who don't allow comments anymore... Eventually if all the comments on the internet are either spam or hyper censored, nobody will bother to read comments on the internet, so it'll go away.

Is it possible to prove that one is human on platforms via some kind of zero knowledge proof? i.e. Guaranteed human, while preserving pseudonymity?

by agd 5y ago

Is it possible to prove that one is human on platforms via some kind of zero knowledge proof? i.e. Guaranteed human, while preserving pseudonymity?

VLM 5y ago

No because as long as two sites exist, a malicious actor can cross them over. Alice thinks she's posting to a Mongolian basket weaving forum, and as such she solves a captcha-type proof, and her post appears, so all seems well to her. Actually that captcha-type proof came from Mal-the-Malicious-One who is trying to influence opinion by posting political stuff on a Japanese Anime forum. His political masters fund both Mal and the Mongolian basket weaving forum. Given modern tech it doesn't cost much of anything to fund a small.. or even large.. forum. Alice incorrectly thought she was performing a proof to post on a Mongolian basket weaving forum but she was actually performing a proof to post someone else's political content on someone else's Japanese Anime forum. Interesting meta question: Who wins and who loses? Clearly, the people ignoring political content win because they got someone else to pay for their Mongolian basket weaving forum. Mal-the-Malicious wins because he's got a job. The owners of the Japanese Anime forum win because they "got more clicks" so the ad revenue pours in. The people paying for this win because their political spam got posted. The only losers in this are the general public whom are getting political spam cluttering up their Japanese Anime forum. But they've got nowhere to turn because everywhere is clogged with spam, and they're paying $0 for the service and the forum, being more wealthy, can afford better features. People who are not gullible are not hurt by the political spam. Only dumb/gullible people are hurt by the political spam. So its one of those eugenic slash tragedy of the commons type of scenarios, at least WRT who loses. Eventually in the long run there is systemic collapse. Certainly, "reviews" on the internet are now useless and I generally ignore them, and once everyone does that, "reviews" as a system will go away. Comments on propaganda outlets were turned off a long time ago, plenty of publishers who don't allow comments anymore... Eventually if all the comments on the internet are either spam or hyper censored, nobody will bother to read comments on the internet, so it'll go away.