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> being able to establish identity at all is still a major problem in many places Are you sure? Where? And why would the tried and tested methods for establi

by lottin 4y ago

> being able to establish identity at all is still a major problem in many places Are you sure? Where? And why would the tried and tested methods for establishing identity not work in those places?

rglullis 4y ago
There is a certain company that may or may not be bought by $43 billion, depending on its ability to determine how many of its users are actual humans.
- teh64 4y ago
  But they could easily change that by requiring everyone to submit their government ID. Look at Facebook's Real Name Policy [0], which was already not well received. Determining if the users are actual humans is easy, doing it without any loss of privacy is hard, because at in some part of the trust chain, a person has to provide proof to some trusted organization they are human. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_real-name_policy_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_real-name_policy_cont...
  - rglullis 4y ago
    Sure. But isn't what you are describing exactly the point of the sovereign/decentralized identity trilemma? Anyway, the point is not even that Twitter needs to be able to identify its users. Twitter just needs to get rid of its bot problem. To solve that problem, they could simply charge their users $5 and promise to refund if after some vetting period (by their fraud detection and other users). The downside of this approach, of course, is that it would deter not just bots but also a large number of legitimate users who wouldn't be interested in paying to sign-up.
coderintherye 4y ago
Yes, quite sure as I worked several years on this problem and I am speaking from my direct experience of working with and speaking to financial and micro-finance institutions in 80+ countries (see my profile). A majority of the institutions I spoke with had establishing identity as their #1 problem. Methods existing in one place (e.g. the United States) does not mean that those methods are established and/or will work in another place (e.g. Sierra Leone). This is a multi-faceted problem that involves government, infrastructure, and technology. Further, there are improvements to be made even in the U.S. For instance, I cannot digitally establish my identity with several providers. Why? Because I do not and have never used credit and those providers rely on the "3 questions" KYC check via a credit bureau.

by lottin 4y ago

> being able to establish identity at all is still a major problem in many places Are you sure? Where? And why would the tried and tested methods for establishing identity not work in those places?

rglullis 4y ago

There is a certain company that may or may not be bought by $43 billion, depending on its ability to determine how many of its users are actual humans.

teh64 4y ago
But they could easily change that by requiring everyone to submit their government ID. Look at Facebook's Real Name Policy [0], which was already not well received. Determining if the users are actual humans is easy, doing it without any loss of privacy is hard, because at in some part of the trust chain, a person has to provide proof to some trusted organization they are human. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_real-name_policy_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_real-name_policy_cont...
- rglullis 4y ago
  Sure. But isn't what you are describing exactly the point of the sovereign/decentralized identity trilemma? Anyway, the point is not even that Twitter needs to be able to identify its users. Twitter just needs to get rid of its bot problem. To solve that problem, they could simply charge their users $5 and promise to refund if after some vetting period (by their fraud detection and other users). The downside of this approach, of course, is that it would deter not just bots but also a large number of legitimate users who wouldn't be interested in paying to sign-up.

coderintherye 4y ago

Yes, quite sure as I worked several years on this problem and I am speaking from my direct experience of working with and speaking to financial and micro-finance institutions in 80+ countries (see my profile). A majority of the institutions I spoke with had establishing identity as their #1 problem. Methods existing in one place (e.g. the United States) does not mean that those methods are established and/or will work in another place (e.g. Sierra Leone). This is a multi-faceted problem that involves government, infrastructure, and technology. Further, there are improvements to be made even in the U.S. For instance, I cannot digitally establish my identity with several providers. Why? Because I do not and have never used credit and those providers rely on the "3 questions" KYC check via a credit bureau.