6 ms·

Meh, it sounds creepy, but the article goes into detail on why the iris hashes are sufficiently private. I suspect the media and uninformed commenters will far

Meh, it sounds creepy, but the article goes into detail on why the iris hashes are sufficiently private. I suspect the media and uninformed commenters will far overblow concerns about this, without actually learning how it works and why it's private enough.

kstrauser 3y ago
You can be informed on the subject and still think this is an awful idea. Even if I took their word that it’s “private enough”, it’s still a world-scale project to solve a vague problem with a broken-on-the-face-of-it-literally gimmick.
- worksonmine 3y ago
  I'm not for biometrics and especially pre-mined tokens to the founders as the solution, but what about the problem is vague?
  - kstrauser 3y ago
    For me, the real-world need for such a thing in the first place. It's not often I dismiss something as a solution in search of a problem, but I think that's what this is.
    - worksonmine 3y ago
      I don't eat pork, I don't like the taste (except bacon but that's beside the point). That doesn't mean I think pig farmers are solving a vague problem. I hadn't heard of this coin before today, and as mentioned I don't like this specific solution but I don't think the problems are vague at all. You might trust your current bank, but are you confident that you can start any kind of legal business you want? Payment providers have shutdown completely legal customers for political reasons. Would it be nice to anonymously sign a vote? Or change it after the fact? Verify that a vote (as opposed to paper ballot) is valid? Absolutely. UBI shouldn't need an explanation for what problem it solves. I mention other problems something like this could solve in another comment[1] if you're interested. I think many people today are quick to dismiss good ideas just because it involves crypto, it's a shame. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36850769 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36850769
    - xvector 3y ago
      Plenty of use cases require proof of personhood. Voting, for one. Anti-spam as another. And most use cases in which you're required to present an ID.
      - JohnFen 3y ago
        I don't think voting is a great use case for this. Surely, if you're concerned about fraud in voting, simply being able to prove the voter is a person is insufficient. It wouldn't stop double-voting, etc. Anti-spam? That seems like shooting mosquitos with missiles. And I doubt it would be that effective at spam prevention. Spammers will just start paying tons of actual people to vet the messages as coming from real people, much like how captchas and the like are circumvented. > And most use cases in which you're required to present an ID. We already have ID for that. And surely, in those cases, what is trying to be established isn't just whether or not you're human, but which specific human you are. I've also heard that it's useful to administer UBI (just to round out your list), but UBI is a thing that -- at least in the US -- is but a vague dream, not anything that's realistically going to happen anytime soon. And even if it is, I don't think a system that just demonstrates proof-of-humanness would be sufficient.
        worksonmine 3y ago
        > It wouldn't stop double-voting Why not? One vote per human is trivial. Just read the last entry before the poll closes. Solved. That's how we do it today, with paper ballots. > We already have ID for that While modern IDs have biometrics they aren't usually validated as such. Just a quick glance is more common. It can be circumvented and fake/borrowed IDs are common. > UBI is a thing that at least in the US -- is but a vague dream, not anything that's realistically going to happen anytime soon Only because of lack of understanding and FUD. I agree that the US has a long way to go but in Europe where we have working welfare system UBI would save billions in administration costs. We already have it but with strings and hoops. I don't think a country where an ambulance ride costs a monthly salary should serve as an example to that argument. That's like claiming police is worthless because -- at least in Saudi Arabia -- is but a vague dream, since they're so easily bribed.
ackfoobar 3y ago
> fortunately it is easy to solve with zero knowledge proof technology I don't have enough intuition around what zkp can/cannot do. It's hard to take his word for it.
- xvector 3y ago
  > It's hard to take his word for it. He's a known expert re. cryptography and zero-knowledge proof technology. It's about as hard to take his word regarding zkp as it is to take a climate scientist's about climate change.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    The thing about science is that it rejects the entire premise of taking anyone's word about anything.
    - xvector 3y ago
      That's only true in the case when you're willing to put in the effort to prove/disprove yourself, which the parent commenter is clearly unwilling to do. Otherwise you're just ignoring someone that is objectively more knowledgeable than you, which is quite lame indeed.
JohnFen 3y ago
> the article goes into detail on why the iris hashes are sufficiently private. The problem is that if it something goes wrong, you can't fix things by changing your biometrics. That means that "sufficiently" private is a much, much higher threshold than it would be in other contexts. It also requires a lot of trust of the entities gathering the biometric information, and it's hard to come up with any entity that seems trustworthy enough. Especially any entity in the cryptocurrency space. Even ignoring the extremely creepy aspect of this (something worldcoin amplified immensely with those orbs), this seems like a very bad and dangerous idea. Even if the odds of a terrible mistake are very low, if you roll the dice enough times, you will eventually roll badly. Personally, I wouldn't touch any of this at all. I'd feel more comfortable having the entire internet think I'm not human than expose myself to this sort of thing.
- xvector 3y ago
  How is the hash of an iris scan "sensitive biometric information," any more than a CCTV camera at your coffee shop, or the government minting your ID? It is a hash, for god's sake. It is more privacy preserving than the latter two, or any currently known proof-of-personhood currently in existence - while still accomplishing the goal of proof-of-personhood.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    The hash is sensitive because it's a (reasonably) unique identifier that has been assigned to you. > any more than a CCTV camera at your coffee shop, or the government minting your ID? It's not, fundamentally, but that's not an argument in favor of things like this. The less of this sort of thing, the better. But a big difference is that my local coffee shop is, you know, local and not likely to be sharing the images with anyone as a routine matter, and they certainly aren't correlating the images they capture with my identity. The difference with government ID is twofold: it's the government, which means it's not optional. Second, it's the government rather than private entities. I can have some sort of influence over my government. I have zero influence over private entities. So while I don't like it in either case, I prefer the government-issued ID over something done by companies. > while still accomplishing the goal of proof-of-personhood. I'm not sure why this is a goal that is so important that it's worth any reduction in privacy.

kstrauser 3y ago

You can be informed on the subject and still think this is an awful idea. Even if I took their word that it’s “private enough”, it’s still a world-scale project to solve a vague problem with a broken-on-the-face-of-it-literally gimmick.

worksonmine 3y ago
I'm not for biometrics and especially pre-mined tokens to the founders as the solution, but what about the problem is vague?
- kstrauser 3y ago
  For me, the real-world need for such a thing in the first place. It's not often I dismiss something as a solution in search of a problem, but I think that's what this is.
  - worksonmine 3y ago
    I don't eat pork, I don't like the taste (except bacon but that's beside the point). That doesn't mean I think pig farmers are solving a vague problem. I hadn't heard of this coin before today, and as mentioned I don't like this specific solution but I don't think the problems are vague at all. You might trust your current bank, but are you confident that you can start any kind of legal business you want? Payment providers have shutdown completely legal customers for political reasons. Would it be nice to anonymously sign a vote? Or change it after the fact? Verify that a vote (as opposed to paper ballot) is valid? Absolutely. UBI shouldn't need an explanation for what problem it solves. I mention other problems something like this could solve in another comment[1] if you're interested. I think many people today are quick to dismiss good ideas just because it involves crypto, it's a shame. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36850769 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36850769
  - xvector 3y ago
    Plenty of use cases require proof of personhood. Voting, for one. Anti-spam as another. And most use cases in which you're required to present an ID.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      I don't think voting is a great use case for this. Surely, if you're concerned about fraud in voting, simply being able to prove the voter is a person is insufficient. It wouldn't stop double-voting, etc. Anti-spam? That seems like shooting mosquitos with missiles. And I doubt it would be that effective at spam prevention. Spammers will just start paying tons of actual people to vet the messages as coming from real people, much like how captchas and the like are circumvented. > And most use cases in which you're required to present an ID. We already have ID for that. And surely, in those cases, what is trying to be established isn't just whether or not you're human, but which specific human you are. I've also heard that it's useful to administer UBI (just to round out your list), but UBI is a thing that -- at least in the US -- is but a vague dream, not anything that's realistically going to happen anytime soon. And even if it is, I don't think a system that just demonstrates proof-of-humanness would be sufficient.
      - worksonmine 3y ago
        > It wouldn't stop double-voting Why not? One vote per human is trivial. Just read the last entry before the poll closes. Solved. That's how we do it today, with paper ballots. > We already have ID for that While modern IDs have biometrics they aren't usually validated as such. Just a quick glance is more common. It can be circumvented and fake/borrowed IDs are common. > UBI is a thing that at least in the US -- is but a vague dream, not anything that's realistically going to happen anytime soon Only because of lack of understanding and FUD. I agree that the US has a long way to go but in Europe where we have working welfare system UBI would save billions in administration costs. We already have it but with strings and hoops. I don't think a country where an ambulance ride costs a monthly salary should serve as an example to that argument. That's like claiming police is worthless because -- at least in Saudi Arabia -- is but a vague dream, since they're so easily bribed.

ackfoobar 3y ago

> fortunately it is easy to solve with zero knowledge proof technology I don't have enough intuition around what zkp can/cannot do. It's hard to take his word for it.

xvector 3y ago
> It's hard to take his word for it. He's a known expert re. cryptography and zero-knowledge proof technology. It's about as hard to take his word regarding zkp as it is to take a climate scientist's about climate change.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  The thing about science is that it rejects the entire premise of taking anyone's word about anything.
  - xvector 3y ago
    That's only true in the case when you're willing to put in the effort to prove/disprove yourself, which the parent commenter is clearly unwilling to do. Otherwise you're just ignoring someone that is objectively more knowledgeable than you, which is quite lame indeed.

JohnFen 3y ago

> the article goes into detail on why the iris hashes are sufficiently private. The problem is that if it something goes wrong, you can't fix things by changing your biometrics. That means that "sufficiently" private is a much, much higher threshold than it would be in other contexts. It also requires a lot of trust of the entities gathering the biometric information, and it's hard to come up with any entity that seems trustworthy enough. Especially any entity in the cryptocurrency space. Even ignoring the extremely creepy aspect of this (something worldcoin amplified immensely with those orbs), this seems like a very bad and dangerous idea. Even if the odds of a terrible mistake are very low, if you roll the dice enough times, you will eventually roll badly. Personally, I wouldn't touch any of this at all. I'd feel more comfortable having the entire internet think I'm not human than expose myself to this sort of thing.

xvector 3y ago
How is the hash of an iris scan "sensitive biometric information," any more than a CCTV camera at your coffee shop, or the government minting your ID? It is a hash, for god's sake. It is more privacy preserving than the latter two, or any currently known proof-of-personhood currently in existence - while still accomplishing the goal of proof-of-personhood.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  The hash is sensitive because it's a (reasonably) unique identifier that has been assigned to you. > any more than a CCTV camera at your coffee shop, or the government minting your ID? It's not, fundamentally, but that's not an argument in favor of things like this. The less of this sort of thing, the better. But a big difference is that my local coffee shop is, you know, local and not likely to be sharing the images with anyone as a routine matter, and they certainly aren't correlating the images they capture with my identity. The difference with government ID is twofold: it's the government, which means it's not optional. Second, it's the government rather than private entities. I can have some sort of influence over my government. I have zero influence over private entities. So while I don't like it in either case, I prefer the government-issued ID over something done by companies. > while still accomplishing the goal of proof-of-personhood. I'm not sure why this is a goal that is so important that it's worth any reduction in privacy.