4 ms·

People got scared when they started scanning thousands of people's eyeballs in Africa. It didn't matter that Sam Altman had a good explanation for doing it. Bec

People got scared when they started scanning thousands of people's eyeballs in Africa. It didn't matter that Sam Altman had a good explanation for doing it. Because cryptocurrency is involved, it must be bad, right?

skullone 3y ago
Lol what's this good explanation of scanning people's eyes?
- shagie 3y ago
  Identity management. I want to give food or money to 1000 distinct people in some part of the world. How do I make sure that 1000 distinct people do it and it's not just 100 people getting in the line 10 times each? What source of identity does everyone have (yes, there are exceptions) and on the more difficult to lose side (industrial accidents are more likely to damage fingers than eyes)?
  - kemotep 3y ago
    But why is a crypto currency required? Biometrics like Apple’s Face ID reasonably identify the owners of a phone. Why not distribute managed iPhones with access to an account to wire money to or an app that displays a code that aid workers can use to identify that the right person got the goods? That phone or app could be set to only generate one code per aid delivery event and without a code you don’t get aid. Someone having multiple phones would be easy to identify as the aid worker would recognize they are back in line. I mean if your goal is to end fraud there seems to be several options that don’t require a blockchain or some custom eye scanning device. How does worldcoin solve the issue of a local abusing a position of power to direct everyone to transfer their funds to their account or with holding some other resource to force people to give them their aid?
    - gs17 3y ago
      Part of the idea is to expand it beyond those, so anyone can verify that a user is representing a distinct, real human. It's supposed to be privacy preserving, so you could use it in user registration to block bots without needing to request any real identifying information. Of course, you've hit on part of the issue here, it's not going to really prevent a lot of the fraud it's intended to.
      - kemotep 3y ago
        And I really am skeptical about how privacy preserving it can be. If there is anyway at all to associate the wallet id back to the iris hash, the wallet id is as good as knowing the iris hash. If the zero knowledge can protect that and the wallet id just can identify that you’ve done an eye scan at some point, the wallet id is still as good as knowing the iris hash. Sure crypto evangelists will use sub wallets and multiple accounts and all that jazz to best preserve their privacy (all things that if possible make sybil attacks possible) but most people will just have the one wallet. Eventually everyone who pays attention will be able to identify them using just the wallet. So I doubt the effectiveness at preventing sybil attacks, I doubt the effectiveness of how privacy preserving this is, and if used beyond Worldcoin transactions, it just becomes an immutable global id. A social security number that requires an iris to generate.
  - skullone 3y ago
    Lol. Are you being absurd, or are you serious? Tracking admittance or distribution of something in a third world country for the purpose of food aid, and you want to scan their iris? You could do stamps on their hands, tickets (you know, like they've used at carnivals, events, sports complexes, 50,000+ person concerts, etc) with a supply and administration cost of near $0
    - bigbillheck 3y ago
      The money that gets spent on biometric infrastructure and verification can buy a lot of food.
  - bastawhiz 3y ago
    As has been pointed out countless times on this website in the past: There's no biometric sensors that are guaranteed to be free from tampering. There's no way to prove that the bits and bytes that say "I scanned person X's iris" actually corresponds to a legitimate iris scan. There's no way to stop someone from going town to town with their own iris scanners and claiming they need to scan eyes for the census or vaccines or any number of other things that people might think are real, only to use those scans to accept the money you mentioned in your comment. There's no way to prevent someone from perturbing those scans slightly to allow them to be re-used for new transactions in the future. Extremely advanced credit card skimmers exist, and those subvert the security of little tiny computers embedded in the credit cards. If you think a picture of an iris is any better, I've got an NFT of a bridge to sell you.
    - int_19h 3y ago
      In fact, picture of an iris is considerably worse since you can't change yours if it's ever compromised.
  - jordanroher 3y ago
    But Worldcoin doesn't solve the problem of unequal distribution. The real world still exists. Even if the food/money is perfectly evenly distributed via Worldcoin, a gang boss can have his muscle go around and threaten violence if people don't give him their share of the food/money. That's the problem, right? The kind of injustice that spurs people to build Worldcoin can't be solved by Worldcoin.
    - diggan 3y ago
      Well, unexpectedly, I think Worldcoin focuses on the digital world, as it's trying to be a digital currency. The problem is a real one, lookup "sybil attacks", which is what I think Worldcoin is trying to defend against.
  - jcranmer 3y ago
    > What source of identity does everyone have (yes, there are exceptions) and on the more difficult to lose side (industrial accidents are more likely to damage fingers than eyes)? Government-issued ID card? > How do I make sure that 1000 distinct people do it and it's not just 100 people getting in the line 10 times each? Find people to do the distribution whom you trust to be able to recognize people who are cutting multiple times? I mean, you already have to trust them to do things like actually disburse the food to the people, and not skim off 30% to sell for their own profit or whatnot. And if you look into where aid distribution goes awry, it's largely not "100 people getting in the line 10 times each" but the distributors absconding with the aid instead of giving it to the intended recipients.
    - Zak 3y ago
      > Government-issued ID card? It's easy to think of reasons that wouldn't work particularly well in some parts of the world. That doesn't mean I'm actually onboard with scanning biometrics, especially those of people who haven't read enough dystopian science fiction to be skeptical of that plan.
    - shagie 3y ago
      I'm going to note that I don't agree with Worldcoin (nor crypto currency in general) - just that this is an issue that WorldCoin was trying to resolve with biometrics. Government issued ID cards are forgeable and states not too difficult to get officially (the classic example of a spy with four different identities). For that matter, multiple different forms of identification can complicate the matter. Consider https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/identification https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/identification - I have a passport, I have a drivers license. There are individuals who have both of those identifications and a Tribal Nation identity card and a Veteran Health Identification Card too. Four different forms of ID for the same person - can those each be used once? I believe that Worldcoin is/was an attempt to solve some great societal issues with crypto currency tooling ... and is going to end up with many other ideas of how to solve social problems with technology in a "nope, that doesn't work" pile. Scanning eyeballs is an attempt to have one person to one identity - which may work, but it doesn't solve the related practical problems of distributing aid.
  - bigbillheck 3y ago
    > How do I make sure that 1000 distinct people do it and it's not just 100 people getting in the line 10 times each? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075KP3J3T/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075KP3J3T/
  - singleshot_ 3y ago
    Dip their finger in purple ink.
  - RF_Savage 3y ago
    This gets even more interesting when one considers that the iris actually does change with age. How much drift from the original does this allow? And if it can be updates, can that be abused or can people be coerced into handing over their accounts?
dvngnt_ 3y ago
i mean...
happypumpkin 3y ago
I think most people think its bad because of the eyeball scanning part, not the cryptocurrency part...
- ginko 3y ago
  Also because Sam Altman is involved.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    It was Altman's WorldCoin effort and his statements about it that made me very wary of him in the first place.
    - ginko 3y ago
      True, I guess that was before he set up the Microsoft takeover of OpenAI.
legohead 3y ago
Is cryptocurrency involved? Then yes. Is blockchain technology involved? Then it's worth a look.
ravenstine 3y ago
Well, in my case, that's certainly not my objection. I'm going to a Bitcoin conference this year, after all. Hah. I have no interest in tying my ability to conduct transactions and hold wealth to an ID that is designed to be immutable. But that's just me. I also lack faith in any system founded on biometrics, as it's a technology that's implicitly sold as something that is nearly impossible to exploit, which I simply have no reason to believe. If there are people out there who are turned away by cryptocurrency being involved, well, I can't say I entirely blame them. The nerdy advocates and developers of cryptocurrencies and the countless "gurus" have failed to adequately onboard the public or counter the bad PR from the media. When setting up a custodial cryptocurrency account takes more steps than signing up for a credit card, the fees are relatively high, and stories pile up of clueless people falling for scams involving cryptocurrency, as well as the barrage of FUD from folks who are usually ignorant, it's no wonder everyday people would run in the other direction as soon as "cryptocurrency" is mentioned.
sgift 3y ago
It's quite simple: If you want something which is a part of me - especially one that's uniquely identifying - you better are a) part of the state of my country and b) have a pretty good reason for it. Neither of these two is fulfilled here, so yeah - it's bad.
- dorkwood 3y ago
  I guess I'm just annoyed that people think Altman is scanning the eyeballs of Africans as part of some dastardly scheme, but he's only doing it so that Worldcoin will have value that's all.
  - namaria 3y ago
    Guessing at second intentions from someone who has successfully climbed the social hierarchy is a safer bet then swearing by their eternal innocence.

skullone 3y ago

Lol what's this good explanation of scanning people's eyes?

shagie 3y ago
Identity management. I want to give food or money to 1000 distinct people in some part of the world. How do I make sure that 1000 distinct people do it and it's not just 100 people getting in the line 10 times each? What source of identity does everyone have (yes, there are exceptions) and on the more difficult to lose side (industrial accidents are more likely to damage fingers than eyes)?
- kemotep 3y ago
  But why is a crypto currency required? Biometrics like Apple’s Face ID reasonably identify the owners of a phone. Why not distribute managed iPhones with access to an account to wire money to or an app that displays a code that aid workers can use to identify that the right person got the goods? That phone or app could be set to only generate one code per aid delivery event and without a code you don’t get aid. Someone having multiple phones would be easy to identify as the aid worker would recognize they are back in line. I mean if your goal is to end fraud there seems to be several options that don’t require a blockchain or some custom eye scanning device. How does worldcoin solve the issue of a local abusing a position of power to direct everyone to transfer their funds to their account or with holding some other resource to force people to give them their aid?
  - gs17 3y ago
    Part of the idea is to expand it beyond those, so anyone can verify that a user is representing a distinct, real human. It's supposed to be privacy preserving, so you could use it in user registration to block bots without needing to request any real identifying information. Of course, you've hit on part of the issue here, it's not going to really prevent a lot of the fraud it's intended to.
    - kemotep 3y ago
      And I really am skeptical about how privacy preserving it can be. If there is anyway at all to associate the wallet id back to the iris hash, the wallet id is as good as knowing the iris hash. If the zero knowledge can protect that and the wallet id just can identify that you’ve done an eye scan at some point, the wallet id is still as good as knowing the iris hash. Sure crypto evangelists will use sub wallets and multiple accounts and all that jazz to best preserve their privacy (all things that if possible make sybil attacks possible) but most people will just have the one wallet. Eventually everyone who pays attention will be able to identify them using just the wallet. So I doubt the effectiveness at preventing sybil attacks, I doubt the effectiveness of how privacy preserving this is, and if used beyond Worldcoin transactions, it just becomes an immutable global id. A social security number that requires an iris to generate.
- skullone 3y ago
  Lol. Are you being absurd, or are you serious? Tracking admittance or distribution of something in a third world country for the purpose of food aid, and you want to scan their iris? You could do stamps on their hands, tickets (you know, like they've used at carnivals, events, sports complexes, 50,000+ person concerts, etc) with a supply and administration cost of near $0
  - bigbillheck 3y ago
    The money that gets spent on biometric infrastructure and verification can buy a lot of food.
- bastawhiz 3y ago
  As has been pointed out countless times on this website in the past: There's no biometric sensors that are guaranteed to be free from tampering. There's no way to prove that the bits and bytes that say "I scanned person X's iris" actually corresponds to a legitimate iris scan. There's no way to stop someone from going town to town with their own iris scanners and claiming they need to scan eyes for the census or vaccines or any number of other things that people might think are real, only to use those scans to accept the money you mentioned in your comment. There's no way to prevent someone from perturbing those scans slightly to allow them to be re-used for new transactions in the future. Extremely advanced credit card skimmers exist, and those subvert the security of little tiny computers embedded in the credit cards. If you think a picture of an iris is any better, I've got an NFT of a bridge to sell you.
  - int_19h 3y ago
    In fact, picture of an iris is considerably worse since you can't change yours if it's ever compromised.
- jordanroher 3y ago
  But Worldcoin doesn't solve the problem of unequal distribution. The real world still exists. Even if the food/money is perfectly evenly distributed via Worldcoin, a gang boss can have his muscle go around and threaten violence if people don't give him their share of the food/money. That's the problem, right? The kind of injustice that spurs people to build Worldcoin can't be solved by Worldcoin.
  - diggan 3y ago
    Well, unexpectedly, I think Worldcoin focuses on the digital world, as it's trying to be a digital currency. The problem is a real one, lookup "sybil attacks", which is what I think Worldcoin is trying to defend against.
- jcranmer 3y ago
  > What source of identity does everyone have (yes, there are exceptions) and on the more difficult to lose side (industrial accidents are more likely to damage fingers than eyes)? Government-issued ID card? > How do I make sure that 1000 distinct people do it and it's not just 100 people getting in the line 10 times each? Find people to do the distribution whom you trust to be able to recognize people who are cutting multiple times? I mean, you already have to trust them to do things like actually disburse the food to the people, and not skim off 30% to sell for their own profit or whatnot. And if you look into where aid distribution goes awry, it's largely not "100 people getting in the line 10 times each" but the distributors absconding with the aid instead of giving it to the intended recipients.
  - Zak 3y ago
    > Government-issued ID card? It's easy to think of reasons that wouldn't work particularly well in some parts of the world. That doesn't mean I'm actually onboard with scanning biometrics, especially those of people who haven't read enough dystopian science fiction to be skeptical of that plan.
  - shagie 3y ago
    I'm going to note that I don't agree with Worldcoin (nor crypto currency in general) - just that this is an issue that WorldCoin was trying to resolve with biometrics. Government issued ID cards are forgeable and states not too difficult to get officially (the classic example of a spy with four different identities). For that matter, multiple different forms of identification can complicate the matter. Consider https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/identification https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/identification - I have a passport, I have a drivers license. There are individuals who have both of those identifications and a Tribal Nation identity card and a Veteran Health Identification Card too. Four different forms of ID for the same person - can those each be used once? I believe that Worldcoin is/was an attempt to solve some great societal issues with crypto currency tooling ... and is going to end up with many other ideas of how to solve social problems with technology in a "nope, that doesn't work" pile. Scanning eyeballs is an attempt to have one person to one identity - which may work, but it doesn't solve the related practical problems of distributing aid.
- bigbillheck 3y ago
  > How do I make sure that 1000 distinct people do it and it's not just 100 people getting in the line 10 times each? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075KP3J3T/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075KP3J3T/
- singleshot_ 3y ago
  Dip their finger in purple ink.
- RF_Savage 3y ago
  This gets even more interesting when one considers that the iris actually does change with age. How much drift from the original does this allow? And if it can be updates, can that be abused or can people be coerced into handing over their accounts?

dvngnt_ 3y ago

i mean...

happypumpkin 3y ago

I think most people think its bad because of the eyeball scanning part, not the cryptocurrency part...

ginko 3y ago
Also because Sam Altman is involved.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  It was Altman's WorldCoin effort and his statements about it that made me very wary of him in the first place.
  - ginko 3y ago
    True, I guess that was before he set up the Microsoft takeover of OpenAI.

legohead 3y ago

Is cryptocurrency involved? Then yes. Is blockchain technology involved? Then it's worth a look.

ravenstine 3y ago

Well, in my case, that's certainly not my objection. I'm going to a Bitcoin conference this year, after all. Hah. I have no interest in tying my ability to conduct transactions and hold wealth to an ID that is designed to be immutable. But that's just me. I also lack faith in any system founded on biometrics, as it's a technology that's implicitly sold as something that is nearly impossible to exploit, which I simply have no reason to believe. If there are people out there who are turned away by cryptocurrency being involved, well, I can't say I entirely blame them. The nerdy advocates and developers of cryptocurrencies and the countless "gurus" have failed to adequately onboard the public or counter the bad PR from the media. When setting up a custodial cryptocurrency account takes more steps than signing up for a credit card, the fees are relatively high, and stories pile up of clueless people falling for scams involving cryptocurrency, as well as the barrage of FUD from folks who are usually ignorant, it's no wonder everyday people would run in the other direction as soon as "cryptocurrency" is mentioned.

sgift 3y ago

It's quite simple: If you want something which is a part of me - especially one that's uniquely identifying - you better are a) part of the state of my country and b) have a pretty good reason for it. Neither of these two is fulfilled here, so yeah - it's bad.

dorkwood 3y ago
I guess I'm just annoyed that people think Altman is scanning the eyeballs of Africans as part of some dastardly scheme, but he's only doing it so that Worldcoin will have value that's all.
- namaria 3y ago
  Guessing at second intentions from someone who has successfully climbed the social hierarchy is a safer bet then swearing by their eternal innocence.