[HN Gopher] Worldcoin: A solution in search of its problem
___________________________________________________________________
Worldcoin: A solution in search of its problem
Author : ecliptik
Score : 183 points
Date : 2023-07-30 14:59 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (newsletter.mollywhite.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (newsletter.mollywhite.net)
| konschubert wrote:
| I do not understand how this is supposed to prevent sibyl
| attacks?
|
| How do they prevent fake virtual iris scanning devices from
| pretending that they scanned a person that doesn't actually
| exist?
|
| Or is the idea that sama is will run a centralised private
| identity system that aims to replace government identity
| management? Then why do you need crypto?
|
| Are they trying to replace proof of stake/proof of work with
| "proof of being a human being"? I don't see how the iris scanning
| achieves this?
|
| I think it's fundamentally impossible.
|
| If you don't have a centralised authority verifying identity, the
| best thing you can get is peer-to-peer federated identity
| verification like PGP. But with this, identity is relative, as in
| "I trust a guy who trusts a gal who says this person is real".
| happytiger wrote:
| It's a value of the database play and graph databases
| (association, social credit) gain most of their value (like
| social networks) from scale. You don't have to have great data,
| but you need a LOT of data, for them to serve the purpose.
|
| There is a lot of room for systems that are the silver standard
| and the math enables a great deal of reliability for those
| outside of the traditional financial systems (many people). It
| doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be good enough.
| yourabstraction wrote:
| I think fake iris scanning is the least of the concerns here.
| The big problem, and likely reason this will fail, is there's
| nothing preventing you from selling your account for a small
| fee after getting your initial scan to set it up. And that's
| likely exactly what will happen, because they're onboarding
| users in poor countries first. These users don't give a shit
| about world coin, they're simply lining up and being scanned to
| make a bit of easy money.
| 93po wrote:
| The premise is that you can make spam filtering and bot
| filtering and circles of trust work if you have a finite
| amount of accounts. Currently on the internet there are
| infinite accounts. If there's only a billion accounts,
| filtering becomes much easier.
| espadrine wrote:
| The signup module is indeed a centralized system, which then
| records the new registration on a distributed ledger (which
| only someone with Worldcoin's private key can do). From there,
| payment operations are done distributed on Ethereum / L2.
|
| The signup process is always a sensitive part of a
| cryptosystem, and open network membership is not always
| expected (for instance, CBDCs, Ripple...). There is certainly a
| philosophical argument to be made against closed membership,
| since it can disadvantage people that struggle for access, and
| lets the company discriminate in the future once they get a
| stronghold, which can be especially problematic considering the
| primary value of human-uniqueness is to restrict voting to an
| in-group whose bounds historically have been heavily argued
| even in non-repressive regimes.
|
| But it seems unlikely to become predominant. Some people have
| prosthetic eyes; I would be hard-pressed to imagine, say, Apple
| releasing an iPhone that is inaccessible to a population in
| such a significant way.
| konschubert wrote:
| If you have centralised signup and identity you may as well
| run a Postgres DB or a git repo.
|
| It could still be a cool idea, but I don't get how this needs
| crypto?
| polynomial wrote:
| Presumably so that the underlying system can be auditable
| by 'anyone'?
| [deleted]
| jonny_eh wrote:
| How else do you get A16z to invest?
| mousetree wrote:
| You play League of Legends while on a pitch call with
| them
| [deleted]
| polynomial wrote:
| I believe that was Sequoia? Who just massively downsized
| that very fund this week. (Tho he did seem to play LoL on
| a lot of calls...)
| optimalsolver wrote:
| That sounds like a real power-move from a top-tier mind.
| aionaiodfgnio wrote:
| [dead]
| Animats wrote:
| > sibyl attacks?
|
| This is exactly the same problem as spam detection - nobody has
| found a good way to prevent people from generating large
| numbers of fake identities, short of government identity
| registration. The classic "Why your solution to spam won't
| work"[1] checklist applies.
|
| [1] https://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt
| konschubert wrote:
| Yea, so he's building an alternative to a government identity
| system. Which is cool I guess, but why does it need a coin?
| Animats wrote:
| > why does it need a coin?
|
| Otherwise it wouldn't Make Money Fast.
|
| This came up a few weeks ago on HN, with someone from a
| small country writing that they quit a crypto startup
| because they realized it was a scam. The startup was
| starting up an exchange, which doesn't really need a
| "coin". But they had to have one, so they could play games
| with the financial structure and Make Money Fast.
|
| This is why there are very few real DeFi crypto exchanges.
| A trustless exchange, where the exchange never has custody
| of the money, is the way a crypto exchange ought to work.
| The exchange is then just a matching service - people put
| limit orders on a blockchain, the exchange finds ones that
| match, and tells both parties "go". Like the NYSE, which
| never owns a stock.
|
| But there's no Make Money Fast in that. It's getting your
| hands on the customer assets that pays off.
| choppaface wrote:
| It needs to be a coin so they can pocket $240m in an ICO,
| which is significantly easier than getting a large
| government contract because ICO investors are not
| sophisticated, largely don't have rights, and insider
| trading is much easier.
|
| https://icodrops.com/worldcoin/
| HenryBemis wrote:
| It's a tip/gift/bonus/incentive for people to give away
| their data. And since this is a game of numbers, they knew
| that throwing $10-20-30 USD to about 400mn people in poor
| countries they would get the momentum going.
|
| I expect Europeans to shun this.
|
| I fear though that once they hit "1bn people" they will
| invoke the FOMO into the rest.
| kibwen wrote:
| _> I fear though that once they hit "1bn people" they
| will invoke the FOMO into the rest._
|
| Over a billion humans have intestinal parasites, but that
| doesn't mean people are queuing up for worm eggs.
| tryauuum wrote:
| comparing software to parasites... Is this a Steve
| Ballmer account?
| smaudet wrote:
| Perhaps not, but that's what marketing is for...
|
| "Increase your resistance gut to parasites with our
| revolutionary cure!"
|
| Or some such...
|
| And then you realize what complete sleezy snakes most of
| these tech bros are.
| aionaiodfgnio wrote:
| [dead]
| yourabstraction wrote:
| Remember, Sam Altman is the guy who made open AI into closed AI,
| and he's the cofounder of this. If you think he has any intent of
| making this an open decentralized system that benefits people
| you're likely mistaken.
| tarruda wrote:
| I would not trust someone who claims they are working on a
| project that benefits people.
|
| I would be less suspicious of someone working on a selfish
| project that might benefit people as a side effect.
| 93po wrote:
| Sam Altman's work on OpenAI is hard to characterize as
| selfish when he owns none of it and doesn't get paid for it.
| gcatalfamo wrote:
| I am going to be downvoted to death, but it is clear from last
| year events that Sam Altman is truly that kind of "Blade
| Runner/Robocop(1)"-like antagonist character that has a
| narcissistic drive to destroy the world just so he can show
| everybody he is saving it.
|
| (1) Pick your 80's Sci-Fi movie dystopia that fits here.
| 93po wrote:
| It seems unfair to attack someone so personally without
| providing neutrally presented evidence to support it
| latchkey wrote:
| A lot of people here are questioning how this works. Vitalik went
| through a pretty good analysis of the mechanics recently [0].
|
| What is it with founders named Sam who are scammers?
|
| [0] https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2023/07/24/biometric.html
| Wormable wrote:
| >What is it with founders named Sam who are scammers?
|
| Sam[uel] is merely a common Jewish first name.
| latchkey wrote:
| It was a reference to SBF and had nothing to do with being
| anti-semitic.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Sam[uel] is merely a common Jewish first name_
|
| This shouldn't be downvoted. I have heard OP's joke. That it
| could come across as anti-Semitic, despite almost never being
| intended that way, is a good heads up.
| [deleted]
| qingcharles wrote:
| This image (FTA) is straight out of some insane dystopian
| nightmare:
|
| https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_pr...
|
| That the photo represents a real event in _real reality_ is
| absurd o_O
| hef19898 wrote:
| Some people take cyberpunk as entertainment, some as a paraody,
| some as a warning, some as all of the above. And some take it
| as blue print worth pursueing.
|
| EDIT: The while premise of needing a nin-centralized wax of
| confirming ones identity is, at its core, deeply un-demicratic.
| As of bow, government issued documentation confirms anyones
| identiy. These governments can be democratic, and are. Puting a
| different system in place, controlled by some tech-billionaire-
| liberitarian, is as dytopian as it gets. So of course VCs are
| investing like hell in it.
| sirreal14 wrote:
| > The while premise of needing a nin-centralized wax of
| confirming ones identity is, at its core, deeply un-
| demicratic. As of bow, government issued documentation
| confirms anyones identiy. These governments can be
| democratic, and are. Puting a different system in place,
| controlled by some tech-billionaire-liberitarian, is as
| dytopian as it gets.
|
| I deeply hate this line of logic. This exact argument was
| presented against the Signal messaging app in an Op-Ed in the
| NYT (https://archive.is/tJoem), to quote from it:
|
| > They are a small group of people who govern these powerful
| tools, and they are not accountable in the way that, say, a
| democratically elected government is. Whether law enforcement
| should tap our phones on the condition that a warrant is
| obtained is, at the very least, worthy of public discussion.
| Signal has unilaterally decided for us all.
|
| Boo hoo, math makes it so that governments (yes, even
| democratic ones) can't tap phones, therefore math (and the
| technologists who code up this math) are evil and anti-
| democratic.
|
| For all WorldCoin's faults, merely attempting to offer a
| decentralized alternative (even if it's not a very good one!)
| to government proof-of-person solutions is not one of them.
| hef19898 wrote:
| I am all for privacy and encrypted communications. Until a
| legitimate law enforcent body gets a legitimate warrant
| against a specified organisation or individual.
|
| Outsourcing some, or all of that to some VC backed
| companies, facilitating access for the various intelligence
| agencies, is what I have a problem with. And a crypto
| start-up setting out to build a global database of peoples
| retinas is exactly that.
| [deleted]
| sirreal14 wrote:
| > I am all for privacy and encrypted communications.
| Until a legitimate law enforcement....
|
| So you're against encryption then. Simple as that.
|
| > Outsourcing some, or all of that to some VC backed
| companies, facilitating access for the various
| intelligence agencies, is what I have a problem with.
|
| I also have a problem with that. We should aim to build
| systems that are resistant to all attackers, even
| intelligence agencies. And like Signal, it should be
| impossible for companies to facilitate access for anyone,
| including intelligence/law enforcement.
|
| > And a crypto start-up setting out to build a global
| database of peoples retinas
|
| Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with real
| criticisms of WorldCoin (Vitalik has a nice critique
| here:
| https://vitalik.ca/general/2023/07/24/biometric.html),
| because they don't store biometric data, they only store
| hashes.
|
| What's the worry here? If WorldCoin surpasses their
| wildly ambitious long term goals, governments won't be
| able to revoke someones passport for being a dissident
| anymore? What specific issues do you see with a
| successful decentralized proof of personhood system?
|
| EDIT: Specifically, what issues does _decentralization_
| bring to proof-of-personhood over government run proof of
| personhood, other than removing the government's ability
| to un-person someone.
| kemotep wrote:
| What mechanism prevents the government from "un-person-
| ing" someone if Worldcoin was used as the global identity
| system?
| ttepasse wrote:
| @AlexBlechman on TwiX had this tweet some years ago:
|
| _Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a
| cautionary tale_
|
| _Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment
| Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don 't Create The Torment
| Nexus_
| panarky wrote:
| If you think thousands of people voluntarily getting iris scans
| that aren't stored anywhere is an insane dystopian nightmare,
| wait until you hear about the 1.3 billion people who were
| compelled to surrender their biometrics to the centralized,
| government-operated Aadhaar system.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| That sounds like an ideal implementation partner for
| Worldcoin!
| yourabstraction wrote:
| And these people don't give two shits about world coin, they
| just want the free money the company is throwing at them. This
| things is doomed to fail, because the biometrics are only
| authenticated when you setup your account initially like in
| this photo. So these people can collect the sign up fee and the
| then turn around and sell their account to a someone else,
| thereby nullifying the sybil resistance of the system.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| Interesting how Worldcoin chooses to start in countries where
| this demand exists, almost by definition the poorest
| countries in the world, where the infrastructure is not only
| barely needed, but also most likely to be abused by the same
| governments that created the poverty in the first place.
| aeurielesn wrote:
| > He is selling the antidote to the poison he is, coincidentally,
| also selling.
|
| The irony.
| fvdessen wrote:
| Once again it is completely ignored that the whole online
| identity thing is a solved problem, in the EU. Millions of
| Europeans use eIDAS apps daily and enjoy single-sign-on across EU
| websites, can sign docs, make payments etc. etc. And there's no
| privacy issues thanks to the GDPR, which it turns out is not just
| about cookie popups
|
| The tech is there, it works today, without crypto bullshit, and
| it is extremely useful. But since nobody became a billionaire out
| of it, nobody talks about it
| nmat wrote:
| Reminds how US centric a lot of crypto companies are. An
| advantage of crypto that often comes up is "instant and cheap
| money transfers". In the UK, I transfer money to my friends
| instantaneously and for free using just my bank account.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > In the UK, I transfer money to my friends instantaneously
| and for free using just my bank account.
|
| You can do the same thing in the US. The problem is that
| businesses can't easily do this without collecting bank
| routing information from customers, which is effectively
| "secret" because it allows anyone to debit money directly
| from their bank account, so they're reluctant to provide it.
|
| What's needed is a low- or no-fee system for requesting
| payments from someone without collecting any secrets from
| them. The technology to do this is not hard -- use public key
| cryptography, or just require the customer to approve
| merchants before they can make debits. But the customer's
| bank has little incentive to implement this because the
| customer won't choose a different bank over it and meanwhile
| the banks own the credit processing networks charging the
| high fees.
|
| Which is why people are looking for an external solution.
| treyd wrote:
| > What's needed is a low- or no-fee system for requesting
| payments from someone without collecting any secrets from
| them.
|
| Supposedly FedNow is the solution to this, but it will be a
| while before this functionality is exposed to end users.
| 01acheru wrote:
| I don't know how it works outside of Italy but here we can
| make instantaneous bank transfers for free or a really
| small (and capped fee) to anyone just knowing their bank
| account without leaking any secret information.
|
| How does it work in the US?
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| You go to your bank's website and input the other
| person's bank routing information to make a transfer.
|
| But with the same information someone can also make a
| _withdrawal_ , which is problematic.
| 01acheru wrote:
| Whoa... that's totally broken...
| MattPalmer1086 wrote:
| I think you are talking about a different use case to the
| parent.
|
| You seem to be talking about authorising businesses to
| _take_ money from my account without needing further
| approval. A direct debit.
|
| Parent is talking about transferring money _to_ someone
| else 's account, which is easy and requires no secrets or
| authorisation.
| wmf wrote:
| It would be nice to have both.
| MattPalmer1086 wrote:
| Both already exist. Setting up a direct debit generally
| only involves filling in a form. Sending money to someone
| else is as simple as authorising a payment to them with
| their account details.
|
| What problem needs to be solved?
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| What's needed is a better system for approving who is
| allowed to make withdrawals from your bank account
| instead of just "anyone in possession of your bank
| routing information" which makes customers reluctant to
| provide it.
|
| This would be essentially solved with a standardized
| system for customers to give each merchant a separate
| bank account number (or equivalent) which really refers
| to the same bank account but could be revoked
| individually if that number is compromised or you want to
| remove the merchant's access, or could be set to
| automatically expire for non-recurring payments. But the
| banks don't have the incentive to provide this when
| they're the ones getting the credit card fees.
| wmf wrote:
| You can't really use ACH or Zelle for retail payments.
| It's not worth doing the setup for a one-time payment.
| rvz wrote:
| Can't wait for the EU to introduce a digital euro CBDC just
| like the digital yuan in China. /s
|
| Soon it will impose savings limits, expiration dates to
| incentivise spending [0] all tied up to your digital identity.
|
| When governments propose extremely unpopular policies on its
| people, it will be certainly used against their own people to
| quell and discourage protests much easily than before.
|
| You will then realise that all these digital identity solutions
| such as eIDAS, digital euro and wallets are essentially no
| better than Worldcoin. Governments around the world would love
| to do exactly what Worldcoin is doing for onboarding to a
| future CBDC.
|
| No thanks and absolutely no deal to both of that.
|
| [0] https://reclaimthenet.org/digital-euro-spending-saving-
| limit...
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| The whole online identity thing was a solved problem well
| before that. You sign up for a service, you give them your
| email address and create a password, now they know who you are
| because you have your password, and if you forget your password
| they send a reset code to your email. Add 2FA as you like.
|
| That allows you to authenticate with the service you're doing
| business with, which is all that ever needs to happen because
| centralized identity systems are just an attack for correlating
| your activity across services and devices.
| pluto_modadic wrote:
| I think how crypto springs because commercial systems are
| lacking (like, Mint/Plaid compared to the OFX standard for
| gnucash). The reason crypto seems viable is because US banking
| sucks. The reason these ID schemes exist is because the US
| doesn't have eIDAS.
| PeterStuer wrote:
| Is it realy a 'search' if you intend to _create_ the problem?
| nazgulsenpai wrote:
| We really don't deserve Molly White but thank goodness we have
| her. For those who don't know she also runs Web3 is Going Just
| Great[0]
|
| [0]https://web3isgoinggreat.com/
| sorokod wrote:
| And if you like her work, consider support and a donation:
|
| https://web3isgoinggreat.com/contribute
| lucasyvas wrote:
| It disappoints me to see anyone discussing this on technical
| merits when the whole thing is a laughably bad idea. It really
| just needs to be buried into the ground before it gets started.
| lawn wrote:
| Smart people missing the forest for the trees. Nothing new, but
| still disappointing.
| wmf wrote:
| The world would be significantly worse off if it just ran on
| your gut instincts. In the particular case of Worldcoin it's
| still bad once you understand the details but that's just luck.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| I feel like the world would be better off if VC money was
| funneled into more local small businesses and "lifestyle"
| startups, not 100m+ "moonshots" like this. Unfortunately that
| doesn't "scale".
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| This is pretty much true for almost all of crypto.
| happytiger wrote:
| This is the most dystopian project I've ever seen and a total
| wolf in sheep's clothing. Hell it might better called a wolf in
| wolf's clothing.
|
| I find it difficult that this kind of project is attached to
| Altman -- it's not a good look for someone playing around with
| controversial human replacement technologies capable of insane
| global control and manipulation.
|
| Let's invent a crypto that tracks every human on the planet using
| their immutable characteristics.
|
| It'll be fine. What can go wrong? This information won't be used
| inappropriately I'm sure.
|
| Never trust a rich person who wraps themselves in the cloak of
| human interest or says they are "of the people." The
| establishment isn't in the business of teaching you to disrupt
| it.
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| True for most crypto projects
| offtwit wrote:
| All
| rvz wrote:
| Not 'All'.
|
| Just like 90% of startups fail, it is the same with 90% of
| crypto startups, and AI startups will fail. The 10% remaining
| will continue to exist.
|
| Just stop this absolutist nonsense.
| kotaKat wrote:
| The grift continues, replicating itself as we observe the
| great race to zero.
| malermeister wrote:
| Can you name a concrete counterexample of a crypto venture
| that provides actual value to society?
| rvz wrote:
| Yes. Moneygram, Circle and Stellar launched and aid
| program (Stellar Aid) that allows near instant, very low-
| fee and cross-border P2P payments worldwide to those in
| need of it. [0]
|
| [0] https://thefintechtimes.com/stellar-aid-assist-
| creates-new-r...
| malermeister wrote:
| Wait, but Moneygram already does that by itself. What
| (except of more complexity) does all the crypto stuff
| add?
| lolinder wrote:
| The absolutism is a bit extreme, but your comparison isn't
| really fair either. Outside of crypto, we don't regularly
| see startups get loads of hype and money only to explode so
| spectacularly that the founders end up in jail.
| rvz wrote:
| > Outside of crypto, we don't regularly see startups get
| loads of hype and money only to explode so spectacularly
| that the founders end up in jail.
|
| It is already known that the majority of unprofitable
| startups take tons of VC money and have regularly played
| the Silicon Valley playbook of 'faking it' until they are
| caught out in the open [0] [1] [2]. It has gotten so
| common to the extent where their favourite bank (SVB)
| went under with all these unprofitable startups crying
| over payroll when generating little to no revenue with
| inflated valuations.
|
| We were supposed to learn from that VC pyramid scheme
| that has caused SVB to collapse which was so seismic that
| all those unprofitable startups would all have gone bust
| had capitalism just run its course without government
| intervention.
|
| There really is no defence for continuing the constant
| dependence on raising VC money in unprofitable startups
| for years anymore after over-leveraging and injecting
| more cash at unjustified valuations in these startups.
| For this scam to be revealed so late shows how long many
| startups were able to get away from 'faking it'.
|
| [0] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/feb/23/ozy-
| media-foun...
|
| [1] https://abcnews.go.com/US/startup-founders-
| alleged-175-milli...
|
| [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/14/nikola-nkla-founder-
| trevor-m...
| lolinder wrote:
| > While Worldcoin may have developed an algorithm that reliably
| distinguishes unique irises among its test pool, it's not clear
| that it will work with a pool orders of magnitude larger.
|
| This is a really key problem. The main application of biometrics
| today is in cell phones, and for those we operate on the
| assumption that we're trying to distinguish between the
| authorized user and a quite small pool of non-authorized people
| who will have physical access to the device: family members,
| friends, co-workers, and the occasional thief. This threat
| profile allows the biometric algorithm to err on the side of
| usability--it's more important that the algorithm consistently
| open the phone when shown the user's fingerprint or face than it
| is that there be no other human being on the planet who could
| open it.
|
| Worldcoin has a very different threat profile, and it's not
| obvious to me that is possible to have a usable biometrics system
| (with an acceptably low false negative rate) that _also_ has
| absolutely zero risk of hash collisions when the pool of unique
| people you need to distinguish is the size of the entire planet.
| kibwen wrote:
| _> the pool of unique people you need to distinguish is the
| size of the entire planet_
|
| Not merely the size of the entire planet. If they hope that
| this scheme lasts in perpetuity, it will need to distinguish
| between all individuals who will ever be born.
| panarky wrote:
| If the iris hash function produces a false negative, does the
| owner of the iris lose access to their assets?
| [deleted]
| remcob wrote:
| This is essentially the Birthday paradox. You need a
| quadratically better false match rate to deduplicate than to
| authenticate. It's also why Worldcoin went with Irises (highest
| entropy among biometrics), custom hardware, custom optics and
| an in-house trained algorithm.
| ajb wrote:
| The Iriscode (if it's the same as Daugman's iriscode) has
| tested so far to have 249 bits of entropy, or over 10^74
| combinations [1]
|
| So even with the birthday paradox you'd need 10^37 people
| before having a good chance of a collision, which is rather
| more than we are likely to have in the next few centuries.
|
| Of course, it's possible that there are some subpopulations
| who don't have this amount of entropy in their irises, most
| obviously the small number of people who have a birth defect
| such that they are born without eyes.
|
| [1]https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~jgd1000/binomdata.html
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| This is a really good comment. But of course the problems in
| authentication and de-duplication are also different in that
| you care about adversarial false-positives much more once
| authentication is the goal. As I understand things, Worldcoin
| claims the retina scans won't be used to control funds (or
| other services.) I am skeptical that many of those users will
| retain their non-biometric wallet credentials long-term,
| which will leave you with a database of biometric credentials
| that will have to be used for authentication if you want to
| use those credentials for anything important in the future.
| b1n wrote:
| This is assuming you are trying to create a perfect system. The
| "good enough" version of this solves most Sibil Attacks[1].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_attack
| fredgrott wrote:
| I have a Sam Altman story...
|
| I did a pre-interview to work for one of Sam's first startups,
| the mobile one that had the date via GPS idea. Turned down going
| beyond the pre-interview due to concept and funding combination
| not being compatible with reality. You have to remember at that
| point in time Mobile OEMs were locking down GPS access through
| apps and Mobile Operators were attempting to pretend they were
| VCs.
|
| Not every slide deck that gets money is a good slide deck!!
| latchkey wrote:
| This is a story about Sam?
| optimalsolver wrote:
| https://www.reuters.com/technology/openais-sam-altman-
| launch...
| latchkey wrote:
| And? I was talking to the op about their story... don't
| need a link to a worldcoin announcement, thanks.
| optimalsolver wrote:
| This is an article about Worlcoin, Sam Altman's pet
| project, and OP is sharing an anecdote about Sam Altman.
| Not sure why you find this so confusing, but I'll be
| happy to walk you through it slowly.
| qwerasdf5 wrote:
| It's not clear whether or not he talked to Sam Altman in
| his/her "pre-interview".
|
| If I had a pre-interview for a job at Amazon, does that
| mean I have a Jeff Bezos story?
| optimalsolver wrote:
| Well, more accurately, an anecdote about a previous Sam
| Altman project, which is pretty relevant when discussing
| a current Sam Altman project.
| jowea wrote:
| Anyone knows why is it valued at billions? Where is the profit to
| stockholders supposed to come from? And value for the cryptocoin?
| pitahat wrote:
| I agree with certain sentiments, especially whether there is an
| actual product market fit for this, but the tech analysis here is
| sloppy. Molly is a crypto sceptic so suffers from confirmation
| bias.
| thesausageking wrote:
| Yeh, I have a lot of problems with Worldcoin but this isn't a
| great post on it or the issues. You can tell she went in with
| the intention to write something for an audience that hates
| crypto and wants to be told they're right.
|
| As a comparison, Vitalik wrote a great, even handed analysis:
|
| https://vitalik.ca/general/2023/07/24/biometric.html
| lolinder wrote:
| Can you provide a better critique than a single-word dismissal
| ("sloppy")? Molly is a crypto skeptic, but that fact alone
| doesn't make her analysis sloppy. If you have some insights
| into where she's wrong, please do share.
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| Lots of good analysis here, with the main flaw (imho) coming in
| last*. The WC team may be book smart, but not experienced or
| wise, especially in building complex systems with high integrity
| and assurance. They cut too many corners, take too many
| intellectual shortcuts, assume away too many hard problems,
| minimize important constraints inherent in their chosen
| architecture, and clearly haven't really thought it all through.
| Wishful thinking is no substitute for sound engineering. All red
| flags of a project doomed to fail.
|
| * _> A black market for Worldcoin accounts has already emerged
| [1] in Cambodia, Nigeria, and elsewhere, where people are being
| paid to sign up for a World ID and then transfer ownership to
| buyers elsewhere -- many of whom are in China, where Worldcoin is
| restricted. There is no ongoing verification process to ensure
| that a World ID continues to belong to the person who signed up
| for it, and no way for the eyeball-haver to recover an account
| that is under another person's control. Worldcoin acknowledges
| that they have no clue how to resolve the issue: "Innovative
| ideas in mechanism design and the attribution of social
| relationships will be necessary." The lack of ongoing
| verification also means that there is no mechanism by which
| people can be removed from the program once they pass away, but
| perhaps Worldcoin will add survivors' benefits to its list of use
| cases and call that a feature.
|
| Relatively speaking, scanning your iris and selling the account
| is fairly benign. But depending on the popularity of Worldcoin,
| the eventual price of WLD, and the types of things a World ID can
| be used to accomplish, the incentives to gain access to others'
| accounts could become severe. Coercion at the individual or state
| level is absolutely within the realm of possibility, and could
| become dangerous._
|
| [1]:https://web3isgoinggreat.com/?id=sam-altmans-worldcoin-
| proje...
| yourabstraction wrote:
| I can't imagine how naive you have to be to not see account
| selling as a massive problem. Especially when your plan is to
| first onboard users in poor countries. Why would these people
| do anything other than signup and immediately sell their
| accounts, for what may amount to a month or two of normal pay,
| just for waiting in line and getting scanned. I find it crazy
| that they claimed their system is Sybil resistant when it had
| this most obvious flaw. Maybe they don't really give a crap and
| just wanted to collect that sweet sweet VC money.
| panarky wrote:
| _> sweet sweet VC money_
|
| Sure, yeah, maybe that's all it is, a scam that's totally
| transparent and obvious to every random internet commenter
| but totally non-obvious to the simple and gullible marks on
| Sand Hill Road.
|
| Or maybe, just possibly, there might be more to it.
|
| Perhaps it takes a little more effort to understand than just
| piling on to the reflexive groupthink cynicism which passes
| for conventional wisdom around here.
|
| (Disclaimer: I have no association with this project, haven't
| gotten my irises scanned, don't own the token, haven't
| invested any effort to understand it. But I've been around
| long enough to recognize the smell of reflexive groupthink
| cynicism, and to profit by betting against it.)
| yourabstraction wrote:
| I'm not saying it's a scam, just that it seems their system
| isn't really Sybil resistant due to the issue of account
| selling. And if that's the case they either didn't think
| this would be an issue, or they expected it but don't
| really care, and the claim of Sybil resistance is just
| marketing. Is this wrong in some way you'd like to explain?
| panarky wrote:
| I can't explain anything about this project because I
| haven't invested the effort to understand it.
|
| Maybe I'll spend the 20 minutes to read the 5000 words in
| Molly White's article, and then another couple hours to
| read the whitepaper, then another who knows how many
| hours researching the claims and counterclaims to make my
| own judgment.
|
| But probably I'll never do any of those things, and I'll
| still have high confidence that the project probably
| isn't simply a scam for sweet, sweet VC money, or
| unimaginably naive, or full of fatal flaws that every
| rando can identify instantly.
|
| Because in the past, when anonymous internet commenters
| are of one mind that a new thing is a scam or fatally
| flawed, while the team behind the new thing are highly
| capable, with good reputations for not being scammers or
| unimaginably naive, usually the anonymous internet
| commenters don't understand what's really happening.
|
| And then I'll ctrl-f the whitepaper to search for 'sybil'
| and discover that the arguments in this thread are
| already discussed in the whitepaper, which gives me even
| more confidence that the hivemind conclusions of
| scamminess or naivete are most likely uninformed.
| yourabstraction wrote:
| Once again, I never claimed this was a scam. I'm simply
| pointing out that the system has an inherent flaw
| regarding account selling, which makes it not sybil
| resistant, as claimed by the founders. I usually give
| projects the benefit of the doubt, but I've never heard
| Sam or the other founder talk about this major issue with
| their system design.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > Sure, yeah, maybe that's all it is, a scam that's totally
| transparent and obvious to every random internet commenter
| but totally non-obvious to the simple and gullible marks on
| Sand Hill Road.
|
| You write this like it's an absurd notion, but we've
| already been through Juicero, WeWork, Theranos, Nikola, and
| FTX among others.
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| _> but totally non-obvious to the simple and gullible marks
| on Sand Hill Road_
|
| You mean the ones who also invested in Theranos, WeWork,
| and FTX? They don't always make the wisest investment
| decisions. They're not complete idiots, but they're
| sucsceptible to same biases and misjudgements as the rest
| of us. And I'm sure they're aware of some or all of WC's
| flaws, and are just investing b/c Sam Altman, or because
| they invested back in the 2018-2021 crypto bubble. There's
| also some time pressure, they've gotta put that money
| somewhere within a year (standard VC LP contract), or give
| it back.
|
| _> Perhaps it takes a little more effort to understand
| than just piling on to the reflexive groupthink cynicism
| which passes for conventional wisdom around here._
|
| Molly already put extensive effort into just that in the
| OP, as did several other folks she references and links to.
| If you have any critiques of her critiques and why she may
| be wrong, love to hear it. But without that, it's not her
| or us that's being reflexive here.
| snapey wrote:
| If AI becomes sophisticated enough to take our jobs, then it
| should be capable of creating a system that solves UBI at scale.
| kgeist wrote:
| >there is no "password reset" when it comes to iris data
|
| This is the most critical part, I think. If my Iris scan is
| leaked (which is not hard to do, from modified Orbs, similar to
| credit card skimmers, to mobsters scanning people's irises under
| threat of death), my identity will be stolen and I can't do
| anything about it. Do they have at least some sort of 2FA?
| wmf wrote:
| I think their plan is that if you re-scan your eyes the system
| revokes any previous (sold/stolen) identities associated with
| your eyes and issues you a new one, like a password reset
| process. This doesn't help if someone can use a leaked hash to
| trigger the reset process though.
| treyd wrote:
| Is there any reasonable way to make this work that doesn't
| involve the company keeping plaintext copies of Iris scans
| and/or retaining the ability to arbitrarily reset account
| keys on the ledger (such that users have to trust them to
| behave honestly)? What happens if a modified Orb is used to
| dumo the scans and then later trigger a fake reset?
| 93po wrote:
| Modified orbs won't be able to add iris scans
| hef19898 wrote:
| They didn't have it neither in Demolotion Man, and it worked
| _great_!
| 93po wrote:
| It's exhausting refuting everyone's misconceptions. I will simply
| say that most people, which probably includes you, don't
| understand the entirety of how this project works and you
| therefore make assumptions that are incorrect.
|
| It doesn't store biometric data. It doesn't store any information
| that is useful to anyone for any purpose. The _only_ thing it can
| do is tell if your iris has been scanned before. That 's it. It
| can't reproduce what your iris looks like and can't sell any
| useful data about it to anyone.
|
| It does in fact allow online activity with privacy and while
| remaining anonymous. There is no way to link accounts between
| sites unless you do so yourself.
|
| Yes, people will sell accounts. This is fine because it still
| solves the problem of people being able to make infinite accounts
| online at present. It still creates a barrier of entry for spam
| where there currently is often very little or none. Inauthentic
| behavior online will continue but not at the rampant pace it
| currently has.
|
| There's lots more I could say but I'm not going to change minds
| that aren't open to rational discussion and instead engage in the
| perpetual outrage machine that is social media and corporate
| news. If you have genuine curious questions that aren't easily
| answered by their website, feel free to ask and I will answer as
| best I can.
|
| I have no affiliation other than I'm working on a personal
| project with their API.
| voz_ wrote:
| Death to crypto, let it end already.
| blackle wrote:
| If you're trying to build a world where a person's iris is their
| unique proof of personhood, then you are building a world where
| people without eyes are not people. I cannot see a way around
| this.
| antigonemerlin wrote:
| Add it onto the list of "falsehoods programmers believe in".
|
| https://github.com/kdeldycke/awesome-falsehood
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