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Comment by TrapLord_Rhodo | Hacker News Reader

Why does everyone devolve into the same 'X entity is nefarious and they are trying to build a database to sell' or for x machine learning.

Thats not what this is about. It's about identity. How do you prove identity of a wallet and ensure that this is my only one? Say i want to do an airdrop but only to real people? This technology solves the identity problem in a secure way. It's just a hash of my retina data, proves this is my wallet and is based on unique retina data. Also with ZK Snarks, they don't know anything about that bio data.

But crypto is an adversarial network, so i don't see this solution working on it's own. I know biometric data is intrisically secure but is also intrincicly arbitrary. So, this data could be spoofed and will create this constant cat and mouse game where the parameters for verification are adjusted, creating centralization. But they are on the right path.

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> Why does everyone devolve into the same 'X entity is nefarious and they are trying to build a database to sell' or for x machine learning.

Because there's many recent examples of companies building databases to sell and a lot of companies are harvesting data for machine learning? I'm sorry if I'm coming across as glib or rude, but these aren't theoretical exploits. This company has apparently collected data on hundreds of thousands of people and raised millions of dollars; I don't think they deserve a ton of benefit of the doubt.

Edit: changed "long history" to "many recent examples"

I don't think you are sounding glib or rude. In fact, the person you replied to sounds naive to me. It's great to go through life only looking for the positives, but if you don't look out for how the thing can be gamed then it is pretty much guaranteed to be gamed.

Glad to hear it! My initial reaction was quite harsh and I guess I was afraid that would bleed into my comment.

"Why does everyone devolve into the same 'X entity is nefarious and they are trying to build a database to sell' or for x machine learning."

Because "building a database of biometric information in a nefarious manner" is exactly what they are doing.

"How do you prove identity of a wallet and ensure that this is my only one? Say i want to do an airdrop but only to real people? This technology solves the identity problem in a secure way. It's just a hash of my retina data, proves this is my wallet and is based on unique retina data. Also with ZK Snarks, they don't know anything about that bio data."

They are on the right path to build a database of biometric data. All the rest of this is handwaving and dreams.

They’re “devolving” because that’s exactly what the article says WorldCoin is doing:

> But the company still has not committed to a timeline, even though it has captured and stored almost a half million iris scans to train its algorithms.

> But they are on the right path.

The right path to what, exactly? Is there any remotely plausible sequence of events where this evolves into a positive contribution to the world rather than a way for a couple billionaires to role-play as, well, whatever they are role-playing here?

Having reliable personal identities would enable some interesting stuff, like inflation-funded basic income, reputations, and loans without collateral. But I don't really think having a central actor collect biometrics is a good or safe way to achieve it.

> and loans without collateral

Here's my US passport, a drivers license, a picture of my home, some tax records, and you can verify all of this beyond a reasonable doubt via the various credit reporting agencies. Now hand my my $100k please. Oh BTW I don't actually have any money in the bank and I have no income and etc so you're never going to see me again and good luck collecting anything.

> Having reliable personal identities would enable some interesting stuff, like inflation-funded basic income, reputations, and loans without collateral

In a way that, like, say passports, have never done?

Imagine a world where everyone on earth start with the same amount of coins, not based on how many gpu are mining for you or how early you are in the pyramidal game.

Will probably end up with some people holding most of the value anyway, but at least you start equally.

Something similar happened around the fall of the Soviet Union.

Yelstin gave every Russian citizen a certificate worth 10,000 rubbles to buy shares in state owned enterprises that were being privatized.

Those with ready cash bought the certificates from those without, and this led to the current oligopoly.

Imagine a world where everyone on Earth has their iris scans recorded by a Silicon Valley company in return for a voucher for a small amount of a cryptocoin that doesn't actually exist and may never have any value at all, much less its stated $20.

I see the appeal of this, but don't understand how anything like Worldcoin would be able to achieve that. People already have wealth accumulated in the real world, and there's no reason giving everyone an equal amount of a cryptocurrency would suddenly place everyone in an equal starting position.

> Will probably end up with some people holding most of the value anyway

Yes, exactly. It's an entirely pointless exercise because it doesn't take place in a vacuum. A "great reset" is pointless regardless of your particular aims because the world is the way it is for a reason.

OK I imagined it. Everyone in the world now has some number of digital “coins” tallied in some kind of system created by a bunch of Bohemian Grove type billionaires.

Now what?

I like playing around in the crypto space. I always have. Using ZK-Snarks with biodata allows you to verify, profit and protect your data. Instead of handing it to some entity to do god knows with. I give it to apple and their database isn't just a hash, it's full and open catalouging with all my other data taken from the the many sensors in the phone and products.

Worldcoin's vision is a positive contribution to my life and many people i know who also enjoy playing around in the crypto space. People are adults, let them be adults and make their own decisions. & stop bashing the crypto-autists like me who enjoy playing in the cryptoverse, for the only reason that it's wierd and different.

>I know biometric data is intrisically secure.

I work in security (at a crypto/web3 company!) and the opposite line of thought prevails in the field, most security experts argue that biometric data is fundamentally insecure especially for auth. A quick google search shows a lot of research backing that, from universities to major tech companies.

>Using ZK-Snarks with biodata allows you to verify, profit and protect your data. Instead of handing it to some entity to do god knows with.

How is this going to happen exactly? The requesting entity, like a doctor, asks for medical history. I use my retina to verify, and thanks to ZK-Snarks they have no knowledge of my retina data. How are they going to get the blood pressure readings? They need the data to analyze and understand. And what stops them from saving it in their own DB?

Similar with many of these web3 products. Think, uniswap or defisaver. Ok you can use ZK to auth, they have no idea what wallet address is connected. But as soon as you use it they know exactly who and what you transferred and traded, all stored in a DB.

"Worldcoin says it eventually wants to erase the iris images to protect the privacy of those who sign up for its currency. If perfected, the company says the technology will distill the image of each set of irises into a unique string of letters and numbers, called an iris-hash, to be stored in Worldcoin’s database. As the company’s data consent form states, data gathered by the Orb will be used for “purposes such as training of our neural network for the recognition of human irises.”"

Eventually. If perfected. "Will."

That doesn't change the fact that you will most likely be able to take someone's iris-hash and then associate their transaction history with that hash.

At least Bitcoin has pseudonymity.

>Why does everyone devolve into the same 'X entity is nefarious and they are trying to build a database to sell' or for x machine learning. Thats not what this is about. It's about identity.

Because all collected data is eventually sold. First you try to sell access to the data. If that doesn't work, then you sell the data itself.

No one wants this crypto/nft/web3 world except rent seekers.

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