Hacker News Reader

Comment by stateofinquiry | Hacker News Reader

Thank you for sharing this.

I understand, and even agree, that how this is being handled has some pretty creepy aspects. But one thing missing from the comments I see here and elsewhere is: How else should verification be handled? We have a real problem with AI/bots online these days, trust will be at a premium. How can we try to assure it? I can think of one way: Everyone must pay to be a member (there will still be fraud, but it will cost!). How else can we verify with a better set of tradeoffs?

There is some info from Persona CEO on (of course) LinkedIn, in response to a post from security researcher Brian Krebs: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bkrebs_if-you-are-thinking-ab... . I note he's not verified, but he does pay for the service.

View on HN

> How else should verification be handled?

Many European countries have secure electronic identifications that are trusted by the government, banks etc.

Linkedin could easily use this to verify the identities.

Example of services where you can verify the identity with 35 different providers using a single API:

https://www.signicat.com/products/identity-proofing/eid-hub or https://www.scrive.com/products/eid-hub

I doubt it would take more than a sprint to integrate with this or other services.

How about everyone gets a digital certification from their own government that this is the person named this and that. No need to share cranial measurements and iris scans.

Well, different trade offs there. On the plus side, sounds pretty simple. On the other hand...

Digital certification from the gov sounds a lot like "digital ID", which has run into considerable resistance in the UK and EU in just the last few months. As a general observation I find most EU citizens I interact with much more trusting of government than ... well, any other group of folks I have interacted with (I have the privilege of having lived and worked in S. America, N. America, sub Saharan Africa and now an EU country). If it does not fly well here, I don't think its general solution that most people would be comfortable with.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2025/10/09/britcard-uk-di...

Having lived in borh the UK and Poland I was very surprised (given history) to find how comfortable, in comparison, Poles are with ID requirements, tax ID to join gyms and football clubs compared to the UK whicb still resists mandatory ID. There does seem to be a UK EU divide here

> How else should verification be handled?

There should be no verification. The idea of a single platform where every worker is listed, identified, and connected to other people he/she knows IRL is scary. It shouldn't exist.

zero knowledge proofs, with services such as https://zkpassport.id/ (i am not affiliated)

He (Rick Song, Persona CEO) is verified:

   > Identity
   > 
   > Verified using government ID in March 2025

Not that I would necessarily trust a verification badge for someone who controls the company with the responsibility for generating verification badges.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com