[qznc]

Identity is still a huge open problem. There are blockchain projects who promise to solve it (Civic is probably the most popular).

I do not believe a blockchain will solve it. The core problem is that you need a network of trust. Currently, we have governments as trust masternodes via identity cards. Then there are secondary master nodes companies like Facebook, Google, Telekom, Vodafone, etc, where verification is easier and faster, but less reliable. How does a blockchain improve anything about it?

Here is the challenge: There is a kid born in rural Africa. How could you proof to someone with a smartphone in the US that this human being exists?

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

> Here is the challenge: There is a kid born in rural Africa. How could you proof to someone with a smartphone in the US that this human being exists?

Better question: What would you even need that proof for?

[TeMPOraL]

So that the other side knows they're talking with (and maybe talking about, or sending resources to) a real human being who actually is a rural African kid, and not with a server farm of some sleazy US advertiser who autogenerated a fake profile.

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

Now, that is mixing up a whole lot of different problems, isn't it?

First of all, "proving that this human being exists" in no way implies "proving that this human being is a kid in rural africa". Let alone "proving that this human being is a kid in rural africa who lacks resources". Now, those absolutely might be legitimate concerns in some scenarios--but how would that be a baseline requirement for a system for social interactions? Last I checked I don't need to bring a credit report to get into a local pub and chat with people either.

Secondly, if you assume a situation where those questions actually were relevant: How is trusting one centralized, not democratically controlled institution to take care of the problem even a solution? If you rely on them, you implicitly also give them the power to effectively declare real people non-existent. If facebook says "this is not a real human being", is that actually reliable information, or could it just be a case of them optimizing their business with the (possibly unintended) side effect of cutting this rural african kid off from resources by incorrectly labeling them "not a human"?

[TeMPOraL]

> Last I checked I don't need to bring a credit report to get into a local pub and chat with people either.

But you see those people, with your own eyes, and thus know they exist. Maybe in 50 years we'll have robots indistinguishable from humans, and the question of proof will become relevant for in-pub interactions. For now, the question is relevant only for long-distance communications.

> How is trusting one centralized, not democratically controlled institution to take care of the problem even a solution? If you rely on them, you implicitly also give them the power to effectively declare real people non-existent.

True. But so is the case with a democratic government, and so is the case with any other organization or system. And the power to declare people non-existent is exercised frequently, often by mere bureaucratic accident. Ultimately, trust is a spectrum. No organization is worth 100% trust, but also no one is worth 0% trust. I don't e.g. particularly trust Facebook, but I trust the social web - if I have a friend who has a friend who has a friend who is a friend of the rural kid in Africa, I can with high confidence assume the rural kid in Africa exists[0].

So yeah, in my previous comment I mixed up a few different use cases. But I think in pretty much all of them you want to at least know the other person is a human being, and frequently you also want to know they are who they say they are.

--

[0] - This effect is actually sabotaged by the pro-privacy efforts to hide as much information about people as possible, rendering users unable to follow the social web chains beyond their own direct connections. Privacy is important, but it's always a trade-off, sometimes trading off genuinely useful things.

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

> But you see those people, with your own eyes, and thus know they exist.

But I still don't see their credit report. I could still fall for someone fraudulently claiming to be poor.

> I don't e.g. particularly trust Facebook, but I trust the social web - if I have a friend who has a friend who has a friend who is a friend of the rural kid in Africa, I can with high confidence assume the rural kid in Africa exists[0].

Well, first of all, if you receive that information from facebook, then you necessarily need to trust facebook first before you can even start with that investigation.

But also: Do you trust facebook to not misrepresent the non-existence of that rural kid in Africa? Is that trust warranted?

> But I think in pretty much all of them you want to at least know the other person is a human being, and frequently you also want to know they are who they say they are.

You don't really expect to accidentally become friends with a bot quite yet, do you? Just because it's difficult for machines sometimes to detect bots, doesn't mean that is really a major problem for closer social connections. Also, what does "know they are who they say they are" even mean? You say you are TeMPOraL, and I am pretty sure you are TeMPOraL, what more is there to "know you are who you say you are" that could be improved by "identity checks" on the part of a "social network"?

> This effect is actually sabotaged by the pro-privacy efforts to hide as much information about people as possible, rendering users unable to follow the social web chains beyond their own direct connections. Privacy is important, but it's always a trade-off, sometimes trading off genuinely useful things.

Which is why every privacy advocate is for individual control. Privacy is not about forcing you to be paranoid, but about giving you the control over your data. There is nothing wrong with you being able to prove your identity to a peer that you want to prove your identity to, say. The problem is when you are forced to prove your identity no matter the need for the actual social interaction.l

[tyywebb]

The problem of figuring out whether someone is the real person or an imposter (problem of identity) is a completely different problem from verifying a person's circumstances.