| > It's a required ID to use the internet, monitored by governments, tracked by corporations, and forever unchanging. There are clearly two opposing requirements. One for anonymity, where people who need to be anonymous can create an identity that is verifiably the same person each time, but not a specific, identifiable, individual. The classic example is journalistic sources. One for trust and verification, where the identity needs to be absolutely, permanently, associated with a specific individual. Online banking is the classic example here. I don't think the same system can be used for both. - If we can create multiple identities without verifying the human each time, as you say "flux and churn", then the second requirement is broken - there is no link between the identity and a verifiable person so the identity can't be trusted. - If we can't create multiple identities without verifying the human each time, then the first requirement is broken - every identity can be associated with a specific human and there's no anonymity. We could try some hybrid system where some identities are known people, and others are pseudonymns. But that feels like two systems wedged into the same box. The hard problems of absolutely correctly identifying a human so the second system works is still not solved, and irrelevant to the first system. You are absolutely correct that the system that identifies individuals is incredibly attractive for states and large corporations, and so incredibly dangerous for actual humans. We need to be very, very, careful with this. |