Worldcoin hit with temporary ban in Spain over privacy concerns

I was chatting with a few Chinese crypto people the other day, and the general consensus in that community seems to be that Worldcoin basically operates as an ATM for Sam Altman.

He undoubtedly owns a considerable amount, and it doesn't matter if it's a long term successful so long in the near term it has a multiplying impact on his OpenAI work. If you look at the 1 year change in WLD you see that he's likely made a pretty sum from it already, especially since whatever amount of WLD he own was acquired at effectively zero cost[0].

The people I was chatting with shared a similar view to dogecoin and Musk. All either needs to do is drive up a little hype and in to time they have access to tremendous amounts of liquidity.

0. https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/worldcoin-org/

dorkwood2• 2 years ago

People got scared when they started scanning thousands of people's eyeballs in Africa. It didn't matter that Sam Altman had a good explanation for doing it. Because cryptocurrency is involved, it must be bad, right?

skullone2• 2 years ago

Lol what's this good explanation of scanning people's eyes?

dvngnt_• 2 years ago

i mean...

happypumpkin• 2 years ago

I think most people think its bad because of the eyeball scanning part, not the cryptocurrency part...

legohead• 2 years ago

Is cryptocurrency involved? Then yes.

Is blockchain technology involved? Then it's worth a look.

ravenstine2• 2 years ago

Well, in my case, that's certainly not my objection. I'm going to a Bitcoin conference this year, after all. Hah.

I have no interest in tying my ability to conduct transactions and hold wealth to an ID that is designed to be immutable. But that's just me. I also lack faith in any system founded on biometrics, as it's a technology that's implicitly sold as something that is nearly impossible to exploit, which I simply have no reason to believe.

If there are people out there who are turned away by cryptocurrency being involved, well, I can't say I entirely blame them. The nerdy advocates and developers of cryptocurrencies and the countless "gurus" have failed to adequately onboard the public or counter the bad PR from the media. When setting up a custodial cryptocurrency account takes more steps than signing up for a credit card, the fees are relatively high, and stories pile up of clueless people falling for scams involving cryptocurrency, as well as the barrage of FUD from folks who are usually ignorant, it's no wonder everyday people would run in the other direction as soon as "cryptocurrency" is mentioned.

sgift• 2 years ago

It's quite simple: If you want something which is a part of me - especially one that's uniquely identifying - you better are a) part of the state of my country and b) have a pretty good reason for it.

Neither of these two is fulfilled here, so yeah - it's bad.

Y_Y• 2 years ago

There are loads of stores in Spain offering to "create art" of your iris by taking a high-res scan and blowing it up to make a canvas print. They sprang up overnight a while back and as far as I know aren't fooling anyone.

emptysongglass• 2 years ago

Same in Copenhagen. I was wondering how in the world they were making money.

bryanlarsen• 2 years ago

I'm surprised that an HN reader hasn't heard of WorldCoin given how much Altman has been on HN recently. Prior to today you were a lucky person not to have heard of it. We need a corollary to https://xkcd.com/1053/ that celebrates blissful ignorance.

secondcoming• 2 years ago

To be honest, I tend to gloss over anything ending with 'Coin'.

zombiwoof• 2 years ago

it's sam altmans version of a chip in your brain

belter• 2 years ago

You can't even say kiss my a#%ss or he will run and scan it...

_fat_santa2• 2 years ago

I'm convinced Worldcoin is just a massive biometric data gathering operation with a "we have a coin to save the world" being the cover story.

Altman (for some reason) needs a ton of biometric data, so go around the world and especially to poorer places, offer folks funny money in exchange for their biometrics and run off.

Set aside the moral and ethical questions and it's quite frankly a very good way to get your hands on this type of data.

chihuahua• 2 years ago

Step 1: Record biometrics from millions of poor people. Step 2: ??? Step 3: Profit.

It's a bit like the outlandish COVID vaccine conspiracy theories: Step 1: Vaccinate people and deploy 5G wireless networks. Step 2: ??? Step 3: Total power over people; world domination.

_fat_santa2• 2 years ago

Total speculation but it could be used as training data for GPT5 or whatever they are doing at OpenAI. I could totally see a scenario where they would want to train an AI on biometrics data and then sell that to the govt.

rurp• 2 years ago

Well for one thing a database of biometric records gives you an immutable way to impersonate those people on any other platform that relies on the same biometrics.

But that's kind of beside the point. I wouldn't be at all confident that you or I thinking about this problem for a few minutes are going to uncover every possible abuse vector that a motivated nefarious actor will in the future.

Collecting this kind of private data for no clear benefit looks sketchy as hell.

reducesuffering4• 2 years ago

HN has become quite kneejerk-cynic, but let me explain what Worldcoin is supposed to solve in Sam Altman's eyes.

#1: AGI is coming soon.

#1.a: Because of #1, there will be a flood of unverifiable bot activity on the internet, easily outnumbering real human interaction by 100x+. The only way to identify other humans is some sort of biometric verification process.

#1.b: Because of #1, the vast majority of people will become an economic net-negative. They can't outproduce an easily replicable AGI more than they consume. Thus we need a Universal Basic Income (without the messy fraud) and a way to evenly distribute it, so that people can still enjoy a decent quality of life.

Sama has written about these concerns on his blog about a decade ago. Or just believe it's "because money $"

JohnFen5• 2 years ago

What I don't understand from Altman's point of view is that if AGI will bring such a disaster that we need to subject ourselves to yet another Bad Thing along the lines of WC, then why in the world is he trying so hard to make sure his dystopian worldview actually happens?

JumpCrisscross• 2 years ago

Let’s be honest, Sam wanted an ATM of other peoples’ money and built one. If your name isn’t Sam Altman and you’re participating in Worldcoin, you’re an idiot.

jcranmer3• 2 years ago

#1.a: Because of #1, there will be a flood of unverifiable bot activity on the internet, easily outnumbering real human interaction by 100x+. The only way to identify other humans is some sort of biometric verification process.

The intrinsic problem is that over the internet, you're basically getting an "id=<hash of biometric data>" field, and how do you know that biometric data actually came from a scanner rather than a hacker who stole the master biometric database? This is the intrinsic problem with any e-verification: there is no way to distinguish between a human initiated something on their computer and a program on the computer imitated a human initiated something on their computer, and if you have a problem that requires you to distinguish the two, well, you're out of luck.

jakelazaroff• 2 years ago

I hate hearing these things described passively. AGI isn't "coming soon". It's not a storm or a season or a comet. People — specifically Sam Altman! — are building it. So when those same people say "hey, here's a solution to a problem that AGI will cause that also happens to make me a lot of money", we're right to be skeptical.

suoduandao3• 2 years ago

what prevents anyone with a sufficiently large dataset from using AI to create fake iris prints that can't be distinguished from the real thing?

ecoquant• 2 years ago

Totally agree. There is no conspiracy.

Of course, 20 years from now if this is actually true well then we HAD to sell the biometric data at some point because a project of this size needs the funding.

We really had no choice in the matter at Worldcoin. We didn't want to sell the biometric data but we couldn't see any other way to get to UBI.

ShamelessC• 2 years ago

Thus we need a Universal Basic Income (without the messy fraud)

Is this depiction of basic income as (inherently) fraudulent yours? Or Altman’s?

wkat42429• 2 years ago

#1.a: Because of #1, there will be a flood of unverifiable bot activity on the internet, easily outnumbering real human interaction by 100x+. The only way to identify other humans is some sort of biometric verification process.

This AGI is supposed to be super intelligent right?

I wonder if it can figure out 'Nice browsing history you have there Pete, would be a shame if your wife saw it. Now scan your eye for me please'.

I don't think this will help anything against a real AGI.

int_19h3• 2 years ago

At this point, given what happened to OpenAI, why would you believe anything Sam Altman ever said or wrote?

nosmokewhereiam• 2 years ago

Any security to protect someone from just stealing your eye in a parking lot...? One or two of these events on the news would quickly sink this.

pelagicAustral• 2 years ago

What a grim attack vector

hef19898• 2 years ago

There is this scene in demolition man...

justinclift5• 2 years ago

It's a common movie trope now whenever biometric security is involved.

"Lets just take their <eye/finger/hand/head> with us to get into the <base/facility/lab>".

fnoof• 2 years ago

The scanner uses some neural nets and an IR camera to see if everything around the iris checks out. So you can’t (easily at least) scan some disembodied eyes, or your dog’s eyes.

tim33314• 2 years ago

It wouldn't work very well with Worldcoin. They were not accepting detached eyeballs when I went.

captn3m0• 2 years ago

Iris scans were being traded already: https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/single/sam-altmans-worldcoi...

And I speculated on the possibility of Iris generation a while ago, the research is fairly solid - you just need to fool the device into thinking it’s scanning a human eye instead of a display.

AndrewStephens2• 2 years ago

Worldcoin is one of the dumbest "this is technically possible so why not" ideas to be floated in the last few years, standing out even in the field of stupid cryptocurrency adjacent endeavors.

I still haven't really figured out why they want to scan eyeballs. Biometrics might be part of a secure solution to account access but I would hate to lose access to my account because I got in a accident and lost an eye.

I do not believe the conspiracy theories about gathering biometric data, if only because what would be the point? But the stated reasons are so silly that it is easy to believe in an ulterior motive.

diggan4• 2 years ago

I think the point is "Proof of Personhood/Humanity/Individual".

There is a huge problem in the cryptocurrency space where you don't know if 10 accounts belong to 10 individuals, or one individual. So a bunch of projects are trying to figure out a solution to this, to prevent sybil attacks.

Gitcoin Passport is one of those solutions, where you can connect various accounts to a "Passport", which you can then hand over to services who can see you have a certain score, but not exactly what that Passport is connected to, so you still preserve your privacy.

I think Worldcoin is another attempt at this, with the idea that the iris scans they do are unique in the world. So basically like a normal cryptocurrency wallet, except these ones also have a ID/hash or something that indicates their "iris value" or something.

Then Worldcoin can guarantee/prove that one individual only has one wallet.

At least that's my understand of it, happy to be corrected.

(Guess I should add that I personally don't use or support Worldcoin at all, but I have read about it a couple of times at this point)

AndrewStephens2• 2 years ago

That is my superficial understanding as well but if we are both correct, what is the point?

One of the only (dubious) advantages of crypto is that nothing ties a wallet to a person, or a wallet to another wallet unless they interact. How is WorldCoin better than just having a bank account that you have to go into a bank in person to set up?

shkkmo• 2 years ago

Then Worldcoin can guarantee/prove that one individual only has one wallet.

Which only works if you have somehow created a completely secure method proving the provenance of iris scan data. Given the intent is to lock a bunch of money behind this, I highly doubt that this is remotely possible.

If worldcoin has real value, someone will find a way to obtain and replay iris scans to make money.

Biometrics is simply not a good security mechanism.

FloorEgg2• 2 years ago

If you wanted to create a user authentication system that could reliably differentiate between humans and AI, how would you do it?

Not trying to defend worldcoin. It's just that this problem of differentiating people and AI online matters a lot to me and I haven't thought of a reliable way yet, even theoretically.

marviel• 2 years ago

this is the real technical issue that will define the decade

ourmandave• 2 years ago

...differentiate between humans and AI, how would you do it?

Make everybody play Where's Waldo? with a grid of 9 blurry pics.

Except sometimes Waldo is a bus, bridge, or traffic light.

JohnFen5• 2 years ago

If you wanted to create a user authentication system that could reliably differentiate between humans and AI, how would you do it?

I don't think that there is a way to do this without an unacceptable level of sacrifice in terms of privacy/security. I hope my opinion is very wrong, but so far I haven't seen any sign that it is.

mminer2373• 2 years ago

You can come close with requiring a phone number. If you need to know someone is a human with one account, you have to make them provide an ID. Usually you don't really need to do that.

justinclift5• 2 years ago

I still haven't really figured out why they want to scan eyeballs.

If you want to generate fake humans, having a shit load of real raw biometric data at hand is probably going to be useful.

tim33314• 2 years ago

They basically just give you a crypto wallet with some coins in. The eye scan is only done at the start to stop people picking up multiple wallets. After you have it access is not done by eye ball, it's done using a private key like any other crypto wallet.

namaria2• 2 years ago

There's a race for corporations to own identity management. If the government has to ask a private entity to confirm who people are, we will be effectively living in under that private entity's discretion.

Offended the wrong person? Stood in the way of their plans? Black box back room deals get you a criminal record with arrest warrant. It doesn't even matter then if they are tied to your real identity. The government asks the private identity provider who you are at say an airport border control and private entity says: oh they're this fugitive, arrest on sight. Then what?

fsflover• 2 years ago

Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39617745

ChrisArchitect• 2 years ago

[dupe]

diggan4• 2 years ago

As far as I understand the original source (https://www.aepd.es/prensa-y-comunicacion/notas-de-prensa/la...), Worldcoin has:

- Not provided enough information about how the data is stored/used

- Collected data from minors

- Not offered individuals to withdraw their consent

So the data protection agency of Spain is temporary halting any data processing/transfers, in order to protect people from the unlawful collection.

Is this the first time "Urgency procedure"/Article 66 (https://gdpr-info.eu/art-66-gdpr/) of the GDPR is being used in the wild?

jt21902• 2 years ago

It’ll also be interesting to see how these privacy regulations interact with “Proof of Humanity” (POH) schemes in the long run. For example, if POH becomes a fundamental security precaution to do financial transactions [1] would you be opting out of most of the modern economy?

Edit: If my memory is correct, Worldcoin claims to have a “key” that was generated using your retina, but the key is not associated with your identity. You can then present the key to a third party who can verify with Worldcoin that you are human, but not a specific person.

[1] Imagine a bot that could impersonate you and drain your bank account, for example.

vosper• 2 years ago

Worldcoin is still a thing? Does anyone care about it? I figured at this point it was just another failed cryptocurrency venture.

tim33314• 2 years ago

The coins are doing ok - up about 4x from the start. Signing up the world population is stuggling a bit though.

rantee• 2 years ago

It’s beyond laughable that the company didn’t better address these concerns beyond performative press releases without the need for regulatory intervention before rolling out in any jurisdiction, let alone the EU. Whatever one’s opinion on the privacy implications, it’s a simply embarassing business* move given the number of countries with data protection legislation (and/or active regulators).

* or whatever motive one wishes to ascribe to the mix of for- and non-profit entities involved in muddying the waters OpenAI-style

ribosometronome• 2 years ago

Sam Altman does link OpenAI and WorldCoin.

ffpip• 2 years ago

Product named Worldcoin
banned in a country

bagels• 2 years ago

How much traction does this creepy project have?

CatWChainsaw• 2 years ago

Any traction is too much.

wkat42429• 2 years ago

A lot. There were serious queues here in Spain, especially in the beginning.

tim33314• 2 years ago

4 million people I think. More than zero, a lot less than the world population. Also so far most users are there for the free money, not for using it for ID or a payment system, myself included mostly. Actually I also signed up to a large extent out or curiosity. I know HN hates it but it actually seems quite an interesting experiment.

seanhunter2• 2 years ago

This is interesting to me.

On the one hand "Proof of humanity" is an important problem and is surely only going to get more important as time passes. Bots are already better than humans at solving captchas.[1]

On the other hand I cannot conceive of giving someone my biometric data so they can mint some blockchain thing from it, and although I admit I wasn't interested enough to look into it beyond reading a couple of articles, I really don't see how this specific solution makes the situation better. Eg how do they know someone hasn't pwned me and then hijacked my special proof of humanity token to using it for their bots to "prove humanity"?

[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.12108

dsco• 2 years ago

They don't, but it's harder to kidnap someone and use their eye, as opposed to steal some other piece of identification. If you would turn it around and imagine a world without paper passports and government issued id's - what would you use as unique identifier for a person?

pjmorris• 2 years ago

If you would turn it around and imagine a world without paper passports and government issued id's - what would you use as unique identifier for a person?

I'm not sure... but I'm also convinced that 'private corporation issued id' isn't fundamentally superior to 'government issued id' and has some challenges in terms of accountability.

melenaboija• 2 years ago

Being pwned does not solely mean having access to your eye in this case, also why should I trust a corporation more than a government?

itishappy• 2 years ago

it's harder to kidnap someone and use their eye, as opposed to steal some other piece of identification

Is it? I use my eyes a helluva lot more than I use my government issued SSN. In fact, I've only taken my physical SSN card out of storage once, but I stare at random (potentially camera equipped) stuff all day. Of course you can still steal it from me by pretending to ask for ID, but that's true of my eye-print as well.

DANmode• 2 years ago

Pubic key of their choosing.

isthatafact• 2 years ago

I wonder if an eyeball scan is really proof of humanity.

This may be a dumb question, buy why could someone not simply create an AI-generated iris image and fool the orb into thinking that is a unique human?

algorias2• 2 years ago

First of all, it's very hard to make a printout that looks like the real thing to a camera. Images stored on a computer capture a lossy representation of what the camera actually "saw".

Secondly, I believe that the protocol is based around the idea that the operator is trusted, i.e., they won't allow such uses of the orb. If an operator isn't trustworthy, I guess there needs to be a way to revoke the validity of all their scans.

tim33314• 2 years ago

They have human operators too to help you stop using AI-generated photos, or your pet cat, or your kids - there's an age limit.

The main purpose of the scan it to check for uniqueness so you can't keep going up and get 50 accounts.

dangirsh2• 2 years ago

Preventing such attacks is one of the main reasons why custom hardware is required. For more info, search for "spoof" in this section of the whitepaper:

https://whitepaper.worldcoin.org/technical-implementation#wh...

jiveturkey• 2 years ago

In fact, this is commonly done. There's an entire trade around having people scan their iris and you (the buyer of their biometric) keep the resultant token. I think what I read was around the more rural areas in Africa. I'm not referring to the "official" practice by World Coin themselves where people are recruited to scan (in Africa metro areas) and the participant actually get the tokens. There's also this underground trade in iris scans.

sangnoir4• 2 years ago

On the one hand "Proof of humanity" is an important problem and is surely only going to get more important as time passes

Governments have been doing this for centuries (see passports, identity documents, birth and death certificates). Witnessing attempts by private entities repeated attempts to "solve" this problem and make a profit has shown me the limitations of free markets. Despite the complexity and sophistication of the implementation, it boils down to a record that's looked up by a trusted entity who attests the validity of the subjects identity, or not.

yreg4• 2 years ago

I don't like WorldCoin, but I don't like sending internet services my passport and birth certificate to prove to them that I am human either.

The actual problem - which is waiting for a solution - is undeniable. (This isn't often the case with cryptocurrency projects.)

fodmap2• 2 years ago

This is the original announcement by the AEPD, the Spanish Data Protection Authority.

https://www.aepd.es/en/press-and-communication/press-release...

Rygian• 2 years ago

I wonder why the ban hasn't become EU-wide right afterwards.

fodmap2• 2 years ago

That's a good question. I've waited a few days to reply to you, hoping that the EU would make a move.

The only news afaik is that Worldcoin failed to get injunction against Spain’s privacy suspension https://techcrunch.com/2024/03/11/worldcoin-fails-to-get-inj...

nerdjon• 2 years ago

So I somehow completely missed that this was ever a thing.

But let me get this straight. Sam is the CEO of OpenAI. Basically the company that is making it harder and harder to know what was made by a human or a machine.

Out of concern over that, makes Worldcoin as some authentication method? So the problem he helped Shepard in, he has another company that he could make money on to fix said problem?

Am I missing something here or is this... super shady sounding?

That's before getting into the whole scanning our eyes for a few bucks thing.

justinclift5• 2 years ago

is this... super shady sounding?

A lot of people have been trying to point that out for ages, without any real traction.

benzible• 2 years ago

It gets worse... https://www.wired.com/story/sam-altman-orb-worldcoin-tools-f...

benreesman• 2 years ago

It’s literally a plot point of countless dystopian books and movies.

Either of OpenAI or WorldCoin would be a terrifying nightmare even without Altman and OpenPhilanthropy and the SEC investigation and what-the-hell-ever scared Ilya so bad he 180’d from a single phone call and Yud whipping the public and Congress into a frenzy talking about Terminator in two years.

I don’t care how badly someone wants to be accepted into YC or whatever: this is the wrong side of history.

“We are below them, we are above them, we are around them, we run through everything they do.” - Satya Nadella, Eyes Wide Shut

BtTower• 2 years ago

Where can I read more about this phonecall Ilya had?

xwolfi2• 2 years ago

It's also completely silly: it's marketing for me. OFC OpenAI will not reach AGI, and ChatGPT doesnt ressemble humans as soon as in interactive mode: there is little danger beyond freeing poor copy writers from their miserable torpeur.

But make another company defending against an insane danger from the first and people start dreaming.

1vuio0pswjnm7• 2 years ago

Not clear if it's intentional or result of incompetence but this is a pattern with so-called "tech" companies: create a problem and then propose commercialised "solutions". Of course the most logical, economical solution is for the so-called "tech" company to stop doing what they doing that creates the problem.

AlchemistCamp• 2 years ago

So the problem he helped Shepard in, he has another company that he could make money on to fix said problem?
Am I missing something here or is this... super shady sounding?

It sounds like inventing the ship and also tools to avoid shipwrecks. I don't think there's inherently anything shady about the pattern.

danlugo92• 2 years ago

I don't think it's shady given we have competition.

prof-dr-ir• 2 years ago

Hah so at least Worldcoin no longer has to explain why nobody in Spain uses their product.

I am afraid that they may not have an equally compelling explanation for the same problem in the rest of the world.

wkat42429• 2 years ago

It wasn't nobody. People were lining up all the way outside of the mall. It's scary what people do for the price of a pair of cheap jeans.

vasco3• 2 years ago

If you had asked me how much money you'd have to pay someone for them to let you scan their eyeball, I have to say I would've said way more than €35 fake euros stuck in an app. If anything it's eye opening (eh) how little understanding there is of the personal risk people are taking on.

wnevets• 2 years ago

If you had asked me how much money you'd have to pay someone for them to let you scan their eyeball

People paid companies like 23andMe actual money for the privilege of mailing their DNA. Getting paid to let a company your eyeball sounds like an improvement.

lottin• 2 years ago

I think people pay these companies for providing them with information about their DNA, which is quite different.

jgalt212• 2 years ago

"There's a sucker born every minute" is a phrase closely associated with P. T. Barnum, an American showman of the mid-19th century, although there is no evidence that he actually said it. Early examples of its use are found among gamblers and confidence tricksters.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_a_sucker_born_every_...

tim33314• 2 years ago

I've done the scan. What personal risk do I have?

The money isn't stuck in the app by the way. I've taken out and changed to US$ about $100 and currently have $164 worth in the app and about $10 a week of coins coming in. Which is nice of them. Worldcoin is just another crypto coin like dogecoin or whatever.

vasco3• 2 years ago

Identity theft would be the first thing on most people's minds, particularly if iris scanning ever becomes more prevalent in the future and they get hacked or unintentionally leak your data, or impersonate you themselves.

MandieD• 2 years ago

People pay to get detailed photographs of their irises as "artwork", even in relatively privacy-conscious Germany.

Retr0id3• 2 years ago

Privacy aside, there's no way this can be done securely.

According to https://worldcoin.org/be-a-worldcoin-operator they'll gladly ship the iris scanning unit to untrusted 3rd party operators, in a similar vein to a bank shipping out PoS card terminals.

I'd love to have a play with one, it wouldn't surprise me if you could get it to mint fresh accounts out of thin air (e.g. by mitming the bus between the iris scanner and the rest of the unit, and making it report fresh unique scans)

hdevalence• 2 years ago

by mitming the bus between the iris scanner and the rest of the unit, and making it report fresh unique scans

Hmm, I wonder if the worldcoin team also thought of that possibility?

(Yes, they did, the iris processing is done inside a hardware enclave so that the obvious attack is not possible)

https://whitepaper.worldcoin.org/technical-implementation

I am broadly anti-Worldcoin but it is reasonably competently executed at a technical level. It would be good to understand what they actually did before declaring it to be impossible.

Retr0id3• 2 years ago

Hardware enclaves are never 100% impenetrable, it comes down to making the cost of attack greater than what an attacker expects to gain. Traditional card payment terminals use nominally secure hardware and yet struggle with that tradeoff to this day, and I'm not convinced WorldCoin will do any better.

The SoC they're using, the Jetson Xavier NX, is a cousin of the very thoroughly pwned (secure enclaves and all) TX1.

Further, they don't describe how the busses connecting the sensors to the SoC are encrypted and/or authenticated, which leads me to believe that they are not.

Intel gave up on shipping SGX in consumer devices because (imho) shipping secure enclaves directly to "adversaries" (the consumer being an adversary under the SGX threat model) proved too difficult to maintain.

algorias2• 2 years ago

I am broadly anti-Worldcoin but it is reasonably competently executed at a technical level. It would be good to understand what they actually did before declaring it to be impossible.

+1 to this. I'm very skeptical of the project (even though I know some of the people working on it), but the problem space is extremely hard and they're giving it an actual shot. If you can think of a potential problem in 5 minutes, I guarantee you that they've thought of it too.

epolanski2• 2 years ago

Can't I just bypass it with some contact lenses that distort the scan and make it unique?

tim33314• 2 years ago

I think they have to trust the orb operators a little bit.

aussieguy1234• 2 years ago

How easy is it to trick this iris scanner with a fake eye?

tim33314• 2 years ago

Hard. They have people looking at what you are up to and there is gadetry similar to the iphone face scanner that can tell a face from say a photo of a face.

gitgud• 2 years ago

There’s so many issues with biometrics:

- You can’t change them if they’re compromised

- They’re unreliable, they can change with age, depends on the environment that they’re measured in

- It’s not really “proof of humanity” just “proof of biology”

Worldcoin is an interesting attempt though

wkat42429• 2 years ago

Oh cool!

There was a whole load of these zombies lining up here in the local shopping centre to give Altman their irises.

They're free to do so of course but they're lowering the barrier for privacy significantly by presenting the world with the reality of a significant proportion of the population with their irises scanned. Thus it will be harder for us to keep our privacy just like privacy on internet is gone as a fait accompli. People are already using this as a debate argument against privacy: "Your privacy is already gone anyway so why do you care about this new issue?". That's how bad things have become.

The same way as that, having a significant portion of society do this, will mean I'll be unable to prove I'm not a bot without getting my own eyes scanned in the future.

tim33314• 2 years ago

I've done the zombie thing and it's less of a privacy issue than you might think. They don't need your name or contact details, though you can optionally give some.

wkat42429• 2 years ago

Your name is most likely a lot less unique than your iris is. They don't need it. Once more services start using iris scanning it can all be correlated. The issue is not now but for the future.

kouru225• 2 years ago

Do we really need to scan irises in order to do this? What we need is centralized media. If I want to post an image from CNN, I should be able to just to repost whatever CNN has already posted. That way we can retain CNNs digital signature on the post and my audience can check the signature and know it’s real.

We don’t need the irises. We just need brand loyalty.

sirsinsalot2• 2 years ago

The problem with big brained plays such as Altman's OpenAI and WC double bet is that they're plays created by people with such an ego and lack of compassion that they forget that ... humans will still be humans.

When all is said and done, none of this changes that. Humans will push back against non-human things ... with regulations and eventually violence.

This is why nations spend so much time hiding the non-human factors acting against them.

Will AI prevent me from feeling human feelings? No. To Altman and many others this seems like world changing stuff, but is it?

tim33314• 2 years ago

Worldcoin's postion is

“Our efforts to engage with the AEPD and provide them with an accurate view of Worldcoin and World ID have gone unanswered for months,” he added. (FT article)

Personally I go with the free market idea that if a company wants to provide a service and users want to take advantage of it, 4 million+ so far including myself, then governments provide limited value by blocking that unless they can show it's actually harming people.

regularjack• 2 years ago

What service exactly is WorldCoin providing to the "users" here?

tim33314• 2 years ago

There are three main things. An anonymous ID as proof of being a unique human, a payments system where you can send coins to other accounts, and free coins.

Worldcoin hit with temporary ban in Spain over privacy concerns

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