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xinayderyesterday at 9:08 PM4 repliesview on HN

Can we stop normalizing being surveilled online and on our devices?

Saying something like "the problem is not hardware attestation, but that they don't use ZKP".

You are normalizing the new behavior. You shouldn't. It doesn't matter if they use ZKP or the latest, secure technology for hardware attestation. The issue is hardware attestation. It's the same with age ID. The issue is not that Age ID is prone to data leaks, the problem itself is called Age ID.


Replies

altairprimetoday at 1:14 AM

How should a government act to prohibit misrepresentation of one’s characteristics online, from accessing services for which that government has formally defined regulations based on characteristic into law?

If your answer is “they shouldn’t ever do that”, then you’re promoting an uncompromising position that governments are disinclined to adopt, being the primary user of identity issuance and verification on behalf of their citizens.

If your answer is “they should do that differently”, then you have a discussion about (for example) ZKP or biosigs or etc., such as the thread you’re replying to.

Which of these two paths are you here to discuss? I want to be sure I’ve correctly understood you to be arguing for the former in a thread about the latter.

userbinatoryesterday at 9:14 PM

Hell yes. I was going to post the same comment. I don't give a flying fuck how it's implemented. Remote attestation is inherently evil.

I remember the WEI apologists trying to do the same thing to derail the argument. The problem is the goal, not the details. Just say no: DO NOT WANT!

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lxgryesterday at 9:33 PM

You're not necessarily being surveiled just because you're forced to authenticate yourself. It often is the case practically, but it's not inherent, and mixing the two up makes the discussion too imprecise in a technical forum.

Hardware attestation often also has problems of centralization, but that's something else as well.

By just labeling it as an abstract bad thing without seeing nuance, I'm afraid you won't be convincing those in power to pass or block these laws, or those convincing your fellow voters which efforts to support.

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coppsilgoldyesterday at 9:20 PM

There is a problem where it's becoming increasingly harder to determine which internet packets that are coming to your service are at the behest of a human in the course of normal activities or an automated program.

If all the internet was is static content, that wouldn't be much of a problem. But we live in world where packets coming to your service result in significant state changes to your database (such as user generated content).

I suspect that we are currently in the valley of do-something-about-it on the graph which is why you see all this angst from the big players. Would Google really care if automated programs were so good that they were approximating real humans to such an extent that absolutely no one can tell? I suspect they would not only be happy with such a state of affairs, they would join in.

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