Without True Authority, WorldID Could Become a Hoax: Concerns Amplified by Worldcoin Ban on X
1. The Possible Hoax without true authority
Without true authority, Worldcoin could potentially create as many WorldIDs as they want.
At first, I had some doubts about Worldcoin being the sole authority, but kept an open mind and placed trust in the system. However, after my account was banned due to two comments(see in the end), I felt compelled to voice my concerns more boldly.
How can Worldcoin prevent fake World IDs and build trust in their system? It’s not just about stopping malicious hackers from creating fake World IDs. More importantly, how can Worldcoin prove to the community that it is not creating as many IDs as it wants? And how can they ensure they don’t mistakenly or unfairly ban legitimate World IDs? Ultimately, can we trust Worldcoin as the sole centralized authority when building human-scale critical systems like DUKI on top of it?
2. Why should I care?
Quick Answer
It’s okay if the World ID doesn’t address the aforementioned issues. However, for the DUKI system envisioned in AllLivesMatter.World, addressing these issues is essential. DUKI (pronounced /djuːki/) can be thought of as real money, similar to UBI (Universal Basic Income). It’s real money for all lives worldwide, with everyone receiving an equal, fair amount — no more, no less. The system must consider the previously mentioned issues to ensure that kindness isn’t exploited by malicious forces and that ‘fairness always’ applies to all lives.
Detailed Explanation
I am an advocate for AlllivesMatter.World : a global call for Peace and Humanity, advocating “Kindness First, Fairness Always, and DUKI in Action.” DUKI: /djuːki/ reminiscent of ‘duty’, ‘kindness’, and ‘cookie’, stands for Decentralized Universal Kindness Income. It’s a universal kindness-based income system funded by voluntary contributions from kind individuals and organizations worldwide. It is a bold vision now, the contributions could be driven by marketing if the vision is accepted globally. To effectively implement DUKI, two crucial components are necessary: a Human Passport for every human and true authorities to support its issuance.
The Human Passport, which can be thought of as an evolved World ID, should be both standardized and decentralized. Over time, this issuance system could be integrated into future VR or mobile devices for wider adoption. It should incorporate full zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) to ensure the privacy and uniqueness of each individual’s data, such as iris scans or even social security numbers. This unique human data, like biometric data, should never leave the device, nor should it be concentrated or controlled by any single authority. Instead, its digital representation should be used as input for ZKP processes. Furthermore, the ZKP input data must be consistently verified to ensure the digital representation is an accurate representation of the real data.
True Authorities are essential for safeguarding the integrity of the ZKP inputs, ensuring that ZKP input data always represent genuine human unique data, and overseeing other critical aspects of the system. It must always respect freedom of speech. When faced with criticism, it must do whatever work is necessary to resolve mistrust, never resorting to censorship or inaction.
The most promising technology I could currently find that could evolve to back up the DUKI system is WorldID. Anyway, I subscribed to worldcoin on X, hoping that someday it could evolve to back DUKI up. I interacted with it only twice, leaving two comments (see the images at the end), and I was banned. This also led to the birth of this article.
3. Full Story Behind ‘DUKI in Action’
Blockchain technology, initially conceived to bring decentralization, foster freedom, and resolve issues of distrust, paradoxically needs both “true authorities” and freedom in reality to reach its full potential. These true authorities, empowered by people and serving for people, are essential. The DUKI system zkp “human passport” requires oracle data input to ensure each human is uniquely identified. We must ensure that real-world data ,for example, iris data should be captured and represented correctly as input in the ZKP-based human passport system. Authorities are necessary to oversee and validate this oracle data input process. and this process must be consistently validated.
My journey into understanding the importance of true authority began with an interest in the concept of Decentralized Universal Kindness Income (DUKI), part of theAllLivesMatter.World advocacy. This idea captivated me because it represents a potential solution to some of the world’s most pressing issues: the fact that not all lives matter equally — poverty, inequality, technological advances that sometimes work against people left behind, innocents dying because of wars sourced by concentrated power, freedom of speech at stake, and so on. I believe DUKI can be part of the solution. DUKI, at its core, is about creating a global system of kindness-based income, funded by voluntary contributions from individuals and organizations worldwide. It aims to empower all lives worldwide to live in freedom , to reject evil, do good, and spread kindness. It offers a vision of a world where everyone has the means to live with dignity and the opportunity to contribute positively to society. In trying to envision how ‘DUKI in Action’ would be possible, I created a toy human passport program using zkVM to help me think through the ins and outs (kudos to zkVM). You can read more about the advocacy on www.alllivesmatter.world , and find the toy human passport program.
Creating DUKI is the easy part. DUKI-favor organizations earn money through merit and hard work, and they’re willing to spread kindness by donating part of their success to all humans, this willness could by driven by marketing and kindness. As for DUKI contributions, I believe they can largely be solved by existing blockchain technology. Each DUKI contributer could have a smart contract operating on the blockchain. These contracts would store and automatically transfer funds to distribution shard contracts to facilitate fair distribution. The total amount could be divided among 1 thousand people, then 1 million, and finally enough for all humans worldwide who are chain, allowing each to claim their DUKI when they prove their uniqueness.
The real challenge in DUKI Distribution lies in proving personhood while ensuring privacy to protect against potential targeting by malicious actors. After recently watching a 12-year-old video named ‘Professor Avi Wigderson on cryptography’, a statement struck me: ‘Everything that can be proven at all can be proven in zero knowledge — not just some things, not nothing, everything that can be proven can be proven in zero knowledge.’ Does this include proving “everyone’s unique existence in the world using their private unique and untakeable traits”? If true, this could truly form the foundation of the DUKI infrastructure.
Later, I realized that technology like WorldID has already demonstrated this concept, although there are concerns. The centralized storage of human iris codes could lead to potential blockage by unfriendly countries, and there are also other concerns, potentially slowing down its mass adoption. Despite these challenges, this innovative approach that gives each human a unique world ID is definitely the way to go. By incorporating more strength and decentralization, we could accelerate adoption and empower all humans in our increasingly digital world.
Is it technically possible to achieve proof of unique human existence using zero-knowledge proofs without collecting centralized iris code data? Could this be accomplished by using zero-knowledge proofs of iris data stored on local devices, similar to Apple’s Optic ID 1-to-few matching approach, but dramatically scaling it up to a universal 1-to-n system [source » ]? Could we create a unique identifier on a public blockchain without leaking any of the user’s private data, so that everyone could utilize it without applying for it first, making it more widely decentralized? Furthermore, is it possible to standardize a zero-knowledge proof of user uniqueness and create a Humanity Proof RFC (Request for Comments) to make it standard, so that all manufacturers could implement it in smartphones, VR headsets, and other devices, thus truly enabling DUKI?
After playing with the toy human passport using zkVM, and considering the bold claim by professor Avi Wigderson that ‘everything that is provable can be proved with zero-knowledge’, I am quite optimistic that this kind of passport is technically possible. It just needs significant effort and true authorities to back it up. Here, I want to emphasize again: To truly bring the sunshine of blockchain technology into the real world, we must look beyond technology alone. I sincerely hope that all kinds of technologists — from enthusiasts to skeptics — could put more effort into this and also help build the DUKI system.
4. Concluding Thoughts
I sincerely hope my experience of being banned by Worldcoin, along with my outspoken views on what true authority should be, can serve as a wake-up call: We urgently need genuine authority and trustworthy data sources in our digital systems, whether blockchain-based or not. As we advance into the digital age, it’s crucial that our innovations are built on solid, reliable foundations that prioritize people first and uphold values like transparency, accountability, and freedom. Most importantly, when faced with criticism, these systems must work to rebuild trust, never resorting to censorship or inaction.
With true authorities, we can build systems that people can genuinely trust to solve real-world problems — like the DUKI system, which could bring kindness and rejoice to all lives worldwide, and remind them, there is a duty to do good and spread kindness. After all, all lives matter worldwide, don’t they?
— — Note: I still wish that my banning was a mistake. After all, WorldId is for every human and I am a real human doing nothing bad. What could be wrong with two comments like these below?
