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Ian Miers @secparam.bsky.social · 2d

Problem is once users have digital IDs, demands will shift. Instead of 'are you 18?', it becomes: prove you're human, prove you're not banned, prove you live here. Then you need programmable identity. Private IDs are just a start, as we looked at here.
eprint.iacr.org/2022/878

zk-creds: Flexible Anonymous Credentials from zkSNARKs and Existing Identity Infrastructure

Frequently, users on the web need to show that they are, for example, not a robot, old enough to access an age restricted video, or eligible to download an ebook from their local public library withou...

eprint.iacr.org

Ian Miers @secparam.bsky.social · 2d

How do we do better?
Well, a simple solution to this particular problem is zk-proofs. Instead of giving Discord your ID, you prove you have one. We did some preliminary work on this in 2023, and Google is rolling out a version of zk proofs of IDs.But basic proofs aren't enough.

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Ian Miers @secparam.bsky.social · 2d

What's worse but predictable? Attackers get both IDs and messages. Every conversation you've ever had, every dumb comment, or like attached to your legal name and address. There's no evidence it happened here, but it will happen soon. We need better approaches to identity.

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Ian Miers @secparam.bsky.social · 2d

Discord user IDs getting leaked is the entirely predictable consequence of requiring platforms to do age verification. That data never goes away, it spreads. In this case, into appeals in a breached customer support database. And predictably, it can get worse. www.404media.co/the-discord-...

The Discord Hack is Every User’s Worst Nightmare

A hack impacting Discord’s age verification process shows in stark terms the risk of tech companies collecting users’ ID documents. Now the hackers are posting peoples’ IDs and other sensitive informa...

www.404media.co

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Ian Miers @secparam.bsky.social · 22d

The worst part of preparing a tenure portfolio is realizing you actually have to create that 'permanent record' your elementary school teachers threatened you with.
And it has pesky formatting requirements.

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Ian Miers @secparam.bsky.social · 24d

Isn't it worse than that. If your professional account is marked ChatControllExempt, isn't that a giant gapping red flag to adversaries to go look at the personal account of you, your spouse, anyone you might be having an affair with or owe money?

Ian Miers @secparam.bsky.social · Sep 11

Best cover for a stego system.

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Ian Miers @secparam.bsky.social · Sep 11

There's a very niche case where
1) you succeed at building the quantum computer
2) crypto does migrate to pq
3) you can still sell recovery services on non migrated addresses
4) those addresses don't get robbed by others or FUD from competing PQ secure chais says they were

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Ian Miers @secparam.bsky.social · Sep 11

What's the value of recovering X% of crypto, discounted by: legal risk it's deemed theft, the chance crypto migrates to PQ-resistant algorithms first, and the risk that BTC/ETH prices collapse the moment everyone realizes the same quantum tech makes ALL legacy crypto vulnerable?

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Ian Miers @secparam.bsky.social · Sep 11

If true, this says more about VC funding fads than cryptography. It highlights how hard it is to find valuable applications that classical computers can't approximate well enough. And I have questions for the junior deal partner who modeled the ROI for pq crypto "recovery."

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Ian Miers @secparam.bsky.social · Sep 11

Interesting anecdote from a friend: quantum computing startups are now raising funds by pitching their ability to break cryptocurrency encryption (n=1 plus VC gossip, but still). Apparently other applications like quantum chemistry don't offer big enough ROI for investors.

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Ian Miers @secparam.bsky.social · Sep 10

By the way, if this is predictive typing(unclear) then not just is it on by default, it appears to default to federated learning on your data ( which I of course turned off ) support.google.com/gboard/answe...

Learn how Gboard gets better - Gboard Help

Gboard can learn from your keyboard and dictation use to help improve Gboard for everyone. Gboard can learn through techniques known as federated learning, ephemeral learning, and conventional learnin

support.google.com

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Ian Miers @secparam.bsky.social · Sep 9

Some "AI" on my phone is reading inbound Signal messages. I left predictive typing on, trading a little of my privacy for convenience. Yet something is giving responses using what others wrote in chats with disappearing messages, persisting or sharing them who knows where. Not a good default, Google

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Ian Miers @secparam.bsky.social · Sep 1

The Brooklyn one is actually a water front park development and a vacant office space, at least as of 4 months ago. So even more on brand.

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Ian Miers @secparam.bsky.social · Sep 1

We've crossed a threshold. A paid subscription used to be the ultimate proof of humanity online, now its not enough to allow a single link click inside the NYT cooking app. The next few years are going to be an interesting race to extract more and more invasive proofs of humanity.

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Ian Miers @secparam.bsky.social · Sep 1

The 2010s internet: Let's mock dissertation-length arguments about weird-ass fanfic tags.
The 2025 internet: 'dubcon' is an ancillary part of the financial privacy discourse.

The past was a better place.

Ana Valens | 🔞 | Comms Open @acvalens.net · Aug 30

PayPal user in the UK lost their account after buying adult ebooks “about monsters and milking,” “some dubcon stuff”

“My account got banned a couple of days ago for making purchases which violate the ToS. Upon querying w/ staff over the phone I've been told that it was ebooks that I've been buying”