Reddit mentions of Liquid Surveillance: A Conversation (Conversations)

This kind of stuff worries me as well. There is a very real risk we end up bound by blockchains. The concern is not just that Blockchains become coopted by Governments (1,2) and used to make it easier to control their populations or even used to make genocide more efficient but also that even if we evade cooption by states the economic and social incentives mean we end up with a kind of decentralised black mirror episode where everyone is constantly ranked and rated even if people have full control over their identities and information. That is the mere presence of a credible signalling method coerces people into revealing damaging information about themselves. It really doesn't matter if it is governments, corporations or so called crypto-anarchists who provide the ID infrastructure we still end up in the same dark (yet transparent) place. Decentralisation doesn't help. Pseudonymity only partially helps. Social sorting is of course to some degree required for an efficient economy however if the surveillant assemblage too good it massively exacerbates inequalities and results in total exclusion for some. I would argue that a good system which does not marginalise and exclude people is one which has a bounded degree of inaccuracy.

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Desirable features:

• Pseudonymity => ok
  
• Activity doesn't create trail of surveillance breadcrumbs.
  
• Can still prove uniqueness for anti-sybil.
  
• Can prove facts without revealing information e.g prove you are over 18 but not birthday or age
  
• Multiplicity of unlinked identity facets that can be revealed in different contexts.
  
• Ability to "start again" with a fresh identity but without falling painfully far below average.
  
• Smoothing and uncertainty in reputation to prevent extreem Matthew Effects or total exclusion.
  
• I'd also like to make it costly for people to ask for discriminatory or irrelevant information but I'm not sure how other than through regulation. Perhaps oracles that attest to things could refuse to attest if there is no good reason for asking (important that it is the oracle not the person refusing since in a scenario like "prove you don't have a criminal conviction if you want to get an arcade city taxi" then all people without will gladly provide this information.).