Vitalik Buterin released a new blog post on Monday detailing his concerns over OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s new crypto project, Worldcoin.
In the post, Buterin highlights four major concerns with Worldcoin’s user authentication system, called “Proof-of-Personhood” (PoP).
Worldcoin claims it can authenticate its users without storing personal data or relying on a central authority. To obtain a “World ID,” users must scan their iris with a device known as an “Orb.”
Buterin argues that this system has potential issues with privacy, accessibility, centralization, and security.
- Scanning one's iris could potentially release more information than intended
- World IDs won’t be readily accessible to everyone, since getting ahold of an “Orb” device can be difficult
- “Orb” is a hardware device, and Buterin alleges that “we have no way to verify that it was constructed correctly and does not have backdoors.”
- Buterin expresses security concerns with Worldcoin given that users' phones could be hacked, and they could be coerced into giving out their iris scans
Buterin acknowledges that there is no perfect solution to overcoming these issues and adds that Worldcoin has taken certain steps with its hardware that make it superior to more traditional identification schemes.