Why is proof of personality so important in Web3?

Author: Rarimo

Compilation: Deep Tide TechFlow

In 1993, when the World Wide Web entered the public domain, The New Yorker magazine ran a now-classic cartoon: "On the Internet, Nobody Knows You're a Dog." This sketch depicts a computer-savvy The dog introduced the possibility of online personas to his companions, a sketch that was quickly copied as a warning that in the anonymous corridors of the internet, people might not be who they say they are.

However, despite the efforts of Internet users of the late 20th century to remain vigilant, the most dangerous threat faced by users today is bots. What makes these autonomous programs so dangerous is not that they represent the kind of one-to-one, individualized deception of traditional dog or human counterparts, but because they have the ability to replicate infinitely, overwhelming the entire system.

In the case of the 2016 US election, rumors that Russia used bots to flood Twitter with pro-Trump content sparked widespread distrust of the democratic process. Although the incident was never fully resolved, it highlighted that robots are often a concentrating factor, enabling an individual or organization to build an army from nothing. This risk has escalated over the years as artificial intelligence has evolved, most recently reaching an urgent climax following the release of generative models.

Blockchain as anti-bot infrastructure

Thankfully, preventing such attacks has always been at the heart of blockchain design. As a permissionless network, blockchain allows anyone to participate, including adversaries who may wish to control the network by impersonating multiple participants. The 2009 Bitcoin white paper caused a stir in the computer science community because the proof-of-work mechanism showed that an open network could be maintained by maintaining an honest majority. If you want to impersonate a thousand people, you have to do the work of a thousand people, and the cost will increase by a thousand times.

Therefore, the most promising protection against bot attacks is emerging in Web3. Of particular importance is Proof of Humanity Solutions (POH), also known as Proof of Personhood (POP). These solutions provide cryptographic proof that the user is human and not a bot, while not revealing any additional information about the user. This emphasis on privacy differentiates POH from real-world and Web2 identity solutions, which typically require personal details such as address or date of birth.

From social media to DAO voting, or from managed airdrops to the gating of reward programs, the scope and number of applications and platforms that can leverage POH solutions are limitless.

Regarding POH, Vitalik’s opinion

In his recent blog post, "My Thoughts on Biometric Proofs of Personality," ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin wrote that the POH solution is "one of the most valuable tools people in the ethereum community have been working hard to build," But it’s also one of the “toughest”. This is because POH solutions not only need to provide indisputable proof while maintaining privacy, but also need to adhere to other Web3 principles, including user-based ownership and decentralization.

A range of solutions already exist, but there is debate in the Web3 community over which solution is the most robust. For a comprehensive understanding of the nuances between the different approaches, we recommend reading Vitalik's blog where he compares biometric and social graph based approaches, but summarizes his thinking as follows:

There is no ideal form of proof of personality. Instead, we have at least three different approach paradigms, each with their own unique strengths and weaknesses.

In a way, POH solutions are like ice cream flavors, where personal taste is often the deciding factor. Biometric solutions like Worldcoin, which uses spherical, futuristic-looking specialized hardware devices called "Orbs" to scan people's irises, are too dystopian for some. However, the sphere only computes and stores hashes of user iris scans, meaning that even in the highly unlikely worst-case scenario, the amount of personalized data about an individual that could be leaked is minuscule. Thus, this guarantee of privacy makes Orb very non-intrusive to other users.

Why POH solutions need aggregation

Due to the many trade-offs between different types of personality proof solutions, it is difficult for a single verification method to become popular, and Web3 does not hope to do so. Because if a method becomes too common and becomes the only way to access the services we know and love, users will be forced to choose between acquiescing or being excluded. Choice is the key to freedom, enabling users to maintain control of their identities.

Because of this, Rarimo has decided to bring together four of the largest identity providers in the space: Worldcoin, Unstoppable Domains, Gitcoin Passport, and Civic into the world's first proof-of-personality plugin for dApps. This allows apps and platforms seeking to protect users from bots to automatically integrate with multiple providers, rather than spending time and resources working with each provider, and allows users to choose their preferred provider.

privacy

After selecting a provider, users generate an on-chain proof verifying that they meet requirements that only a real human could. These proofs themselves leverage zero-knowledge (ZK) technology, making the aforementioned goals a reality, whereby one party (in this case the user) proves a certain statement (in this case the platform) to another party (in this case the platform) are human) are real and no additional information will be revealed.

For example, if a user chooses Unstoppable Domains as their provider, Rarimo will enable them to generate a proof of personality based on complex steps like possession and making payments from a bank account that cannot be performed by a robot, but not even the name of the domain was revealed.

Why do we need multi-chain POH?

As an interoperability protocol, Rarimo also makes all proofs instantly multi-chain and available on all networks. This enables dApps and smart contracts on any chain to interact with the plugin and ensures that users have the freedom to not only choose a provider, but also the network of their choice.

Just as having multiple providers is critical to the health of the digital identity ecosystem, having multiple chains is equally important to the health of Web3. Because chains also have trade-offs, it means that no one chain can provide all the infrastructure required by the ecosystem. For example, the more decentralized a blockchain is, the less scalable it will be. The more secure it is, the less smart contract functionality there is. By enabling users to switch seamlessly between platforms or networks, Rarimo is once again striving to drive diversity and maintain selectivity.

Among possible solutions, proof of personality forms an early blueprint and provides a valuable example of how the traceability, anonymity and security offered by blockchain technology can meet the challenges posed by artificial intelligence.

Through personality proof, we can ensure that participants in the online world are real humans and not bots. The traceability of this verification means we can track and verify the origin and authenticity of each certification. Anonymity protects the privacy of users, who can be verified without revealing personally identifiable information. In addition, the security provided by blockchain technology ensures that the proof is tamper-proof and anti-counterfeiting.

Over the past year, the internet has been flooded with AI-generated music, poetry and images. Being able to distinguish which content is human-generated and which is machine-generated is crucial in the fight against disinformation.

Proof of Personality provides an early example of a possible solution, showing how blockchain technology can provide traceability, anonymity and security to meet the challenges posed by artificial intelligence. It paves the way for the next generation of infrastructure and plays a central role in ensuring that proof of character plays an active role in Web3.