<story><title>Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman&apos;s Worldcoin: &apos;Don&apos;t Catalogue Eyeballs&apos;</title><url>https://decrypt.co/84277/snowden-slams-sam-altman-worldcoin-eyeball-scan-for-crypto</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>danuker</author><text>Worldcoin issues tokens to people for scanning their retinas. Their magical orb device sends a biometric hash to their network.&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s my take on it: You can possibly replace their biometric device with a random hash generator.&lt;p&gt;* If it works, it means the currency is not fairly distributed, but anyone sending valid hashes to their network is issued tokens, irrespective of whether the eyeballs described by those hashes exist. This is called a Sybil attack.&lt;p&gt;* If it doesn&amp;#x27;t work, it means there is some secret or centralized check that the network performs, which means the currency is not open.&lt;p&gt;This is why we still use proof-of-work in spite of its energy expense: it is simple to understand, it can not be faked, and it can be openly verified.&lt;p&gt;So, do not support this biometric-gathering enterprise.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>New_California</author><text>Correct but efficacy of this process is pretty much irrelevant for the founders because the whole &amp;quot;fair distribution&amp;quot; is just a marketing gimmick to promote yet another shitcoin.&lt;p&gt;Only losers will provide their real retinas. Smart players will obviously game the system and then dump the shitcoin on yet another group of losers.</text></comment>
<story><title>Edward Snowden Slams Sam Altman&apos;s Worldcoin: &apos;Don&apos;t Catalogue Eyeballs&apos;</title><url>https://decrypt.co/84277/snowden-slams-sam-altman-worldcoin-eyeball-scan-for-crypto</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>danuker</author><text>Worldcoin issues tokens to people for scanning their retinas. Their magical orb device sends a biometric hash to their network.&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s my take on it: You can possibly replace their biometric device with a random hash generator.&lt;p&gt;* If it works, it means the currency is not fairly distributed, but anyone sending valid hashes to their network is issued tokens, irrespective of whether the eyeballs described by those hashes exist. This is called a Sybil attack.&lt;p&gt;* If it doesn&amp;#x27;t work, it means there is some secret or centralized check that the network performs, which means the currency is not open.&lt;p&gt;This is why we still use proof-of-work in spite of its energy expense: it is simple to understand, it can not be faked, and it can be openly verified.&lt;p&gt;So, do not support this biometric-gathering enterprise.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tromp</author><text>I wouldn&amp;#x27;t call the coin distribution fair if the creators can allocate arbitrary amounts to themselves, which the Worldcoin creators appear able to do.&lt;p&gt;Then again, even PoW coins with no premine can be unfair if most of the long-term supply gets distributed in just the first few years, leaving only crumbs for late adopters.</text></comment>