In Argentina, Facing Surging Inflation, 500K Accept Worldcoin's Offer of $50 for Iris-Scanning (restofworld.org) 67
Wednesday Rest of World noticed an overlooked tech story in Argentina:
Olga de León looked confused as she walked out of a nightclub on the edge of Buenos Aires on a recent Tuesday afternoon. She had just had her iris scanned. "No one told me what they'll do with my eye," de León, 57, told Rest of World. "But I did this out of need." De León, who lives off the $95 pension she receives from the state, had been desperate for money. Persuaded by her nephew, she agreed to have one of her irises scanned by Worldcoin, Sam Altman's blockchain project. In exchange, she received nearly $50 worth of WLD, the company's cryptocurrency.
De León is one of about half a million Argentines who have handed their biometric data over to Worldcoin. Beaten down by the country's 288% inflation rate and growing unemployment, they have flocked to Worldcoin Orb verification hubs, eager to get the sign-up crypto bonus offered by the company. A network of intermediaries — who earn a commission from every iris scan — has lured many into signing up for the practice in Argentina, where data privacy laws remain weak. But as the popularity of Worldcoin skyrockets in the country, experts have sounded the alarm about the dangers of giving away biometric data. Two provinces are now pushing for legal investigations. "Seeing that [iris scans have] been banned in European countries, shouldn't we be trying to stop it, too?" Javier Smaldone, a software consultant and digital security expert, told Rest of World.
Last month Worldcoin's web site announced that more than 10 million people in 160 countries had created a World ID and compatible wallet (performing 75 million transactions) — and that 5,195,475 people had also verified their World ID using Worldcoin's iris-scanning Orb.
But the article notes a big drop in the number of countries even allowing Worldcoin's iris-scanning — from 25 to just eight. While in less than a year Worldcoin opened nearly 60 centers across Argentina...
De León is one of about half a million Argentines who have handed their biometric data over to Worldcoin. Beaten down by the country's 288% inflation rate and growing unemployment, they have flocked to Worldcoin Orb verification hubs, eager to get the sign-up crypto bonus offered by the company. A network of intermediaries — who earn a commission from every iris scan — has lured many into signing up for the practice in Argentina, where data privacy laws remain weak. But as the popularity of Worldcoin skyrockets in the country, experts have sounded the alarm about the dangers of giving away biometric data. Two provinces are now pushing for legal investigations. "Seeing that [iris scans have] been banned in European countries, shouldn't we be trying to stop it, too?" Javier Smaldone, a software consultant and digital security expert, told Rest of World.
Last month Worldcoin's web site announced that more than 10 million people in 160 countries had created a World ID and compatible wallet (performing 75 million transactions) — and that 5,195,475 people had also verified their World ID using Worldcoin's iris-scanning Orb.
But the article notes a big drop in the number of countries even allowing Worldcoin's iris-scanning — from 25 to just eight. While in less than a year Worldcoin opened nearly 60 centers across Argentina...
This is disgusting (Score:5, Interesting)
I consider this to be one step removed from paying people for their organs. It wouldn't be at all out of place as a major plot point in a dystopian SF movie. I hope Altman dies in a fire.
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I don't wish him harm but many people feel like he's not on Team Humanity.
Even Napoleon was merely exiled.
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Have you seen Sam Altman? He looks like Bryan Kohberger and Dennis Reynold's doppleganger, what do you expect?
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Have you seen Sam Altman? He looks like Bryan Kohberger and Dennis Reynold's doppleganger, what do you expect?
I didn't think Sam Altman was a real person. Partly the name, "alt-man" and partly his uncanny-valley face. The dude looks like he was hallucinated by an AI.
Now, I know we shouldn't judge people by their appearances. I am judging him (if he is a real person) by what he does. He does bad things and this iris scanning is one of them.
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I consider this to be one step removed from paying people for their organs. It wouldn't be at all out of place as a major plot point in a dystopian SF movie. I hope Altman dies in a fire.
You beat me to it.
Also, intentionally or not, this is exploitation of desperate people. People are desperate and will give up the things sufficiently informed people wouldn't under normal circumstances. That's literally exploitation, exploitation of their bodies.
Dehumanizing AF, and utterly colonialist.
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I'm required to work 40 hours or more per week so I can have a place to live and food to eat, among other things.
How is that not also exploitation?
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I'm required to work 40 hours or more per week so I can have a place to live and food to eat, among other things.
How is that not also exploitation?
It is not because you have a choice to go anywhere and life off the land. No one has the obligation to provide you with a modern form of life.
For you, or me, to have something to eat or have things we want or need, we have to give something in return.
To confuse that with exploitation (real exploitation), Jesus F Christ, talk about privilege crying about first world problems.
Re:Why do people bash Worldcoin? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why do people bash Worldcoin? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's nothing to do with the crypto-currency, everything to do with taking biometric data for something that doesn't need it.
It's worse than just that.
They are using that biometric *identification* in place of where *authentication* should be used.
In essence there is no authentication in place at all.
It is akin to anyone can send an email in your name from your own account simply by knowing your email address. They don't need to know your password because there are no passwords.
Biometrics, that is "something you are" which can be measured without an act of will on your part, can never be anything more than an "identification"
That's why "something you know" must still come into play.
At least for the very long term future, interpreting neurons in the brain is the only option that remains safe from unwilful extraction.
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Scan your iris and enter your 4 digit PIN... but watch out! 3 incorrect guesses and you get LASERED!
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It's nothing to do with the crypto-currency, everything to do with taking biometric data for something that doesn't need it. As for it being more useful than CAPTCHAs can you tell me how you can scan your iris at home to the same standard that the equipment this project is using? Mobile phone selfie cams aren't going to be good enough, especially the kind that are going to be the most popular type in a nation like Argentina.
It's less about authentication and just getting data to train a model.
I'd be more concerned about flaws in the model as you're going to get very non-diverse sample (Latinos tend not to have light coloured eyes). But this is Milei's "anarcho-capitalist" society bearing fruit, a private company taking advantage of a very poor people to do something that's already been declared illegal in a large part of the developed world. I just didn't think it would happen so quickly.
I just hope these people cashed
Re:Why do people bash Worldcoin? (Score:4, Informative)
Look, even if we wanted to do this, exactly why should governments give 100% of all verification fees and 20% UBI payments to Sam Altman and his investors / employees? Uniqueness of identity is the government's job. If the government wants to start tying identities to iris scans (instead of just current data) and issuing digital IDs, that's it's decision and its job - and in democracies, relies on the will of its people to do so. There is absolutely no reason to insert either blockchain nor rent-seekers into the mix, nor to give Altman-and-gang this much power over people's personal data.
Re: Why do people bash Worldcoin? (Score:2)
If the U.S. had a libertarian value system, then maybe libertarian politicians would actually get elected.
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Re: Why do people bash Worldcoin? (Score:2)
lol "the only true capitalists are trust fund kids and their drug-dealers!â
you are right though, in that poor libertarians and rich libertarians have all of about zero anything in common and would absolutely loathe each other if they ever met.
they both demonize the government but they both hate the government mostly for not getting out of the way and "letting them" (lol) destroy the other group and thereby magically fix everything.
this magical belief persists even in the face of facts. for example, eve
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The snag is that the government has failed the people, and the private sector has failed the people, and religion has failed the people, and there is nothing left to turn to. Libertarian ideas of leaving things to the private sector essentially means abandoning one failed system for a different failed system.
Re: Why do people bash Worldcoin? (Score:2)
you say this as though we haven't been privatizing everything for the past 50 years.
when did we agree that private ownership failed? what do you think we've been trying economically since the 1950s?
my personal theory is that liberTARDianism is just blowback from the government trying to convince latin america that selling their natural resources to US corporations is a good thing actually LOL (and btw you don't have a choice, we'll change your government if you don't).
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Private sector is only in it for profits, but with no accountability to the people. We know from experience and history that the private sector will do anything it can to make a little bit more profit, even if it's illegal, unethical, or immoral. Government at least has accountability, and where that accountability is shaky and unreliable it is often because the private sector has purchased control of the government.
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Re: Why do people bash Worldcoin? (Score:4, Funny)
That sounds like something a bot would say.
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The percentage of people who can rationally form any cohesive thought is astoundingly low.
The problem is that name calling works, so that functions as "intellectual" these days. I've been called a Zionist Jewish shill and a Nazi by the same person within minutes of each other. You can't make this stuff up.
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Their whole architecture is to verify people are not bots,
Most people are bots, they act with programmed responses.
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The people who don't like Worldcoin are either people who don't understand it, or people who don't like the fact that the average Joe can make money in cryptocurrency,.
Biometric IDs have been tried in South America. During a previous try in Mexico, using fingerprints to verify cash machine access, a fair number of people ended up losing their fingers or hands to thieves who took them during muggings hoping to use them together with their stolen credit cards. Perhaps some of us have some experience in the field, remember things like this and don't want to find out where this type of thing can end.
Generally, never use something that cannot be updated and/or replaced or give
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People have been claiming this is what would happen but I'm not aware of it happening. I just searched and can't find any news reports of thieves chopping off hands or fingers to use on biometric scanners in Mexico. There were articles predicting it would happen, there were articles of cartels chopping off the hands of thieves, articles on thieves and cartel members chemically and abrasively removing their fingerprints so they couldn't be traced, but no articles claiming a victim had their fingers or ha
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There was at least one during a trial. They stopped it, but I can't currently find the story and there are many substitute stories which seem to be covering it in the search engines.
However, here's a real example from Malaysia for a car.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asi... [bbc.co.uk]
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Yeah, the Malaysian article was the only one I could find, and it was from 20 years ago. Folks have been talking about chopping of fingers, hands and heads since the first biometric IDs were floated, at least 40 years in press that I know of and longer in works of fiction but the reality seems to suggest the world isn't quite that violent.
That said, this ID scan nonsense is the real problem. I'd be way more worried about a slow insidious slide toward state sponsored biometric ID systems than I would so
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> Why do people bash Worldcoin?
There is nothing wrong in taking advantage of economic collapse in a country to promote fake currency that you print in return of getting personal information about users and artificially increasing your user base.
Learn To Vote Better. (Score:1)
Waiting to push your Orwellian shit on society until you know they’re desperate enough to not say No, is the kind of shit Civil Wars are made of.
Citizens need to wise the fuck up, put down the political pom poms, and learn to vote better. Greed keeps winning, and citizens keep losing otherwise.
Gonna be rich hearing the excuses as to how this helps address rampant inflation. After Workdcoin gets their data, they’ll give a fuck about Argentina about as much as the Olympics care about the mess th
Meaningless number (Score:2)
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Here the pension is paid every fortnight, but I'm sure our standard is not used by everyone around the world.
Im sure your standard is not used either, since most people probably have no idea what a fortnight is, or assume you work as a Fortnite developer. ;)
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US people are mentally challenged?
A fortnight is a fortnight.
Well, let’s just say wankers who got pissed last night and woke up to have bangers and mash, are the ones using still using terms like “fortnight”.
The rest of the planet who got drunk and ate sausage and potatoes, just call it two weeks, and have no idea why you’re pissed about banging whoever the hell “mash” is.
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"The rest of the planet"? You do realise that more people by both population and number of countries speak a variant of British English than US English? A dismissive post because someone uses a word you don't know reflects negatively on your willingness to learn.
LOL, having been that nerdy AD&D kid in the 80s, I was already familiar with the 17th century variant. My comment was more meant in jest. One might say you took the piss right out of it, but some might wonder where you took it. ;-)
One of the great things about sites like Slashdot is you chance to learn things from a global community. How else are you going to find wonderful unique words like 'kuchisabishii'?
Heh, very true! Today I learned that a country ranking 187th on the global obesity scale has a wonderfully unique word for stress eating. Man, if they have a Humblebrag of the Year award..
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A fortnight is a unit of time equal to 14 days (two weeks). The word derives from the Old English term fowertene niht, meaning "fourteen nights" (or "fourteen days", since the Anglo-Saxons counted by nights).
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Such as their current president who's picking a fight [bbc.com] with the UK over the Falkland Islands. I seem to remember the country doing the same thing a few decades ago.
Article (Score:2)
Such as their current president who's picking a fight [bbc.com] with the UK over the Falkland Islands.
That is... the opposite of what the article says:
President Milei said he wanted the islands to become Argentine “within the framework of peace”.
“We are not going to relinquish our sovereignty, nor are we going to seek conflict with the United Kingdom,” he said.
Sounds like, pretty much, exactly what they've been doing the last 40 years or so.
HUH?!?!? (Score:1)
Most Americans could not find Argentina on a map, so there's no general American support for ANY position on American relations with Argentina.
The official Washington DC relationship with Argentina and the actions of the US government in that regard have been relatively low-key and uninvolved. There was a bit of friction between the countries during WWII when the US wanted Argentina to oppose the Germans but Argentina remained neutral - this was a mere diplomatic disagreement and it was padded by the Britis
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um (Score:2)
First, I note that you have dropped the US Raped Argentina" argument, and that's good because it just ain't so.
Second, now that you're onto a general argument about relations between the USA and Central/South America we can consider THAT. Nobody said the folks in Washington DC have never done anything unethical, but it's not the situation you seem to believe. As I pointed out, most Americans care little about what's going on below their Southern Border - they simply want safety and stability. Yes, the Ameri
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I'm not sure where you get your info from but it certainly isn't impartial. If you only read/believe press releases from the US State Dept., you're not getting a very complete picture of what's going on south of your border. I suggest you actually read whistleblower accounts such as Butler's & investigative journalism that has reveale
and make the inflation worse... (Score:3)
This is what an NWO does. (Score:1)
Demonstration of invlidity of iris for security (Score:1)
Why? (Score:3)
What's the point of this? I think of the iris scanning technology to be kind of a gimmick... I'm not sure what you'd do with the iris scans of a bunch of broke, desperate people anyways. So is this just to artificially inflate the usage numbers of a sham currency? What's that supposed to prove?
So Worldcoin is aimed at the poor (Score:1)
Argentinians are not sensitive about privacy (Score:2)
I'm not sure where it comes from, maybe from the many dictatorships that ruled the country.
We have LPRs, cameras recording everywhere, the list of voters is essentially public, you can check anyone's debt with a simple query to the central bank, and whenever something bad happens, people just ask for more surveillance and more draconian measures to be applied.
Americans tend to think bad things will happen if the government knows, but we've had so many incompetent governments that I think deep down we belie