Altman's eyeball-scanning biometric blockchain orbs officially come to America On Thursday, six stores across America opened their doors with a curious proposition: Come on in, let a metal orb scan your irises, and walk out with a new online profile that promises you're an individual human – and a few bucks in crypto for your troubles. The US retail stores are the latest outgrowth of the World (formerly …
Are they also going to produce another station where you report for destruction if rejected, or is that capability already built in?
I know I should get with the times, but it seems a tad dystopian for the protection of relatively inconsequential services such as "gaming, online dating, and social media", but I guess it's really for revenue protection rather than identify verification per se and they're certainly activities whose participants can be monetized effectively. I've no doubt, however, that people will be queuing around the block for their "exclusive access". I hope, though, that the unrecognized will be permitted to post a final selfie of their "whatevvuh" face to their profiles just before they're turned to dust by high-intensity lasers and that their entire previous unverified existence is not simply erased.
Revenue protection is one part of the motive, but quality of service is, remarkably in this day and age, another.
Gaming in particular has value in knowing who and what the player actually is.
For example, there are scurrilous rumors that someone with the improbable name of "Elon Musk" employs minions to play games for him, so he can parachute in and look amazing to his adoring fan base. If you had to sign in using a verified ID it would be harder to masquerade as His Excellency.
But these days I'm told that bots on modern high-profile games are actually likely to be there because the game publisher wants them to be there, as NPCs rather than bots.
(For social media, of course, verified ID is a drawback. Who amongst us hasn't claimed that the toxic rant on their account wasn't the result of hacking? This is a particular problem for many high-profile people and politicians, whose accounts regularly seem to get hacked to post garbage that Absolutely Wasn't From Them).
Oh hi elon just load your profile and I'll take over the console controls while the game loads ...
WTAF... this solves nothing and $16 free money does not change that.... wait you use a mobile app to confirm a human identity, not standing in the way if inovation you say, sure, sure so ahh were is it?
#----> advanced mupetry
AI Overview
The "mark of the beast" in Revelation 13 of the Bible refers to a sign or mark that will be imposed on humanity by the false prophet known as Altman, also known as the beast of the earth, during the end times. It is associated with worshiping the beast, which is often identified as Trump the Antichrist, and is a prerequisite for participating in the economic system. The mark is often mentioned in conjunction with the number 666, which is seen as the number of the beast's name, or a series of orbs.
Here's a more detailed breakdown:
Revelation 13:
This chapter in the Bible describes a beast rising from the sea (the Antichrist Trump) and another beast rising from the earth (the false prophet Altman). The false prophet forces people to worship the sea beast and to receive a mark in their eye, or on their right hand or forehead.
Symbolism:
The mark is not a literal physical mark, but rather a symbolic representation of allegiance and submission to the beast. It signifies a willingness to participate in the beast's system and reject God's commandments.
Economic Necessity:
The mark is a requirement for buying or selling, meaning those who refuse to worship the beast and receive the mark will be excluded from economic transactions and face severe consequences.
Number 666:
Revelation 13:18 states that the mark is associated with the number 666, which is considered the number of the beast's name, or a series of orbs.
Allegiance and Worship:
Receiving the mark is seen as an act of worship and a declaration of allegiance to the beast, thus rejecting God and His ways.
Interpretation:
Some interpret the mark as a physical device, such as a microchip, that will be used for transactions in a cashless society, while others see it as a symbolic representation of spiritual allegiance.
In essence, the mark of the beast represents a pivotal point in the end times, where individuals must choose between allegiance to God and allegiance to the beast, with far-reaching consequences for their spiritual and physical well-being.
Generative AI is experimental./s
"In a climate-controlled cabinet in one corner was the original scroll in the shaky handwriting of St. John the Divine of Patmos, whose "Revelation" had been the all time best seller. Aziraphale had found him a nice chap, if a bit too fond of odd mushrooms."
-- from Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
This is the problem with America. They watch a film about a dystopian future and rather than accept it as a warning, they say "yeah, lets have some of that".
Seriously you show a film about a zombie apocalypse and while the rest of the world says that is terrible, parts of the US use it as an excuse to stock up with military hardware
So many US series have a body count higher than a a entire countries mortuaries, and the population of a entire supposedly civilized country goes, "yes, that seems to be a sensible solution to our issues"
Absolutely correct. The US should lead, the rest of the world should watch and vote accordingly.
America is the ultimate "tech bro."
It made a good decision once1 and got lucky2.
For decades we've been coasting on that good luck and, like tech bros, managed to convince a good part of the rest of the world that we were geniuses.
We weren't -- and aren't -- we were just lucky, as can be shown in our record of failure after failure in meddling with other people's lives and countries around Asia and South and Central America, where our intervention not only hasn't improved things, it has often made them objectively worse. There just aren't many shining examples of success in our CV, no matter how hard we polish them.
Finally, the rest of the world is catching on to the fact we're not especially clever. In fact, we can pretty stupid, as recent evidence clearly shows.
Our luck has finally run out and going to cause a great deal of pain, misery, and, more than likely, death, both here in the States and elsewhere as everyone learns that lesson.
___________________
1 Getting into World War II and defeating the Axis -- and even then we had to be dragged in by Japan.
2 In World War II, while a large part of the rest of the industrialized world got walloped, we stayed economically high and dry, benefiting from the boost to our industrial base and shaking us out of a decade long economic depression.
Had we, when we removed Nixon from office, also removed Henry Kissinger and his malign influence on foreign policy, and spent half of what we spent on bombs and guns and weapons of war on clean water supplies and clinics and schools around the world, the U.S. would have been the most beloved country in history. Instead, our forign policy was based on rape - you will love us becuse we will force you to. And we still haven't learned a fucking thing after all this time.
Admittedly, this falls deeply into the realm of coulda, woulda, shoulda, but had Gerald Ford allowed the legal system to take its course with Richard Nixon instead of pardoning him, perhaps many of the depredations by subsequent occupants of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW might have been averted, even considering that "the tranquility to which this nation has been restored by the events of recent weeks could be irreparably lost by the prospects of bringing to trial a former President of the United States.1"
Win some, lose some, I suppose.
At least we probably would have been spared of the following televised exchange:
Nixon: Well, when the president does it … that means that it is not illegal.Frost: By definition –
Nixon: Exactly … exactly… if the president … if, for example, the president approves something … approves an action, ah … because of the national security or in this case because of a threat to internal peace and order of, ah … ah … significant magnitude … then … the president’s decision in that instance is one, ah … that enables those who carry it out to carry it out without violating a law. Otherwise they’re in an impossible position.2
. . . and perhaps the subsequent apparent affirmation of the principle by the Roberts Court3.
But playing counterfactuals is a mug's game and we're left with the hand that history has dealt to us.
As I said above, win some, lose some.
______________________
1 Proclamation 4311—Granting Pardon to Richard Nixon
"Had we, when we removed Nixon from office, also removed Henry Kissinger and his malign influence on foreign policy, and spent half of what we spent on bombs and guns and weapons of war on clean water supplies and clinics and schools around the world, the U.S. would have been the most beloved country in history"
Cash terms unadjusted for inflation, that half of military spending would be about $11 trillion 1975-2025. Inflation adjusted I'd guess about $26 trillion at current prices.
As you say, the US could still have spent more on weapons than the next five largest countries put together and spent $26trn making the world a better place.
No one learns from history.
It is said stupid people learn from their mistakes, smart people learn from other people's mistakes.
So every generation has to learn at great cost that any politician promising to get permanently rid of the people you despise, will ultimately also get rid of you too.
"The US should lead, the rest of the world should watch and vote accordingly."
Absolutely. And in the Australian election your link refers to, the incumbent Labor center-left party was re-elected with a large positive swing, and the opposition leader lost his own seat with a swing of -8.25 percent after holding the seat for 20 years.
"Specifically, that biometric scan is encrypted and sent directly to your phone to be converted into that unique identity token, after which the info is deleted on the Orb itself, the project says. "
This could very well be secure, but only if they resist feature creep.
I also see scams coming where some poor people around the world lend their eyeballs and identities to online the bots for a pittance of money.
Yeah, sure, right.
Since when has ANY social media company EVER deleted information without a court order?
Any bets on how long before the "temporary, only for development" files are discovered?
And then, after years of court battles, get deleted, probably with with great fanfare "for the greater good" ...
Followed some years later by the discovery of the backups of same?
All of which are the highly coveted data of people who both have lots of disposable income, and are highly credulous.
Wow! Forget general intelligence and even superintelligence, this World Orb business is truly genius intelligence of the highest level!
Even Rob Joyce says it's "one of the more interesting hacks" he saw, a "fascinating pivot" (even with no fake iris involved)!
You just deploy through the "small, Linux-based" Orbs, and voilà, an all-access pass, credentials aplenty, authentications galore, a bonanza of iris-scan World-ID hash pairs, the jackpot of entry points for mischief in internet gaming databases, online dating storage, Worldcoin ledgers, and more ...
Who needs "automated fakes" when you can get a most copious truckload of "genuinely real human" IDs by hacking in laterally through the Orbs (assumed rather "unmonitored, undefended")!?!?
that biometric scan is encrypted and sent directly to your phone to be converted into that unique identity token
So, when my phone is stolen (already happened once), lost (already happened once), or compromised (hasn't happened yet -- that I know about), miscreants will have a copy of "my" token, which they can use to access my online stuff, posing as me.
Hey dude, don't pull the WorldCon into this!
You don't want to get on the bad side of the SF fans - there seem to be a load of them around here and behind The Gentle Fannish Face lies a Kzin or a CODE NIGHTMARE BLUE. They get all the same info from the foxes that The Folly does and whilst the forum may be keyboard-bound, decades of fanac and putting out 'zines have honed their skills: Tessier-Ashpool think they rule Cyberspace but The Fen make them look like Talkie Toaster! As monomaniacal as Morning Light Mountain, more Ravenous than a Bugblatter Beast, once roused to the chase even seeking shelter in Callahan's Saloon won't save you from their barbs.
Beware their battlecry: "Yngvi is a louse!".
No, no - the data really *is* deleted off the Orb. They wouldn't lie to us.
But there wasn't any statement that the data isn't first sent to their central servers, the mobile phones of their techs ("it was only in there for debugging, but then we were told to ship TODAY") and the public access git repository where the Head of Sales, who fancies himself to be a tech wizz but couldn't get the budget for a private account, was storing them "for training purposes".
(Edit: then he realised that the comment had sat, unsent, since tea time, and when the page refreshed, saw jake had got in and expressed much the same opinion hours before. That is what one gets for enjoying the rock cakes and forgetting about one's ever so important online presence. Must up my game)
Do you have to get orb'd again if you get slashed in the face (by a werewolf, perhaps) and lose both eyes? Would they have to give the $16 back? Would it even make sense for someone without eyes to get orb'd? Do you think orb as a verb sounds like extraterrestrial anal probing? Would the orb still recognize/love me when I'm all old and wrinkly with untreated cataracts? Icon, because get orb'd, tech bros!
All the details are on https://world.org/faqs and there is even a full engineering description of the Orbs under https://world.org/blog/engineering/opening-orb-look-inside-worldcoin-biometric-imaging-device
I am afraid my gut feeling is that the whole World... shemozzle is one very slick, very ornate con.
I would be rapidly cashing the $16 of WorldCon not that you would catch me within cooee of one of those Orbs or indeed anything in which Altman and co were involved.
Wouldn't surprise me if the Orbs were using a laser to capture retinal images or using a very powerful finely focused laser to ablate very particular areas in the prefrontal lobes† in which case he is probably a willing stooge for some potato headed space aliens.
† not in the US where a significant proportion are apparently born congenitally decorticate which also probably makes proving personhood a trial.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
