Why is personality verification so important for Web3?

Original Title: 《Why Proof-of-Humanity is so Important and Why Rarimo Built the World's First POH Aggregator》

Written by: Rarimo

Compiled by: Deep Tide TechFlow

In 1993, when the World Wide Web entered the public domain, The New Yorker published a now-classic cartoon: "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." This sketch depicted a computer-savvy dog introducing the possibilities of online personas to his companion, and it was quickly replicated to warn people that in the anonymous corridors of the Internet, individuals may not be who they claim to be.

However, despite the vigilance of Internet users at the end of the 20th century, the most dangerous threat users face today is bots. These autonomous programs are dangerous not because they represent the one-on-one, personalized deception of traditional dogs or human adversaries, but because they have the ability to replicate infinitely, overwhelming entire systems.

Take the 2016 U.S. election as an example, where rumors suggested that Russia deployed bots to flood Twitter with pro-Trump content, leading to widespread distrust in the democratic process. Although this incident was never fully resolved, it highlighted how bots can often be a factor of concentrated power, enabling an individual or organization to assemble an army from nothing. With the advancement of artificial intelligence, this risk has escalated over the years, recently reaching an urgent peak following the release of generative models.

Blockchain as Anti-Bot Infrastructure

Fortunately, preventing such attacks has always been at the core 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 Bitcoin white paper from 2009 caused a stir in the field of computer science because the proof-of-work mechanism demonstrated that an open network could be maintained by keeping a majority honest. If you want to impersonate a thousand people, you must do the work of a thousand people, and the cost will increase a thousandfold.

Thus, the most promising safeguards against bot attacks are emerging in Web3. Particularly important are Proof-of-Humanity (POH) solutions, also known as Proof of Personhood (POP). These solutions provide cryptographic proof that a user is human and not a bot, without revealing any additional information about the user. This emphasis on privacy distinguishes POH from identity solutions in the real world and Web2, which often require personal details such as addresses or birth dates.

From social media to DAO voting, or from managing airdrops to gatekeeping reward programs, the range and number of applications and platforms that can utilize POH solutions are limitless.

Vitalik's Perspective on POH

In his recent blog post "My Thoughts on Biometric Proof of Personhood," Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin wrote that POH solutions are "one of the most valuable tools that people in the Ethereum community have been striving to build," but also "one of the trickiest." This is because POH solutions need to provide indisputable proof while maintaining privacy, and must also adhere to other Web3 principles, including user ownership and decentralization.

A range of solutions already exists, but there is debate within the Web3 community about which solution is the most robust. To gain a comprehensive understanding of the nuances between different approaches, we recommend reading Vitalik's blog, where he compares biometric and social graph-based methods, but summarizes his thoughts as follows:

There is no ideal form of proof of personhood. Instead, we have at least three different paradigms, each with its unique advantages and disadvantages.

To some extent, POH solutions are like ice cream flavors, where personal taste often becomes the deciding factor. Biometric solutions like Worldcoin, which use spherical, futuristic-looking hardware devices called "Orbs" to scan people's irises, may seem too dystopian for some. However, the orb only computes and stores the hash of the user's iris scan, meaning that even in the highly unlikely worst-case scenario, the amount of personalized data that could be leaked about an individual is negligible. Thus, for other users, this privacy guarantee makes the Orb very non-invasive.

Why POH Solutions Need Aggregation

Due to the many trade-offs between different types of proof of personhood solutions, a single verification method is difficult to popularize, and Web3 does not wish for that either. Because if one method becomes too prevalent and becomes the only way to access the services we know and love, users will be forced to choose between acquiescence or exclusion. Selectivity is key to freedom, allowing users to maintain control over their identities.

For this reason, Rarimo has decided to aggregate the four largest identity providers in the space: Worldcoin, Unstoppable Domains, Gitcoin Passport, and Civic, becoming the world's first dApp proof of personhood plugin. This allows applications and platforms seeking to protect users from bot attacks to automatically integrate with multiple providers, rather than spending time and resources collaborating with each provider, and allows users to choose their preferred provider.

Privacy

After selecting a provider, users generate an on-chain proof that verifies they meet requirements that only real humans can satisfy. These proofs themselves utilize zero-knowledge (ZK) technology, making the aforementioned goal a reality, so that even when one party (in this case, the user) proves to another party (in this case, the platform) that a statement (in this case, that they are human) is true, no additional information is disclosed.

For example, if a user chooses Unstoppable Domains as their provider, Rarimo will enable them to generate a proof of personhood based on complex steps such as owning and making payments from a bank account, which cannot be performed by bots, while not revealing even the name of the domain.

Why We Need Multi-Chain POH

As an interoperability protocol, Rarimo also makes all proofs immediately multi-chain and available across all networks. This allows any dApp and smart contract on any chain to interact with the plugin, ensuring that users can not only freely choose their provider but also the network they prefer.

Just as having multiple providers is vital for the health of the digital identity ecosystem, having multiple chains is equally important for the health of Web3. Because chains also have trade-offs, meaning no single chain can provide all the infrastructure needed for the ecosystem. For example, the more decentralized a blockchain is, the lower its scalability. The more secure it is, the fewer smart contract functionalities it has. By enabling users to seamlessly switch between platforms or networks, Rarimo again strives to promote diversity and maintain selectivity.

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

Through proof of personhood, we can ensure that participants in the online world are real humans, not bots. The traceability of this verification means we can track and verify the origin and authenticity of each proof. Anonymity protects users' privacy, allowing them to verify without disclosing personal identification information. Furthermore, the security provided by blockchain technology ensures the immutability and anti-counterfeiting of proofs.

In the past year, AI-generated music, poetry, and images have surged onto the Internet. Being able to distinguish which content is generated by humans and which is generated by machines is crucial in the fight against misinformation.

Proof of personhood provides an early example of a possible solution, demonstrating how blockchain technology can offer traceability, anonymity, and security to address 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 personhood has a positive impact in Web3.