I'm glad they mention privacy preserving and being voluntary. It's possible to make digital ID that allows selectively revealing attributes without identity, and that could solve problems like bots, socketpuppets, etc along with reasonable age-gating. It could be an ideal internet if it's properly applied. The problem is it's difficult to verify all the promises are being kept, and if they're not it instantly becomes a true dystopia. And sites could use it in inappropriate ways resulting in discrimination.
> I'm glad they mention privacy preserving and being voluntary. It's possible to make digital ID that allows selectively revealing attributes without identity
Not without either being able to trivially let others use your proofs OR ending open computing. There is no zero knowledge proof about the slab of meat sitting in front of the screen.
That's what "The problem is it's difficult to verify all the promises are being kept, and if they're not it instantly becomes a true dystopia" is about.
This is painful because I've worked in public consultation and privacy focused digital identity. I was at a party last week, and a non tech person said it would be better if there was no new tech.
What's the incentive for people to participate in file sharing networks? To some degree it's access to a world of free media (same as access to a world of decentralized identities), but to a large degree it's an interesting hobby/excuse to be interested in tech. Some people have racks of hard drives dedicated to hobbies like this, just because it's interesting and is worthy.
I always assume, unfortunately, that once companies start to get to a certain point they become strategic, and military applications comes into play. They then probably get special consideration when it comes to funding and access. All of Musk's efforts certainly fit this paradigm.
Google "atoms for peace." You will find an entire multidimensional cluster of hype ranging from Rickover maneuvering to get a nuclear navy, which seems to work pretty well, but on the way there it created a subsidized nuclear reactor business which was never in the money but for subsidies, loss leaders, and underbids. There was no Golden Age of nuclear power. There were fixed bid contracts that masked cost overruns until they didn't anymore. There was FOMO about Soviet gigantism and (subsidized) European nuclear projects.
I completely support not being dependant on a foreign company (or any company at all, standards FTW) and I don't think there should even be a shadow of possibility that an organization like the ICC could be cut off from services due to a foreign directive, but while I have seen it repeated many times, I think the article's opening assertion is not true; https://www.politico.eu/article/microsoft-did-not-cut-servic...
It is very distressing how many organizations have become dependant on Microsoft and the US cloud for core services. I hope that an unintended consequence of the current US administration's approach is that this becomes less so.
It's not strictly true, but the distinction between the truth and the assertion is small enough that the ICC itself draws the conclusion that Microsoft didn't yet:
> I think the article's opening assertion is not true
The link you provided does not appear to contradict the assertion in any way. "We have not cut off services to the ICC" != "We have not cut off services to one specific sanctioned individual who just so happened to coincidentally be on the ICC". The linked article even mentions Microsoft were pressed on the specific subject of the individual rather than the ICC as a whole, but declined to comment, so it looks like a regular case of weasel wording to distort the truth.
