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Comment by valdiorn | Hacker News Reader

Regarding d) - the whole idea from Cyberpunk that there was an "old internet" that was taken over by rogue AIs who now control it, with NetSec keeping them at bay and preventing them from spilling over into the new internet, is getting increasingly likely.

I can definitely see a possibility where the current internet as we know it just gets flooded with AI crap, and humans will have to build entirely new technologies to replace the old World Wide Web, with real-world identity checks to enable access to it, and so on. Oh, and probably some kind of punitive system for people who abuse their access (chinese social credit style)

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Combining that with b) above, and what we get is that no important decision will be made without an in-person meeting.

So, rather than technology speeding up everything, we will slow down everything to pre-telephone days.

Bob, the CFO, will tell Alice, the CEO, that sure, I can make that transfer of $173 million to [new_supplier_bank_acct], do you want me to fly to your office for us to complete the hardcopy authorization papers, or will you be coming to mine?

All that stuff that was accelerated by telegraph, telephone, fax, mobile phones, email, video calls . . . poof! Pretty much entirely untrustworthy for anything significant. The only way around it could be a quantum-resistant and very trustworthy encryption system...

I'm not sure the net result of this technology actually makes life better. Seems to empower the criminals more than the regular people.

Deploy the technology against itself, train the cops to use it? My guess is that they'll always be several steps behind.

Even if we try to do the right thing and kill it, it is already out of the bag - the authoritarian states like China and Russia will certainly attempt to deploy it to their advantage.

The only way out now is to take maximum advantage of it.

No. Encryption has nothing to do with the problem. Ignoring quantum resistance (which is still probably not needed for any of this) you just need something like PGP with a key stored on a CCID card (with all other copies of the key stored on an airgapped and secured machine or non existent). Theft of the card is equivalent to someone stealing an employee's equipment. Theft of the card pin is equivalent to someone phishing the pin from the employee. To that extent, post perfect-AI-imitation you have the same guarantees as you have today. But this IS a massive step back in convenience. And if the card is stolen, the employee can no longer call in to prove their ID to have the card revoked. Because in that case, attackers would just spam companies with legitimate looking revocation requests.

But I guess what this COULD cause is a black market for stolen CCID cards and pins, and therefore crime to fuel the market.

Ok,'tho last time I looked PGP stood for the "Pretty Good Privacy" encryption system, and everything you wrote here is abt managing encryption keys, so I'm not sure how "Encryption has nothing to do with the problem".

Maybe you mean that it could be solved without quantum-resistant encryption systems?

I suppose the PGP kyes on CCID chip cards could work. But how are you going to enforce the no other copies not on secured & airgapped machines? Or the other security measures?

You're right , this will be at least a source of huge inconvenience compared to the current status, and a source of crime. Probably more violent too. Instead of Ransomware, it'll be kidnap the CFO's family and force them to use their card to make the transfers.

Yes my point was that encryption is not an obstacle to having assurance that the person you are communicating with is who you expect them to be.

Keys can be generated directly on the secure element of the CCID card, this means there is no other copy. Alternatively employees physically go to an office to collect cards prepared by the security team where the security team has access to a secure facility where key backups are kept. The enforcement is done by the nature of the CCID cards not actually ever directly exposing the keys.

> humans will have to build entirely new technologies to replace the old World Wide Web, with real-world identity checks to enable access to it, and so on

"Entirely new technologies"? In plenty of countries the exact world wide web you're using right now already works that way. China and South Korea, to name two.

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