[jugglinmike]

> Maybe there is a way to build a new web, a new kind of social media using a > hash graph to implement a decentralized web of trust, something that can > allow content verification without forcing everyone to sacrifice their right > to remain anonymous online.

Comparisons to OpenGPG are likely to make anyone cringe, but if you're willing to suspend disbelief about the usability issues, it seems like such an apt metaphor. Where signing a key is vouching for the owner's humanity, not their identity. I can imagine websites integrating my browser to attach a "humanity key" to the content I post, and my browser maintaining my collection of keys and my preferences for divulging them.

Granted, pseudonymity is not the same as anonymity. Maybe if the meaning (and lifespan?) behind these keys was constrained, then they could be sufficiently disposable to approximate anonymity.

This system is either fundamentally flawed or already implemented, but I don't know how determine which. Can anyone here share writing along these lines?

[dane-pgp]

"Proof of humanity" is an active area of research, and there are several attempts at it out there. One that's worth looking at is BrightID[0] (although some people might be put off by it being blockchain-adjacent, in that it uses a DAO as part of its consensus-building system).

As for the difference between pseudonymity and anonymity, it's worth noting that once everyone has a cryptographic identity, we can start layering on clever things like zero-knowledge proofs, for example, which would allow people to issue themselves new pseudonyms that carry the same level of trust as their core identity, without ever revealing what that core identity is (or which other accounts vouched for the core identity to give it that level of trust).

[0] https://www.brightid.org/