A library of snippets
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Meta has created a system that can embed hidden signals, known as watermarks, in AI-generated audio clips, which could help in detecting AI-generated content online.
From: Meta has created a way to watermark AI-generated speech | MIT Technology Review.
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Research from the Reserve Bank Australia (Fairweather et al, Valuing Safety and Privacy in Retail Central Bank Digital Currency. 2024) shows up some interesting consumer attitudes around a digital fiat currency. At high level it tells us that consumers do not care about safety (they do not distinguish between commercial bank money and central bank money as nerds like me do) but they do care about privacy, to the extent that they are willing to pay for it. Interesting.
I used Reserve Bank’s research to create a useful thought experiment. Their paper explores the merits of a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) in Australia, focusing on the extent to which consumers would value having access to a digital form of money that is even safer and potentially more private than commercial bank deposits. This is consistent with bank deposits in Australia already being perceived as a safe form of money (because of a deposit protection scheme) and physical cash continuing to be available as an alternative option. So therefore you cannot charge consumers for a CBDC on the basis of safety.
When it comes to privacy though, there is a different perception. Consumers say that they value transaction anonymity and that they care about who transaction data is shared with, to the extrent that they are prepared to pay A$5 more for an account that shares transaction data with the central bank instead of wich commercial banks, assuming that Australia’s financial crime authority, AUSTRAC (Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre), can access the transaction data in ierther case.That would generate around $60m per annum to contrbute to the running of the system.
So could we fund a CBDC this way?
I was flattered to be invited to join a panel of luminaries to discuss the issue of money and privacy at the European Forum Alpbach 2024 and in attempt to show the audience that there are some interesting discussions to be had around business model, I talked about the need for privacy, but not for anonymity.
Policymakers probably could not introduce a retail CBDC with complete anonymity, on account of the financial crime implications. But it could be designed in such a way that it restricts data sharing to different entities compared to existing forms of digital money, or even allow for anonymity for small transactions (European Central Bank 2023).
I was flattered to be ask to take part in a discussion about privacy and CBDC at the
Leading cryptographers have concerns about the way that the European Digtial Identity Wallet is put together. The current reference architecture (the ARF) in their view does not use the state-of-the-art technologies such as anonymous credentials that have been developed over the last couple of decades and, of course, once the wallets is rolled out on a large scale, it will become exceedingly difficult to make further changes.
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In this document, we propose to use a different cryptographic mechanism instead; namely, anonymous credentials. Anonymous credentials were designed specifically to achieve authentication and identification that are both secure and privacy-preserving. As a result, they fully meet the requirements put forth in the eiDAS 2.0 regulation. Moreover, they are by now a mature technology. This technology was developed more than twenty years ago, and extensive efforts have been expended to analyze, improve, implement, standardize, test, and deploy it. Anonymous credentials are well understood by the scientific community.
Our specific recommendation is to use the BBS family of anonymous credentials. For BBS, thanks to prior work by the W3C, the Decentralized Identity Foundation, IETF/IRTF, ISO, and other standardization bodies, as well as the availability of open-source software libraries, the EC can develop a standard and reference implementation with only a modest effort. We additionally recommend that the EUDI be designed following the principle of crypto-agility, meaning that its underlying technologies can be upgraded quickly in the future if the need arises.
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Now it could get more difficult under a proposal by China’s internet regulators: The government wants to take over the job of verification from the companies and give people a single ID to use across the internet.
The Ministry of Public Security and the Cyberspace Administration of China say the proposal is meant to protect privacy and prevent online fraud.
From: China Wants to Start a National Internet ID System – DNyuz.
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N LATE JULY, OpenAI began rolling out an eerily humanlike voice interface for ChatGPT. In a safety analysis released today, the company acknowledges that this anthropomorphic voice may lure some users into becoming emotionally attached to their chatbot.
From: OpenAI Warns Users Could Become Emotionally Hooked on Its Voice Mode | WIRED.
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One singer, Sofia Pitcher, managed to rack up huge streaming numbers between December 2023 and March 2024 for tracks like “Stone Age” and “Rock,” both of which came from her album, Stone Age. But Pitcher didn’t exist, according to an investigation by Spanish news outlet El Diario.
From: Spotify is full of AI music, and it’s ruining the platform – Fast Company.
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In their latest report, Where Are the Digital IDs? Three Questions You Must Ask, Christopher Miller, Lead Emerging Payments Analyst, and James Wester, Co-Head of Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research, examine the obstacles to digital ID adoption.
From: How Digital IDs Can Impact the Adoption of Digital Wallets – PaymentsJournal.
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Miller and Wester asked three main questions:
Are consumers interested in digital IDs?
Are digital IDs available?
Are they accepted?
After researching consumer preferences, the study found that consumers are largely interested in digital IDs. Unfortunately, they aren’t often available.
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Understanding Crypto Custodians: Proliferation Continues, a new from Javelin Strategy & Research, explores how the new wave of custodians has introduced a series of innovations to the industry. Joel Hugentobler, Cryptocurrency Analyst at Javelin and lead author of the study, lays out the considerations that financial institutions should consider when selecting a custodian, including storage methods, insurance coverage, and the full range of product offerings.
From: Crypto Custodians Could Bring a Revolution in Holding Assets – PaymentsJournal.
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For example, state DMVs largely favor the “mobile driver’s license” family of digital credential standards (ISO/IEC 18013-5 mDL), and OEM wallets also privilege the mDL standard. But many educational institutions, for example, prefer the OpenBadges standard by the 1EdTech educational consortium, an alternative format built on the W3C’s Verifiable Credentials. Numerous other use cases are built using W3C Verifiable Credentials, such as Microsoft’s Entra Verified ID product, C2PA for content authenticity (a specification supported by Adobe, OpenAI, and Google), and GS1’s digital supply chain integrity efforts. Further, the EU Digital Identity efforts include SD-JWTs.
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