Who watches the removers?

Proof of Humanity
1

Who watches the removers?

vig·i·lan·tism
/ˌvijəˈlan(t)(ē)ˌizəm/

noun

  1. law enforcement undertaken without legal authority by a self-appointed group of people.

We have a farmer issue. It is a serious and hard-to-solve issue. Actions need to be made to make our system less attack-prone and more robust against farmer attacks. We all know that. We are working towards making legislation against that, and its been a while since there was any progress. [Phase-1] HIP 33: Registry protection against puppet and farming attacks

This lack of proper procedure has led to a group of ethereum accounts to start a cruzade towards the removals of alleged farmers and puppeteers. There was a very large event where dozens of profiles were requested for removals and no challenge to that request was made (most probably because it actually was a farmer, and he no longer has access to those people being farmed).

Jump to present day: account 0xc29c6f66e771f602c9dcdb19485e5284c59c6915 starts a process for requesting the removal of four different accounts.

  1. Proof of Humanity, a sybil-proof list of humans.
  2. Proof of Humanity, a sybil-proof list of humans.
  3. Proof of Humanity, a sybil-proof list of humans.
  4. Proof of Humanity, a sybil-proof list of humans.

The allegations? “The submitter is a sock-puppet” “The list of the addresses attached have voted at the same time” (?)

What is the crime here? “Voting at the same time” is a crime? What part of the primary document (the base for permanence or for leaving the registry jurors use to decide in disputes) says “voting simultaneously is forbidden”? I talked with the alleged farmer in this set of profiles and he affirms that he is in close contact with these people, he just helped them make their profiles and he can provide proof of this, if needed.

The point here is if these 4 accounts constitute or not a legitimate farming case. The point is that if we continue to enable this vigilantism culture within the DAO there is at least space for a trend to happen (read this very carefully, not saying things will happen for the worse, but there is space for it). This attitude must not be enabled. Any profile has the right for a proper process and the use of the rule of law to allow them to remain or leave the Registry, and there should be clear laws and procedures that help jurors decide this case by case.

One of the main themes of the Watchmen (the graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons) is that over-reliance on a limited source of power usually leads to abuse of it, if we give them time and if institutions do not put a check on this power, hence the iconical phrase “Who watches the Watchmen?” (also part of the title of the paper by Divya Siddarth, Sergey Ivliev, Santiago Siri and Paula Berman on how can we can prevent our over-reliance in centralized organisms or groups).

This is the reason why I challenged one of these removals, and I encourage the community to challenge the rest of them. At the same time, we should monitor what is being decided at courts to see if jurors act in accordance to what Proof of Humanity provides them as the codified law in the Primary Document. Jurors in the past have bent interpretations of the text (see “filter” cases or “360p” cases) and will continue to do that if we let them.

Are we willing, as a DAO, to give this amount of power to this reduced and centralized group of people?

Who watches them?

Shouldn’t we?

¿Quién vigila a los removedores?

vigilantismo

sustantivo

  1. Aplicación de la ley llevada a cabo sin autoridad legal por un grupo de personas autodesignadas.

Tenemos un problema con los farmers. Es un asunto serio y difícil de resolver. Hay que tomar medidas para que nuestro sistema sea menos propenso a los ataques y más robusto contra los ataques de los farmers. Todos lo sabemos. Estamos trabajando para que se legisle al respecto, y hace tiempo que no hay avances. [Phase-1] HIP 33: Registry protection against puppet and farming attacks

Esta falta de procedimiento adecuado ha llevado a un grupo de cuentas de Ethereum a iniciar una cruzada hacia la eliminación de los supuestos farmers y titiriteros. Hubo un evento muy grande en el que se solicitaron las remociones de decenas de perfiles y no se challengeó dicha solicitud (muy probablemente porque en realidad se trataba de un farmer, y ya no tiene acceso a esas personas que estaban siendo farmeadas).

Salto a la actualidad: la cuenta 0xc29c6f66e771f602c9dcdb19485e5284c59c6915 inicia un proceso para solicitar la eliminación de cuatro cuentas diferentes.

  1. Proof of Humanity, a sybil-proof list of humans.
  2. Proof of Humanity, a sybil-proof list of humans.
  3. Proof of Humanity, a sybil-proof list of humans.
  4. Proof of Humanity, a sybil-proof list of humans.
    ¿Las alegaciones? “El remitente es un títere” “La lista de las direcciones adjuntas han votado al mismo tiempo” (?)

¿Cuál es el delito aquí? ¿“Votar al mismo tiempo” es un delito? ¿Qué parte del documento primario (la base para la permanencia o para dejar el registro que los jurados utilizan para decidir en los challenges) dice que “está prohibido votar simultáneamente”? Hablé con el presunto farmer de este conjunto de perfiles y afirma que está en estrecho contacto con estas personas, simplemente les ayudó a hacer sus perfiles y puede aportar pruebas de ello, si es necesario.

El punto aquí es si estas 4 cuentas constituyen o no un caso legítimo de agricultura. El punto es que si continuamos permitiendo esta cultura de vigilantismo dentro del DAO hay al menos espacio para que ocurra una tendencia (leer esto con mucho cuidado, no digo que las cosas vayan a ocurrir para peor, pero hay espacio para ello). Esta actitud no debe ser permitida. Cualquier perfil tiene derecho a un proceso adecuado y al uso del estado de derecho para permitirle permanecer o salir del Registro, y debe haber leyes y procedimientos claros que ayuden a los jurados a decidir esto caso por caso.

Uno de los temas principales de los Watchmen (la novela gráfica de Alan Moore y Dave Gibbons) es que la dependencia excesiva de una fuente limitada de poder suele conducir al abuso del mismo, si les damos tiempo y si las instituciones no ponen un freno a este poder, de ahí la frase icónica “¿Quién vigila a los Watchmen?” (también parte del título del trabajo de Divya Siddarth, Sergey Ivliev, Santiago Siri y Paula Berman sobre cómo podemos evitar nuestra excesiva confianza en organismos o grupos centralizados).

Esta es la razón por la que challengié uno de estos removals, y animo a la comunidad a challengear el resto de ellas. Al mismo tiempo, deberíamos vigilar lo que se decide en las cortes para ver si los jurados actúan de acuerdo con lo que Proof of Humanity les proporciona como ley codificada en el Documento Primario. Los jurados en el pasado han doblado las interpretaciones del texto (ver casos “filtro” o casos “360p”) y seguirán haciéndolo si se lo permitimos.

¿Estamos dispuestos, como DAO, a dar esta cantidad de poder a este grupo reducido y centralizado de personas?

¿Quién los vigila?

¿No deberíamos hacerlo nosotros?

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I feel confused, frustrated, angry and disappointed about this.
There is not a rule that prevents a profile to be managed by anyone different from the real person, actually.
We all know the importance of sybil resistance, but in order to improve it I consider more democratic other ways to achieve that. Such as improving the current rules, or the code itself of the protocol.
Not to use a strategy that involves “paying to probe I’m innocent”, that is not very democratic in a ecosystem of people in needs.

I am worried about the farming, please do not misinterpret me. But violent, authoritarian actions like this discourage well intentioned participants. A MB member should not behave this way. It is unacceptable

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You made it quite artistic. I don’t understand what the point of this post is, is this a proposal? Are you expressing a concern, but you don’t know what the solution is?

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He’s encouraging the community to help challenge the request removal of the preofiles and making a point on why. That’s all

5

Kleros jurors.

Anyone can ask to remove profiles, so the group of people who could do so is just “anyone”, we cannot have a more decentralized group.

No one needs to pay to prove their are innocent (actually, you would even get the remover deposit if you are the target of a wrong removal request). And apparently the sockpupetter even admitted controlling those accounts.

There is no authoritarian actions, anyone can request the removal of a profile they suspect not to follow the rules, anyone can challenge this removal, that’s one of the basis of PoH. So there is nothing authoritarian in that and mission board members have nothing to do with that.
Note that I am not the remover, but I did report in a private chat that some accounts may be sockpuppets after someone reported that to me.

If those are real accounts they should be able to easily prove it by making a video swearing that they are the ones in control of those accounts.

We already had a precedent with the “Cryptovengelist” controlling a lot of profiles. Those were removed from the registry so to my understanding rules/jurisprudence already prohibit having multiple profiles even if you manage to get the video of someone else.
If some people believes that the policy doesn’t prevent sockpupetting (which I believe is currently the biggest threat to PoH), we should probably work on making that more explicit.

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I agree with many of you here, there must be an update in the policy to stop needing that jurisprudence. Jurisprudence that comes from a few accounts, ultimately.
PoH, as a DAO, should legislate for itself. There is no need (and I find it wrong) for the judges to create a precedent nor a jurisprudence. Their intereses, motivations and incentives are not the same as the community’s.

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Kleros jurors are also in PoH, why would their interest not be aligned in the community? @ludovico cherry-picked from the evidence and presented it here as if it was targeted and attack-type of removal.

The disputes created on the removals are open for anyone interested to scrutinize. Due to limited text capacity, evidences in Kleros’ disputes are commonly added as an attachment.
https://court.kleros.io/cases/1221
https://court.kleros.io/cases/1224

The crime was not voting at the same time, but
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Ludovico himself defined what sockpuppeting is in PoH scenario that’s why it’s quite ironic to cry for authoritarianism all of a sudden.

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Sockpuppeting is the antithesis of a sybil-proof human’s list purpose of PoH.