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Ask HN: How would you give 8B people a unique identity which wasn't naff?

3 points by p0d ↗ HN
I was just sitting here ruminating on how companies own our identities and how this might change.

How would you generate 8B usernames that were meaningful and not naff like 57:A7:45:F0:33:B9:77:C3@

6 comments

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new_guy
> Cyclops, if any man of mortal birth Note thine unseemly blindness and inquire The occasion, tell him that Laertes' son, Ulysses, the destroyer of walled towns, Whose home is Ithaca, put out thine eye.

Seems like it's already a solved problem.

themodelplumber
Naff is going to get in the way, can it be defined in this specific context for better measurement traction? Otherwise IDK, different people can call anything naff. Maybe unique identity is naff.
upofadown
Cryptographic identities come in the form of ridiculously long numbers. There is no way around this fundamental fact.

After that you let the user be called whatever they want.

TheMonarchist
Represent it as a bitmap - people are good at seeing patterns.