Episode Details

Weeks after its international launch, Worldcoin is drawing the attention of officials around the world. Kenya’s government has gone so far as to shut down the service. The international ID company, backed by big investors in Silicon Valley’s technology industry, now has to defend itself in investigations. The central question is whether the biometric data that the company is collecting is secure or not.

世界币在国际推出几周后，引起了世界各地官员的关注。肯尼亚政府甚至关闭了该服务。这家国际身份识别公司得到了硅谷科技行业大投资者的支持，现在必须在调查中为自己辩护。核心问题是该公司收集的生物识别数据是否安全。

Worldcoin is the creation of Sam Altman. He is best known as the head of OpenAI, the maker of the artificial intelligence program ChatGPT. The goal of Worldcoin and the company backing it, Tools for Humanity, is to give people a form of identification that could never be stolen or copied. Worldcoin creates a “World ID”, an identification tool, by scanning someone’s eyes through “orbs.” These are special devices that capture images of the irises, the colored parts of the eyes. One possible use for such an ID tool would be online services. Such services require that people remember passwords and usernames for websites they have signed up for.

世界币是山姆·奥尔特曼的创造。他最出名的身份是 OpenAI 的负责人，也是人工智能程序 ChatGPT 的开发者。世界币及其支持公司 Tools for Humanity 的目标是为人们提供一种永远不会被窃取或复制的身份识别形式。世界币通过“球体”扫描某人的眼睛，创建了“世界 ID”，一种识别工具。这些是捕捉虹膜（眼睛的有色部分）图像的特殊设备。这种 ID 工具的一种可能用途是在线服务。此类服务要求人们记住他们注册的网站的密码和用户名。

The security of those sites can have problems, however. There have been several security issues where usernames and passwords have been stolen. Instead of using old technology like passwords, people could just sign up using their World ID.Worldcoin is an identification project. But it is also using cryptocurrency to get people to sign up. The Worldcoin token is trading for roughly $1.90. However, its value is largely based on expectations rather than its usability as a form of money. Worldcoin launched officially in July. As part of the event, early users were given an amount of cryptocurrency worth between $50 and $60. Most of the countries where Worldcoin launched do not widely use or accept crypto. Further, $50 is a lot of money in developing countries where people are being asked to sign up, including Kenya, where the average monthly wage is around $170.

然而，这些网站的安全性可能存在问题。存在一些用户名和密码被盗的安全问题。人们可以使用他们的 World ID 进行注册，而不是使用密码等旧技术。Worldcoin 是一个身份识别项目。但它也使用加密货币来吸引人们注册。 Worldcoin 代币的交易价格约为 1.90 美元。然而，它的价值很大程度上取决于预期，而不是其作为货币形式的可用性。世界币于七月正式推出。作为活动的一部分，早期用户获得了价值 50 至 60 美元的加密货币。世界币推出的大多数国家并未广泛使用或接受加密货币。此外，在要求人们注册的发展中国家，50 美元是一大笔钱，包括肯尼亚，那里的平均月工资约为 170 美元。

Thousands of Kenyans lined up in Nairobi in early August at a center where Worldcoin took images of their irises in exchange for 25 coins worth about $50. The lines included mothers