Worldcoin releases audit reports showing resolved security issues
Proof of humanity protocol Worldcoin released its audit reports on July 28 as criticism of its data collection practices continues to mount. The new reports were conducted by security consulting firms Nethermind and Least Authority.
According to an accompanying announcement from Worldcoin, Nethermind found 26 security issues with the protocol, of which 24 were “identified as fixed” during the verification phase while one was mitigated and another was acknowledged.
Least Authority discovered three issues and made six suggestions, all of which “have been resolved or have planned resolutions,” the announcement stated.
Learn more about the results of two separate security audits of the Worldcoin protocol, performed by @NethermindEth & @LeastAuthority.https://t.co/fXa50wNBYE
— Worldcoin (@worldcoin) July 28, 2023
Worldcoin first rose to prominence in 2021 when it announced that it would give away free tokens to any users who verify their humanness, which they could do by having their iris scanned by a device called an “Orb.” The project was co-founded by Sam Altman, the co-founder of AI developer OpenAI.
At the time, Altman and other team members argued that AI bots would become an increasing problem on the internet if people didn’t find a way to verify their humanness without giving up their privacy. According to the protocol’s documentation, The Orb produces a hash of the user’s iris scan but does not keep a copy of the iris scan.
Related: Worldcoin confirms it is the cause of mysterious Safe deployments
Worldcoin initiated its public launch on July 25, after nearly two years of development and beta testing. But criticism of it erupted almost immediately. The United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) reportedly said the government body was deciding whether to investigate the project for violating the country’s data protection laws. French data protection agency CNIL also questioned Worldcoin’s legality.
The crypto community was divided over the project’s launch, with some participants seeing it as the start of a dystopian future where privacy would be eliminated. In contrast, others saw it as a necessary step towards protecting humans against malicious AIs.
The new audit reports cover a wide variety of security topics, including resistance to DDoS attacks, case-specific implementation errors, key storage and proper management of encryption and signing of keys, data leaking and information integrity, and others. Some issues found were the result of dependencies on Semaphore and Ethereum, including “elliptic curve precompile support or Poseidon hash function configuration,” the announcement stated.
All issues except one were fixed, mitigated, or have planned fixes. The one security issue that was not fixed by the time of verification has a severity of “undetermined” and is listed as “acknowledged.”
The election of a pro-crypto President in the United States and growing macroeconomic turmoil will continue to drive investors to Bitcoin.
Politics
Sir Keir Starmer vows to defend budget decisions ‘all day long’ as farmers slam ‘disrespectful’ PM
Sir Keir Starmer has said he will defend the decisions made in the budget “all day long” amid anger from farmers over inheritance tax changes.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced last month in her key speech that from April 2026, farms worth more than £1m will face an inheritance tax rate of 20%, rather than the standard 40% applied to other land and property.
The announcement has sparked anger among farmers who argue this will mean higher food prices, lower food production and having to sell off land to pay for the tax.
Sir Keir defended the budget as he gave his first speech as prime minister at the Welsh Labour conference in Llandudno, North Wales, where farmers have been holding a tractor protest outside.
Sir Keir admitted: “We’ve taken some extremely tough decisions on tax.”
He said: “I will defend facing up to the harsh light of fiscal reality. I will defend the tough decisions that were necessary to stabilise our economy.
“And I will defend protecting the payslips of working people, fixing the foundations of our economy, and investing in the future of Britain and the future of Wales. Finally, turning the page on austerity once and for all.”
He also said the budget allocation for Wales was a “record figure” – some £21bn for next year – an extra £1.7bn through the Barnett Formula, as he hailed a “path of change” with Labour governments in Wales and Westminster.
And he confirmed a £160m investment zone in Wrexham and Flintshire will be going live in 2025.
‘PM should have addressed the protesters’
Among the hundreds of farmers demonstrating was Gareth Wyn Jones, who told Sky News it was “disrespectful” that the prime minister did not mention farmers in his speech.
He said “so many people have come here to air their frustrations. He (Starmer) had an opportunity to address the crowd. Even if he was booed he should have been man enough to come out and talk to the people”.
He said farmers planned to deliver Sir Keir a letter which begins with “‘don’t bite the hand that feeds you”.
Farmers’ tractor protest outside the Welsh Labour conference in Llandudno, North Wales
Mr Wyn Jones told Sky News the government was “destroying” an industry that was already struggling.
“They’re destroying an industry that’s already on its knees and struggling, absolutely struggling, mentally, emotionally and physically. We need government support not more hindrance so we can produce food to feed the nation.”
He said inheritance tax changes will result in farmers increasing the price of food: “The poorer people in society aren’t going to be able to afford good, healthy, nutritious British food, so we have to push this to government for them to understand that enough is enough, the farmers can’t take any more of what they’re throwing at us.”
Mr Wyn Jones disputed the government’s estimation that only 500 farming estates in the UK will be affected by the inheritance tax changes.
“Look, a lot of farmers in this country are in their 70s and 80s, they haven’t handed their farms down because that’s the way it’s always been, they’ve always known there was never going to be inheritance tax.”
On Friday, Sir Keir addressed farmers’ concerns, saying: “I know some farmers are anxious about the inheritance tax rules that we brought in two weeks ago.
“What I would say about that is, once you add the £1m for the farmland to the £1m that is exempt for your spouse, for most couples with a farm wanting to hand on to their children, it’s £3m before anybody pays a penny in inheritance tax.”
Read more:
Ex-Labour adviser suggests doing to farms ‘what Thatcher did to coal mines’
Farmers ‘could block ports and disrupt food supply’
Welsh farmer Gareth Wyn Jones
Ministers said the move will not affect small farms and is aimed at targeting wealthy landowners who buy up farmland to avoid paying inheritance tax.
But analysis this week said a typical family farm would have to put 159% of annual profits into paying the new inheritance tax every year for a decade and could have to sell 20% of their land.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
The Country and Land Business Association (CLA), which represents owners of rural land, property and businesses in England and Wales, found a typical 200-acre farm owned by one person with an expected profit of £27,300 would face a £435,000 inheritance tax bill.
The plan says families can spread the inheritance tax payments over 10 years, but the CLA found this would require an average farm to allocate 159% of its profits each year for a decade.
To pay that, successors could be forced to sell 20% of their land, the analysis found.
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