Certisfy - Bringing IRL trust to the web

Chrome's Android mobile browser has added an AI overview feature that generates marketing content on the fly for web pages.  I barely noticed the little icon and even when I did, it wasn't obvious what it might be for, curiosity got the better of me and I clicked.    Delight and fear followed. It almost sounds as if the models generating the dialogue could have been trained on NPR content. Here is a recording of the audio.  In our attempt to make the concept behind the Certisfy app approachable, we settled for wordiness within the app that explains every feature in accessible language. This ends up working well as a source for AI summary and playback.  The disconcerting feeling for me stemmed directly from the delight I felt listening to a compelling AI pitch for Certisfy! A feeling of "it is too good to be true" , even when the AI distillation of the service is quite accurate.  The polish of the dialogue is such that we could in effect post this to s...

Over the years we've experimented with ideas that leverage what can be thought of as civic trust infrastructure to address trust related problems on the Internet.  Previously we created a browser extension and proxy service that allowed users to use access to their IRS  Get Transcript ONLINE  access as a way to procure trustworthy cryptographic ID certificates.  Essentially treating access to the Get Transcript ONLINE service as automatic ID verification and using that to issue (via a web proxy) ID certificates.  We also developed the trust relay protocol , a similar approach that leverages existing sources of trust as a means to address internet trust challenges. These experiments ultimately lead to the development of the Certisfy app and service. We have launched another significant experimental approach, leveraging .gov email addresses as a mechanism for bootstrapping a cryptographic trust chain . Think of this as a sort of  web of trust implementa...