An idea for a decentralized and cryptographically strong ID system for Google+

Here's an alternative method for self-verification. For everyone you know, and know to be real through Hangouts or whatever means, mark them, through a checkbox or some-such in their profile (this is hypothetical) as "I verify this person as real".

This would enable cross-verification through peer-exchange, not through some unilateral demand by a corporation to verify yourself based on some unknown criteria.

To explain the idea further: Let's say I go to Ryan's profile page and verify him, and some of his friends do the same. Ryan comes to my profile page (assuming he believes me to be a real person) and does the same for me. This goes on throughout our networks, with those who believe their network associates to be real verifying those associates. This builds a trusted network, through a peer review process, instead of a mandated system of providing personal data.

Someone I know on Google+ had this argument, and I believe that he makes a good point, so we need to find a way to keep the spam-bots out of the network, or at least to a minimum.

Here are his thoughts on the subject:

"And spam-bots would happily cross-verify each other. It's a good way for me to trust that +Ryan Schultz can strongly identify people I don't know. But it's not what Google wants. 

I think verification is a good idea -- it just needs to be optional. And universal -- Anyone want to take the bet that you won't need to be in the US to be a Real Person™ for the first while?"


My reply is the following (edited for brevity, clarity, and to remove irrelevant content):
'Perhaps a form of built-in captcha combined with context sensitive image recognition? Combine that with a cryptographically strong ID string which requires some time to generate, similarly to bitcoin...

The idea behind the bitcoin-like key-string generation is to waste spammer's time and processing power, and to generate a truly strong ID for each system/person.'

I think that this is an interesting subject. I welcome opinions and ideas.

An Idea for Power Bricks

Laptop Power Brick Specification Proposal (WIP)

I'm still working on this; any constructive input is welcome.

For those of us that are more than a little tired of having to purchase new power supplies every year for our laptops, notebooks, etc.

Getting the power done right:

Let's make this make sense to us, as well as business, or it will not be implemented.

1) The power supply must maintain its own cooling.

• This one thing alone will help to extend the lifetime of any power supply, especially if that cooling mechanism isn't dependant upon the circulation of air. I'm half-tempted to suggest some sort of internal gel-cooled method, but that's probably expensive, and prone to any number of potential issues.

2) The power supply must have a universal ability to detect and provide power to whatever (laptop, notebook, net-book, etc.) system it is plugged into.

• Working on the assumption that whatever one is plugging it into is something that it has the proper adapter and physical ability to power effectively.

3) The power supply must be designed to last 5 years or longer, given proper care.

• Anything less than 5 years seems to be too short. I know that most people consider laptops and computers in general to be ancient at that time scale. My question is: "why shouldn't the power supply be reusable for a new system?"
• A notebook is still a notebook, and will have similar power requirements over time. So why not re-use existing power supplies? Especially ones that are designed to last a long time. This is more ecologically friendly than tossing out (and purchasing new) power supplies each year, and more cost-effective for end-users/consumers.