Digital verification today is a mess. We used to have things like Keybase and PGP where you had to manage your own digital vaults, but that was too hard for most people. Now, the internet has split into three main paths: the Big Tech Way where you rent your identity through Passkeys, the Sovereign Way where you own your codes like Matrix or rel=me, and the Official Way where you use inescapable government IDs like EUDI for banking and travel.

An alternative approach is "identity through participation" found on the modern version of Freenet, a 2026 project built on a foundation from 1999. Here, you exist because you interact with people and help the network, using Ghost Keys to stay trusted without giving away private details. The goal is to use your official ID to prove you are a real person, but then use that proof to power a private ghost key so you can move around the web without being tracked.

However, we are now entering the era of mercurial cores, a problem where computer chips make tiny, invisible mistakes in their math, as explained in the 2021 research paper "Cores That Don't Count" by Google engineers. It is a risk because if a chip makes a mistake when you first create your digital key, that key is born "broken" and won't work correctly. The only way to survive this is through a Swarm, where your identity is checked by many different chips at once. If one chip makes a mistake, the rest of the network catches it and keeps your digital identity valid.

Ghost Keys and Cypherpunk Reputation Systems
This video features Ian Clarke, the creator of Freenet, explaining how ghost keys and reputation systems solve the problem of trust and identity on the decentralized web.
https://youtu.be/_RowDLJ17W0