Hi everyone,

Like many of you, I have developed severe “data-slurp fatigue.” But beyond privacy concerns, I’ve come to realize it’s a massive architectural inefficiency: we are wasting storage and risking security through the aggressively growing duplication of our home addresses and emails across millions of servers just to complete basic digital actions.

As a counterweight to this, I formulated an architectural concept called UYC: Unknow Your Customer — the structural antithesis to ubiquitous KYC.

The core premise of UYC is that systems must be built so they physically cannot hold, see, or remember unnecessary personal data. Instead of hoarding information, architecture should naturally leverage cryptography and pseudonymization in scenarios where collecting, storing, or processing personal data is entirely unnecessary.

As a solo creator, I built Factflew (https://factflew.io/) specifically to test and prove that UYC is a viable foundation for a cleaner, independent web.

I’m bringing this to Lemmy to discuss the engineering reality of this approach:

  • Is a UYC architecture viable at scale, or is the industry bound by too much engineering inertia when it comes to collecting data?
  • How can we shift the developer mindset away from collecting everything “just in case”?

I am eager to hear your technical critique of the UYC principle and discuss whether we can build a leaner web. Cheers!

  • mantricx
    3·
    1 day ago

    Also, merchants need your name and address to ship the product to you…

    Well all they would really need is a one time code that you provide them that you’ve pre registered your address with the shipping carrier.

    Would 100% prefer a shipping carrier who supported “oh address is 17bkHdb74nKl? Send it to 123 main st, city, state, etc”

    100% agreed on the first part though. Perhaps if the shipping carriers all worked together (ha!) on a common system like this they could do it.

    • CameronDev@programming.dev
      1·
      22 hours ago

      I’ve had the same though re. shipping addresses, but I don’t think it scales well. You’d need every postie to have an online device that allows them to link QR code/uuid code to the real address, and delivery just gets a lot harder.

      In Australia, AusPost allows you to generate a “virtual” PO box, which is a lot easier to deal with, but you have to go to the post office to pickup.

      • FineCoatMummy@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2·
        9 hours ago

        Or maybe just a machine at the shipping carrier or post office that slaps a label on the package? Vendor still wouldn’t get access to the info, since label is applied after the carrier gets the package. Then the delivery person wouldn’t have to faff around with a code.

        Ofc, the carrier would have to be somehow prevented from selling the link from 17bkHdb74nKl to 123 Main Street. That may have to be solved legally, since they have a financial incentive to sell the link.

        Provided the problems could be ironed out, I like the 1 time code idea. I like it a lot. It cuts a lot of the commercial surveilence ecosystem off at the knees.