Despite the issue where it would be trivial to brute force similar looking but not identical 'avatars', I think this still has a few good uses for non-identification.
1. Creating at least some default avatar. Not to be used to verify identity but just somewhat better than having a very limited set of default images. Having rate limits on account creation would prevent most brute force methods.
2. Avatar suitable for partial-identification for very small populations. Imagine a matrix/Element room that as <100,000 people. The hash/math could be modified to drastically trim down the space of the hash (e.g. 2^256) to something similar to the size of the room.
#2 sounds pretty interesting. It could be expanded by making parts of the image/avatar dependent on some other input other than the user ID like the user's role in the chat group. Another segment/ring could something more short lived and relative like just identifying users in recent chat messages.
1. Creating at least some default avatar. Not to be used to verify identity but just somewhat better than having a very limited set of default images. Having rate limits on account creation would prevent most brute force methods. 2. Avatar suitable for partial-identification for very small populations. Imagine a matrix/Element room that as <100,000 people. The hash/math could be modified to drastically trim down the space of the hash (e.g. 2^256) to something similar to the size of the room.
#2 sounds pretty interesting. It could be expanded by making parts of the image/avatar dependent on some other input other than the user ID like the user's role in the chat group. Another segment/ring could something more short lived and relative like just identifying users in recent chat messages.