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Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

businessinsider.com

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Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#11

Post by tedunangst »

logicallee wrote: post #5

I think it's time for the government to give you as many names as you want to give out to companies, and there's no reason for anyone who isn't suing you for it to know which of your aliases go together. Also aliases should be shared, to further conflate things. (nothing should stop my friends and i from sharing an alias and persona - companies should be legally forced to bend over backwards and enable this, for ever…

You don't need the government to give you a new name to start using a new name. You pick one and start using it.

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#12

Post by scottlamb »

taneq wrote: post #6

A few days ago (on the discussion of the Uber app tracking users' movements after the end of their ride) an Uber employee commented on their data handling: [0] > Individual users' data is very closely guarded internally. It's immensely difficult to look at user data without specific access. Overwhelmingly, this data is queried in aggregate and fed into machine learning systems. The risk of abuse is exceptionally low.…

They're probably both true. The article talks about information from last February and a New York settlement this year. The comment you linked is from 11 days ago and used present tense. Adding them together, Uber probably was far too open with this data and then, under pressure from New York and other parties, locked it down recently.

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#13

Post by logicallee »

tedunangst wrote: post #11
logicallee wrote: post #5

I think it's time for the government to give you as many names as you want to give out to companies, and there's no reason for anyone who isn't suing you for it to know which of your aliases go together. Also aliases should be shared, to further conflate things. (nothing should stop my friends and i from sharing an alias and persona - companies should be legally forced to bend over backwards and enable this, for ever…

You don't need the government to give you a new name to start using a new name. You pick one and start using it.

Sure - and to be clear the status quo is everyone has a right to do that, if they don't do it fraudulently. That's fine.

But I don't think credit card companies will go ahead and send me a new card in a new made-up name just for Uber. (And one for my awazon dildo purchases.. And one for...)

So it's not quite as simple. What I argue is that companies should legally be forced to do just that.

--

EDIT: to dublinben below

Good to know but I likely wouldn't risk doing that today. It would look too much like fraud. (especially if the name doesn't match.) suppose I needed to be in touch with their cust service or billing in the future for example...

If it were known that companies were forced to accept aliases it would be different.

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#14

Post by EugeneOZ »

taneq wrote: post #6

A few days ago (on the discussion of the Uber app tracking users' movements after the end of their ride) an Uber employee commented on their data handling: [0] > Individual users' data is very closely guarded internally. It's immensely difficult to look at user data without specific access. Overwhelmingly, this data is queried in aggregate and fed into machine learning systems. The risk of abuse is exceptionally low.…

This quote from another employee also looks naive now (and I'm not trying to offend him): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13086454

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#15

Post by JumpCrisscross »

tedunangst wrote: post #11
logicallee wrote: post #5

I think it's time for the government to give you as many names as you want to give out to companies, and there's no reason for anyone who isn't suing you for it to know which of your aliases go together. Also aliases should be shared, to further conflate things. (nothing should stop my friends and i from sharing an alias and persona - companies should be legally forced to bend over backwards and enable this, for ever…

You don't need the government to give you a new name to start using a new name. You pick one and start using it.

Register an LLC (using your real name). Get a domain for the LLC and register a pseudonymous email address. Get a debit card and have the issuing bank give you a John Doe card. You sign as your LLC from now on, no government intervention needed.

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#16

Post by geofft »

taneq wrote: post #6

A few days ago (on the discussion of the Uber app tracking users' movements after the end of their ride) an Uber employee commented on their data handling: [0] > Individual users' data is very closely guarded internally. It's immensely difficult to look at user data without specific access. Overwhelmingly, this data is queried in aggregate and fed into machine learning systems. The risk of abuse is exceptionally low.…

Selection bias. Nobody wants to work at an unethical company, and engineers in the Valley generally have enough job mobility that they can follow through on that. Humans perceive whether a company is unethical in very different ways (I would never work at, say, Palantir, but clearly people do; I'm sure many of them would never work for my current employer, in finance).

So, the only people with objective knowledge of a company's internal safeguards and hiring practices are those with favorable subjective value judgments of just how hard it is to bypass those safeguards or just how good those hiring practices are at keeping out unethical people.

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#17

Post by dublinben »

logicallee wrote: post #13
tedunangst wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need the government to give you a new name to start using a new name. You pick one and start using it.

Sure - and to be clear the status quo is everyone has a right to do that, if they don't do it fraudulently. That's fine. But I don't think credit card companies will go ahead and send me a new card in a new made-up name just for Uber. (And one for my awazon dildo purchases.. And one for...) So it's not quite as simple. What I argue is that companies should legally be forced to do just that. -- EDIT: to dublinben belo…

Your name isn't verified when adding a credit card to an app like this. As long as the numbers (card, expiration, CVV, ZIP) match, you could enter any name you want into Uber's system.

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#18

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Don't forget that Uber now requires you allow them to access your location, even when you aren't using their app [1].

Side note: consider the value to foreign (or domestic) intelligence agencies of this weakly-guarded pot of gold.

[1] http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/30/13763714/uber-location-da...

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#19

Post by eon1 »

logicallee wrote: post #8
themoat wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I follow.

? I thought I was explicit? Can you write how you interpret what I wrote (you can try to interpret my meaning) then I'll clarify if it's not what I meant... EDIT: to eon - ah, okay. No it was serious, as my other replies here show. I'll add a serious tag.

I think it's more that your comment seemed to be intentionally facetious and over the top..

Re: Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes

#20

Post by logicallee »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #15
tedunangst wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need the government to give you a new name to start using a new name. You pick one and start using it.

Register an LLC (using your real name). Get a domain for the LLC and register a pseudonymous email address. Get a debit card and have the issuing bank give you a John Doe card. You sign as your LLC from now on, no government intervention needed.

Pretty much my point is that this should take me 17.5 seconds, starting right now.

1) go to my online banking and sign in

2) pick a name and request a card for it.

They should be legally forced to send me one.

The point is I can use that for amazon dildo purchases, and no creep at amazon would get to see that I'm (whoever.)

I get that this is possible: it needs to be simple.

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