Equifax Faces Multibillion-Dollar Lawsuit Over Hack • Hacker News Board

Re: Equifax Faces Multibillion-Dollar Lawsuit Over Hack

#541

Post by hello_newman » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 4:13 AM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #491

hello_newman wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how many times you have been to Small Claims Courts but there are multiple ways to enforce penalties in Small Claims; a judgment from a judge, a till-tap, levy their wages, place a levy on their bank account, placing a sheriff in their area of business (for a fee) and will stay there until he's collected all the funds, submit to a collections agency etc. Don't speak on something if you don't know what yo…

levy their wages Whose wages? If you win against Equifax, Equifax isn't getting a wage. Equifax is paying wages, but you didn't win a suit against its employees. You won against the corporation. place a levy on their bank account Seems like your best bet. However, this might be complicated, depending on how they've distributed their assets. Quick, can you tell me the name of the bank, the account number and the exact…

> There's usually no enforcement of penalties in small claims court.

perpetuating this mindset that the average consumer is too weak to do anything to these corporations and individuals who hurt them through the court system is nonsense and needs to be avoided. From the article posted below (where my other comment is):

"Allen then reported to a local branch of the bank with sheriff’s deputies, who he instructed to remove cash from the tellers’ drawers, furniture, computers and other property. Approximately one hour later, the Naples News reports, the bank manager produced a check for $5,772.88 to satisfy Allen’s fees and additional costs."

You have a lot more power than you think against corporations and people through our court systems. even small claims courts.

Re: Equifax Faces Multibillion-Dollar Lawsuit Over Hack

#542

Post by visarga » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 4:23 AM UTC

simonswords82 wrote: post #158

It's always seemed odd to me that Experian and Equifax have the upside of being both arbitrarily in charge of so much data and wield ridiculous power, and yet somehow they're still largely independent and profit making. I'll watch the outcome of this breach with interest. It strikes me that at the very least credit rating agencies should be non-profit and very closely monitored by government. This will include ensuri…

> It strikes me that at the very least credit rating agencies should be non-profit and very closely monitored by government.

Personal data should be treated with the same care as nuclear fuel. Very very strict conditions.

Re: Equifax Faces Multibillion-Dollar Lawsuit Over Hack

#543

Post by 90s-socal-kid » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 4:24 AM UTC

SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #94

criddell wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they are out of business, they sell their assets which are office chairs, fax machines, and a giant database with information on everybody. Are you not worried about the sale of that data?

Their business revolves around selling access to that database. So no, not worried about them selling data that they already sell. Very annoyed that they exist to collect & sell the data, of course.

Isn't the potential impact from selling access to the data versus selling the data different?

Re: Equifax Faces Multibillion-Dollar Lawsuit Over Hack

#544

Post by dfps » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 4:29 AM UTC

cletus wrote: post #340

Ok, so credit reporting agency collects sensitive personal and financial data on basically every adult American, loses it to a bunch of criminals and now I have to deal with the consequences? I looked into credit freezes yesterday. This is really a total scam. You have to _call_ each of the three agencies and pay a fee ($5 to $10) each time. If you need to unfreeze your report to make a legitimate credit application…

PBS also reported that if you sign up for this, you give up your right to go after them if something happens - there's some kind of agreement that you have to go thru some process I forget the name of, in which the company usually wins.

Also, although they offer 1 free year, the problem here (social insurance number, etc) is a lot longer than that, so you'd be paying a recurring amount, wouldn't you?

Re: Equifax Faces Multibillion-Dollar Lawsuit Over Hack

#545

Post by frankacter » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 4:32 AM UTC

dfps wrote: post #544

cletus wrote: post #340

Ok, so credit reporting agency collects sensitive personal and financial data on basically every adult American, loses it to a bunch of criminals and now I have to deal with the consequences? I looked into credit freezes yesterday. This is really a total scam. You have to _call_ each of the three agencies and pay a fee ($5 to $10) each time. If you need to unfreeze your report to make a legitimate credit application…

PBS also reported that if you sign up for this, you give up your right to go after them if something happens - there's some kind of agreement that you have to go thru some process I forget the name of, in which the company usually wins. Also, although they offer 1 free year, the problem here (social insurance number, etc) is a lot longer than that, so you'd be paying a recurring amount, wouldn't you?

Specifically indicated on their site:

>2). NO WAIVER OF RIGHTS FOR THIS CYBER SECURITY INCIDENT In response to consumer inquiries, we have made it clear that the arbitration clause and class action waiver included in the Equifax and TrustedID Premier terms of use does not apply to this cybersecurity incident.

Re: Equifax Faces Multibillion-Dollar Lawsuit Over Hack

#546

Post by andkenneth » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 4:36 AM UTC

3JPLW wrote: post #168

ineptech wrote: post #150

Is it time for a Federal Department of Verifying Whether People Are Who They Say They Are? Veryifying identity with SSN is broken. The right way is probably more or less how big webapps do it - MFA + a password that the user can reset by providing a bunch of info. The government has the necessary private info to do this in most cases (e.g. DL# plus your income from last year's taxes), and can fall back to "Show up at…

USPS is a good contender for identity validation, too.

This is actually how it's done in New Zealand. We have something called realme https://www.realme.govt.nz/, which is made by New Zealand Post (our government post service, with the benefit of offices all over the country to do the initial ID verification for account setup) and the Department of Internal Affairs (they do things like births, deaths, marriages, passports, and citizenship, so they're used to dealing with identity)

It's an awesome system that the US would be lucky to have. I say this as a dual citizen of both countries.

Re: Equifax Faces Multibillion-Dollar Lawsuit Over Hack

#547

Post by mrb » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 4:37 AM UTC

So everybody has been talking about "freezing" your Equifax account for a little bit of protection... Well it turns out the Equifax security freeze PIN (which is all the "secret" info an attacker needs to unfreeze it) is just the date & time: MMDDYYHHMM! https://mobile.twitter.com/webster/status/906346071210778625

Re: Equifax Faces Multibillion-Dollar Lawsuit Over Hack

#548

Post by mrb » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 4:39 AM UTC

mjhoyer wrote: post #440

anyfoo wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on, that's really not hard to find out for yourself. But here are the links anyway: https://www.freeze.equifax.com/ https://freeze.transunion.com/ https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html

ugh. even their 10 digit code they provide to unfreeze someone isn't very secure. It's simply todays date plus a 4 digit pin that moves up in the order that someone signs up. For example: 090817xxx1, 090817xxx2. So my wife and I are simply two numbers apart.

It worse. It's not even a 4 digit PIN. It's the time in 24-hour format HHMM: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15205579

You and your wife just did it 1 minute apart...

Re: Equifax Faces Multibillion-Dollar Lawsuit Over Hack

#549

Post by arduanika » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 4:45 AM UTC

sjg007 wrote: post #133

hedora wrote: post #17

I'd love to see the $70B number pan out (though $500 per person is less than the damages, I think) -- Equifax is a $17B company, and would presumably stop existing if that happened. On the other hand, these things always settle out of court, and Equifax certainly won't settle the suit for more than they're worth. I said it elsewhere, but I think the right response is to opt out of the class, and sue for $1000 in smal…

In small claims court, would you not have to show $1000 worth of damages?

Yes, and it's possible using simply arithmetic and market rates! Given that freezing your credit ratings is a necessary precaution after this damage inflicted by their negligently unpartitioned database, we can calculate:

1 legally guaranteed free credit report / year * ($5 freeze before + $5 unfreeze after) * 3 agencies * 33 more years of healthy remaining life God willing = $990 right there.

Move apartments or change jobs just once in that interval, and it will bring you up to a round thousand. Bam.

Re: Equifax Faces Multibillion-Dollar Lawsuit Over Hack

#550

Post by tptacek » Sat, Sep 09, 2017, 4:47 AM UTC

hueving wrote: post #528

rayiner wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Attorneys' fees in a class action have to be approved by the court, and for large class actions the percentage fee tends to be lower than what a privately-retained lawyer would receive. The privately-retained lawyers in NTP's lawsuit against Blackberry got an approximately 1/3 payout of a $600 million settlement. 20-33% is quite typical in a pure contingency situation. Most court-approved fee awards in class actions…

>Attorneys' fees in a class action have to be approved by the court, and for large class actions the percentage fee tends to be lower than what a privately-retained lawyer would receive. >$5.7 billion settlement, about $500 million in attorneys' fees, or less than 10% of the fund. $160 million worth of time invested by the attorneys to get to that point. How often to private retained attorneys get $320 million in pur…

This is contingency work. The winning cases have to pay for the losing cases. When they lose, the lawyers invest $160MM worth of very real payroll and consulting fees and get nothing.