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No matter what, Equifax may tell you you’ve been impacted by the hack

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Re: No matter what, Equifax may tell you you’ve been impacted by the hack

#51

Post by aaron_m04 »

paulgb wrote: post #12
calvinbhai wrote: post #6

So, this basically is a way for Equifax to get a mass waiver from people to make a class action lawsuit less damaging to the company. Opting out of the waiver is a long winded process of mailing a form. another funny thing is that if you sign up for their crappy product, you have to come back on a different day and complete the sign up. There wont be emails or notifications. If you forget to signup, then you have bas…

> Opting out of the waiver is a long winded process of mailing a form. I freaking hate tactics like this, so I am offering to go through the mailing process for anyone who fills out the form at https://unarbitrate.org/ . I'll pay to mail it, just because I hate this sort of thing. If you don't trust me with your data, the site also provides a way to print it and mail it yourself. But whatever it takes, I encourage ev…

Thank you so much for doing this! I have one question though: how do I get my Equifax username?

Re: No matter what, Equifax may tell you you’ve been impacted by the hack

#52

Post by justinclift »

fastball wrote: post #22

Here is a crazy alternate theory for you guys, which I think fits all the details we have so far. 1. Equifax was never hacked. 2. Equifax accidentally deleted a substantial portion of their database. 3. Come up with a system to get the information they lost back, via a "have I been pwned?" checker. 3a. If you enter your details and they are not in their database, they assume it is one of the persons they deleted, add…

> 2. Equifax accidentally deleted a substantial portion of their database.

Although most people know of stories where backups were broken, didn't work, (etc) for some reason, it would be truly mind boggling for it to be the case here.

Deleting a substantial amounts of production data... seen that before (I used to be a NetBackup Admin for large places). But recovery procedures do exist, and for them not to have multiple levels of recovery available for their core mission data is extremely unlikely.

Re: No matter what, Equifax may tell you you’ve been impacted by the hack

#53

Post by Johnny555 »

khc wrote: post #9

Even if the information they returned was correct, do you trust them enough to enter your SSN and name anymore? Surely they will be hacked again and you will be impacted by the next hack. 1. Enter SSN 2a. Impacted by this hack 2b. Not impacted by this hack but will be impacted by next

They already have your SSN unless you have no bank account, credit card, utilities in your name, a loan, etc.

I think it'd be nearly impossible to be an adult living on your own and not have your SSN in a credit agency's database.

Re: No matter what, Equifax may tell you you’ve been impacted by the hack

#54

Post by JaniceLeblanc »

hpcjoe wrote: post #20

I will be blunt, and I am very incensed by this. My comments ... https://twitter.com/hpcjoe/status/906549917509980160 This is an extinction level event for Equifax. They need to be disassembled, their stored data destroyed correctly and securely, their negligent officers charged. This isn't an accident. You don't surface 0.134 BILLION bits of PII without some sort of criminal level incompetence. Any organization that…

> 0.134 BILLION

So 134 Million then. I mean that's still an extreme amount of bits ofc. Just seems silly to use the "billion" signifier for something that is less than 1 billion.

Likewise it'd be strange to call something "1000 milliunits" instead of just 1 unit. (Unless ofc milli happens to be the frame of reference for some obvious reason like "15 millunits of x is a deadly dose".)

Re: No matter what, Equifax may tell you you’ve been impacted by the hack

#55

Post by whyenot »

hpcjoe wrote: post #20

I will be blunt, and I am very incensed by this. My comments ... https://twitter.com/hpcjoe/status/906549917509980160 This is an extinction level event for Equifax. They need to be disassembled, their stored data destroyed correctly and securely, their negligent officers charged. This isn't an accident. You don't surface 0.134 BILLION bits of PII without some sort of criminal level incompetence. Any organization that…

This is an Enron-level event. Company executives need to lose their fortunes and some people probably should end up in jail.

Re: No matter what, Equifax may tell you you’ve been impacted by the hack

#58

Post by fastball »

Johnny555 wrote: post #27
fastball wrote: post #22

Here is a crazy alternate theory for you guys, which I think fits all the details we have so far. 1. Equifax was never hacked. 2. Equifax accidentally deleted a substantial portion of their database. 3. Come up with a system to get the information they lost back, via a "have I been pwned?" checker. 3a. If you enter your details and they are not in their database, they assume it is one of the persons they deleted, add…

If all they need is a database of basic consumer info, they could buy that list from one of the other credit reporting agencies and avoid the public scrutiny of themselves and the industry itself.

Why would one of the other two sell it to them?

Re: No matter what, Equifax may tell you you’ve been impacted by the hack

#59

Post by fastball »

rhizome wrote: post #33
fastball wrote: post #22

Here is a crazy alternate theory for you guys, which I think fits all the details we have so far. 1. Equifax was never hacked. 2. Equifax accidentally deleted a substantial portion of their database. 3. Come up with a system to get the information they lost back, via a "have I been pwned?" checker. 3a. If you enter your details and they are not in their database, they assume it is one of the persons they deleted, add…

If #2 is what happened, they aren't acting in their own interests by saying they were hacked. If they were hacked, that means 3rd parties have the data. If they merely deleted a database, that implies the info is gone and nobody has it. Surreptitiously recreating a database? They can get a list of SSNs from the government, what is a user going to add to that? One of their addresses? All of their previous financial ac…

Junior developer gone rogue then, using a hacking story to cover his tracks.

Re: No matter what, Equifax may tell you you’ve been impacted by the hack

#60

Post by lwyr »

latch wrote: post #45
hpcjoe wrote: post #20

I will be blunt, and I am very incensed by this. My comments ... https://twitter.com/hpcjoe/status/906549917509980160 This is an extinction level event for Equifax. They need to be disassembled, their stored data destroyed correctly and securely, their negligent officers charged. This isn't an accident. You don't surface 0.134 BILLION bits of PII without some sort of criminal level incompetence. Any organization that…

Every generation is galvanized by serious injustices. But, it feels like we're far less effective at turning that anger into change; though maybe that's always how it feels at the time. I'm almost sure I once saw a quote from Bill Clinton's press secretary that said something like "We knew that if we could survive the first 5 days of a bad story, it would get dropped." That perspective solidified for me during the Oc…

cynicism == obedience
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