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Equihax

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Re: Equihax

#41

Post by whipoodle »

astura wrote: post #37

EDIT: see philipodonnell's reply to this post for an alternative explanation. I may have jumped the gun. As far as I know credit scores are not part of credit reports as they do not show up when you request your credit report. If they were storing "credit score" as part of your credit report but withholding that information when you request a copy that would seem to violate the Fair Credit Reporting Act. It wouldn't…

It's not real because it doesn't match your vague ideas about what it should be. Well, OK.

Re: Equihax

#42

Post by Ajedi32 »

I actually kinda hope all the data is made public, as that would (at least hopefully) force people to stop treating knowledge of someone's SSN as valid proof of identity, and lead to a better situation overall.

Re: Equihax

#43

Post by thephyber »

13of40 wrote: post #24
jimktrains2 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also extortion. "Please pay us money to solve the massive problem we created." I don't know how it's legal.

Not saying it would be great in the short term, but I wonder how it would play out if the entire database was made widely available. It seems like it would be a lot harder to enforce a debt if the borrower was originally identified based on "secrets" that were well known to be public at the time. Maybe then they would come up with a better authentication scheme than "what color was your first car?"

Maybe then enough people at the same time would pressure state and federal legislators to regulation suspicious data brokers and creditors (and/or address insufficient/broken authentication in new credit accounts).

The Target breach was the thing that finally catalyzed the move from magstripe ccs to EMV ccs. I think we are currently on the precipice of the point when we need to move towards a second factor of authentication ("something you have" or "something you are" in addition to the lots of "something you know" that the current credit bureau system uses).

Re: Equihax

#44

Post by secstate »

13of40 wrote: post #24
jimktrains2 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also extortion. "Please pay us money to solve the massive problem we created." I don't know how it's legal.

Not saying it would be great in the short term, but I wonder how it would play out if the entire database was made widely available. It seems like it would be a lot harder to enforce a debt if the borrower was originally identified based on "secrets" that were well known to be public at the time. Maybe then they would come up with a better authentication scheme than "what color was your first car?"

It would be an awful lot like the end of Fight Club. Destroy credit records, or reduce them to meaningless, either way the economy would collapse.

People can complain all they want about credit, but the reality is that it exists as a financial service because loaning things with interest is probably older than agriculture in human society. We've just gotten very good at risk assessment, and this going public would ruin our ability to assess risk for years.

Honestly, the credit industry ought to be the ones raging against Equifax's fuck up. If only all the other credit bureaus weren't on eggshells hoping they're not next.

Re: Equihax

#45

Post by IncRnd »

whipoodle wrote: post #41
astura wrote: post #37

EDIT: see philipodonnell's reply to this post for an alternative explanation. I may have jumped the gun. As far as I know credit scores are not part of credit reports as they do not show up when you request your credit report. If they were storing "credit score" as part of your credit report but withholding that information when you request a copy that would seem to violate the Fair Credit Reporting Act. It wouldn't…

It's not real because it doesn't match your vague ideas about what it should be. Well, OK.

astura is correct. This is not a vague idea but how credit scoring works.

Re: Equihax

#46

Post by safisher »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #42

I actually kinda hope all the data is made public, as that would (at least hopefully) force people to stop treating knowledge of someone's SSN as valid proof of identity, and lead to a better situation overall.

I hope this is fake and some would-be scammers get scammed by a scammer.

Re: Equihax

#47

Post by ryeguy_24 »

Beltiras wrote: post #30

I wonder if this will introduce instability in credit for consumers. Could this actually have long term ramifications for the US economy?

I wonder as well. I think we all forget how important credit reports are in giving banks comfort to lend (not that this is the only way to do it, but it seems that this is the current way). If people can default on a uncollateralized loan with no ramifications, no bank would lend and the credit engine would shut down.

Re: Equihax

#48

Post by _jal »

samstave wrote: post #26
13of40 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not saying it would be great in the short term, but I wonder how it would play out if the entire database was made widely available. It seems like it would be a lot harder to enforce a debt if the borrower was originally identified based on "secrets" that were well known to be public at the time. Maybe then they would come up with a better authentication scheme than "what color was your first car?"

What would happen if the DB was widely available and many many people just randomly and inexplicably opened as many ranom accounts as possible - it would cause chaos in the economy. What would an accurate "what if" scenario like this look like?

That's the first five minutes. Then the market for new consumer credit would seize up, banking share prices would flip out, and talking heads on cable would have something new to hyperventilate over.

Overall, many thousands of folks would have their home plans/vacation/card-flipping/whatever plans screwed up, some thousands would have a more severe financial problem, the banks would muddle through, "we'd" rebuild the financial-surveillance system over again, and it would probably be less stupid in some ways at the cost of being more uniformly intrusive.

Re: Equihax

#49

Post by hamburglar1 »

This looks like B.S. to me. - Who would store date of birth as a string? - If we are stringifying dob why is address still seperated? - Why are the credit report reasource Ids in the thousands not 1M +? - Why is the file size null but the file is listed with it's mimeType?

I know equifuckingsucks at security but this is a setup that would actually just be difficult to interact with from a data stand point

Re: Equihax

#50

Post by mattmanser »

astura wrote: post #37

EDIT: see philipodonnell's reply to this post for an alternative explanation. I may have jumped the gun. As far as I know credit scores are not part of credit reports as they do not show up when you request your credit report. If they were storing "credit score" as part of your credit report but withholding that information when you request a copy that would seem to violate the Fair Credit Reporting Act. It wouldn't…

They give you a score themselves when you sign up for their premium offering.

Wouldn't it be that one?

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