Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Equifax takes down web page after reports of new hack

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 143 posts

Re: Equifax takes down web page after reports of new hack

#91

Post by mattnewton »

noddy1 wrote: post #50

Solution to the Equifax debacle: 1) If the value of the individual damages related to this breach are in excess of the market cap of the equifax company, all company stock should be seized and distributed equally among those affected by the breach. 2) In the future, if a company controls this amount of sensitive data, they should have mandatory breach insurance. This means that they are covered for a government manda…

I don’t understand how that would work, do you mean liquidate the company? If you mean actually take the shares from shareholders, wouldn’t the value of the stock go to near zero? Who would buy stock that could do that? But I agree with the general idea: they should go out of buisiness and whatever they have should be sold to reemburse people affected.

Re: Equifax takes down web page after reports of new hack

#92

Post by leggomylibro »

astura wrote: post #76
ModernMech wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's the case, it seems like the executives at Equifax who were dumping stock after they learned of the breach (but before it was reported) were jumping the gun. They should have just held on to it! "Three senior executives including the company’s chief financial officer sold $1.8 million in shares three days after the company learned on July 29 hackers had breached personal data for up to 143 million Americans.…

That's short sighted - how you make money is sell when high, buy when low. So you sell right before the dip and then buy again at the bottom of the dip . They knew there was going to be a dip.

Unfortunately, the SEC might notice if those executives sold a bunch of shares on insider info, quit, and then bought more shares after the crash.

I guess they probably wouldn't do anything, but they might notice.

Re: Equifax takes down web page after reports of new hack

#93

Post by leggomylibro »

mattnewton wrote: post #91
noddy1 wrote: post #50

Solution to the Equifax debacle: 1) If the value of the individual damages related to this breach are in excess of the market cap of the equifax company, all company stock should be seized and distributed equally among those affected by the breach. 2) In the future, if a company controls this amount of sensitive data, they should have mandatory breach insurance. This means that they are covered for a government manda…

I don’t understand how that would work, do you mean liquidate the company? If you mean actually take the shares from shareholders, wouldn’t the value of the stock go to near zero? Who would buy stock that could do that? But I agree with the general idea: they should go out of buisiness and whatever they have should be sold to reemburse people affected.

I wonder if the Feds could simply seize the company and issue treasury bonds to shareholders to cover the costs of their stake at the market's price. Eminent domain, or whatever legal term is latin for "we have the guns."

Then, yeah, liquidate everything and distribute the proceeds amongst the victims. It would be expensive, but...so what? The budget is $2T, and if the fine vastly outweighs the value of the company, then it is clearly a grave situation that demands an unusual response.

Maybe they could actually issue a realistic fine, and let the company deal with it. But the company would probably just distribute any remaining assets amongst their executives, fire everyone, and declare bankruptcy or something.

Re: Equifax takes down web page after reports of new hack

#94

Post by chaostheory »

aeorgnoieang wrote: post #45
chaostheory wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The finance industry as a whole spends a few billion dollars on lobbying. They spend the most on lobbying compared to every other sector. imo this is one of the things the tech industry hasn't fully optimized yet

Neither of your first two sentences seem to be true: - [Lobbying Spending Database | OpenSecrets]( https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2017&inde... ) And note that "Education" isn't spending that much less! > imo this is one of the things the tech industry hasn't fully optimized yet How would the tech industry "optimize" lobbying? Or even just lobbying by finance?

You're kind of right. I misread the decimal as a comma in $248,785,615.00. Pharma / Health is the next highest spending industry at around $144,778,982, about $100 million less than finance. Finance is the top lobby. Tech lobbying is at $68,403,203 which isn't even half of what finance officially spends on lobbying.

The OpenSecrets lobbying data also doesn't include lobbying money that isn't officially lobbying money. A lot of politicians, at least in the US - including state level legislators, have non-profit foundations with sketchy ledgers. With many of these foundations, little of the money dontated actually goes towards their publicly stated causes. Most of it is spent on miscellaneous expenses such as trips and dinners or on political ads.

https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2015/02/09/politics-and-the-u...

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2013/08/03/how-end-polit...

https://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/06/12/12794/state-legis... - oversight doesn't usually happen when it's not public funds being directed into the non-profits

If you include the finance industry's donations to sketcy non-profits that are closely tied to politicians, then I'm guessing it would dwarf what we're seeing compared to just official lobbying money

Tech would 'optimize' not just by spending more, but also in offering benefits that finance can't offer such as better data for say elections as an example

Re: Equifax takes down web page after reports of new hack

#95

Post by dsgfhasgjklas »

astura wrote: post #74
dsgfhasgjklas wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And the worst part is, I have no idea how I as a person could say "I don't want to do work with Equifax because I don't trust them." Freeze your account and complain to the service that uses it. Of course, you're not wrong—you have essentially zero leverage.

Freezing your account doesn't prevent you from data breaches, your account still exists in their database, they just say "its frozen" when someone requests it.

That's true, but that's also true of anywhere that uses social security numbers for identity verification (which is an atrocious pattern considering how poorly ssns are anonymized).

Re: Equifax takes down web page after reports of new hack

#96

Post by mulmen »

munin wrote: post #39
djb_hackernews wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't this require you to trust Equifax to enforce and honor the freeze? I think the solution is "I don't want my report or any of my data in any sort of control or possession of Equifax". Where is that solution?

What is "your data" exactly? And in the limit, how far does this go? Here's a question: who owns your drivers license? Here's a hint: it isn't you. Can you "own" you mailing address? Copyright and trademark it, make everyone ask permission from you before they write it down? What about your salary? Should your employer have to ask every time they use your salary number in some way, say in aggregate statistics or repo…

"My data" is data about me because without me it wouldn't exist.

Re: Equifax takes down web page after reports of new hack

#97

Post by astura »

leggomylibro wrote: post #92
astura wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's short sighted - how you make money is sell when high, buy when low. So you sell right before the dip and then buy again at the bottom of the dip . They knew there was going to be a dip.

Unfortunately, the SEC might notice if those executives sold a bunch of shares on insider info, quit, and then bought more shares after the crash. I guess they probably wouldn't do anything, but they might notice.

They absolutely should notice and investigate (and I think they are) even the initial sale, I don't see how that's not insider trading.

Re: Equifax takes down web page after reports of new hack

#98

Post by fny »

rdtsc wrote: post #36
Posibyte wrote: post #11

I feel like this has to do with Equifax basically not being punished in any major way over the last breach. Their stocks are still priced reasonably well, most of their board is still intact, and US citizens are still required to work with them for credit reasons. And the worst part is, I have no idea how I as a person could say "I don't want to do work with Equifax because I don't trust them." And if anybody has sug…

> Their stocks are still priced reasonably well, Exactly. And everyone is watching and learning a lesson from it - "If this goes unpunished, heck, we can get away with it too, screw all the security mumbo jumbo" In an investing and finance forum I saw people were gearing up to buy Equifax after the breach was announced. The idea was that price would dip then it would go back up. Maybe enough people did that.

How are their stocks priced reasonably well? They lost almost 1/3 of their value after the hack.

Re: Equifax takes down web page after reports of new hack

#99

Post by astura »

fny wrote: post #98
rdtsc wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their stocks are still priced reasonably well, Exactly. And everyone is watching and learning a lesson from it - "If this goes unpunished, heck, we can get away with it too, screw all the security mumbo jumbo" In an investing and finance forum I saw people were gearing up to buy Equifax after the breach was announced. The idea was that price would dip then it would go back up. Maybe enough people did that.

How are their stocks priced reasonably well? They lost almost 1/3 of their value after the hack.

Still over $100 a share.

Re: Equifax takes down web page after reports of new hack

#100

Post by leggomylibro »

astura wrote: post #97
leggomylibro wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, the SEC might notice if those executives sold a bunch of shares on insider info, quit, and then bought more shares after the crash. I guess they probably wouldn't do anything, but they might notice.

They absolutely should notice and investigate (and I think they are) even the initial sale, I don't see how that's not insider trading.

It pretty clearly is, I just mean that in reality that sort of thing isn't going to be prosecuted or pursued.
Post reply on HN