I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score • Hacker News Board

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#171

Post by aedocw » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 5:11 PM UTC

hirundo wrote: post #159

amelius wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suspect we as a society need new legislation to deal with these sort of issues. Why not ban targeted advertising altogether?

Because it has value, both to the advertiser and to the target, compared to un-targeted advertising. Advertising is an attempt to transfer information. Targeted ads means that the information is more likely to be relevant, whatever its other downsides. Let's not throw out that baby with the bath water.

"Advertising is an attempt to transfer information" is deeply misguided unless you adjust that to say "transfer very biased information". Advertising is an attempt to influence one party to give their money to another party, generally through manipulation and guile.

Targeted advertising is like the difference between spam and spear phising. The person being advertised to rarely (if ever) benefits.

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#172

Post by kombucha11 » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 5:18 PM UTC

uptown wrote: post #109

kombucha11 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They havent provided me the Google form for Sift. I'll still submit it to them though. I've once been a Coinbase customer so they likely have it already.

It's linked-to in the NYTimes article: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeGTJHX9edmQOD8Ez-1...

Thanks!

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#173

Post by rhizome » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 5:20 PM UTC

hirundo wrote: post #159

amelius wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suspect we as a society need new legislation to deal with these sort of issues. Why not ban targeted advertising altogether?

Because it has value, both to the advertiser and to the target, compared to un-targeted advertising. Advertising is an attempt to transfer information. Targeted ads means that the information is more likely to be relevant, whatever its other downsides. Let's not throw out that baby with the bath water.

Targeting doesn't work. There is no baby.

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#174

Post by dylan604 » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 5:22 PM UTC

kombucha11 wrote: post #49

uptown wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you submit your government ID securely? Email?

The only company to request proof thus far in the process is Zeta Global which presents a secure portal to upload your ID. However, to be honest, I'm not that concerned about emailing my ID if necessary.

But does that content submitted securely through this form ultimately land on a publicly accessible cloud bucket just waiting to be discovered?

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#175

Post by megous » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 5:26 PM UTC

ktpsns wrote: post #99

Here in Germany there's a popular company called SCHUFA ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schufa ) which collects (and sells) data about (non)solvent people since almost 100 years. Thanks to law, one could already ask in the past about one's score. Thanks to GDPR, nowadays, they have to publish a much more detailed report of what they store about one. And it's really scary: It's written that I lost some scoring because…

Yeah, I asked a similar collector of data in Czech Republic about the data they held, and they refused to provide details they based their scoring on, but provided me my historical scores, and it was basically a reverse of how my financial situatuion was during the years they provided scores for. As I gained savings my score worsened, and it was best when I had nothing.

One can only wonder, what that secret algorithm looks like. :D

It's sort of weird that some entity makes up some seemingly random scores about you, and other companies/institutions use those to judge you. That's quite a bit of power.

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#176

Post by jjtheblunt » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 5:30 PM UTC

prats226 wrote: post #160

lisper wrote: post #158

I just tried requesting my information from one of the links provided in the article. As part of the process I had to upload an image of my government-issued ID. After that, I was told to expect an email confirmation link that I would have to click on before they could proceed. That was an hour ago and the email has not yet arrived. I don't really have any reason to suspect that this is a scam, but I can't help but n…

To get this personal information, asking for government-issued ID gives them one more data point on you and reinforcement of identity. So a win for them as well I guess?

This might be entirely legit, and legally mandated.

https://www.sec.gov/fast-answers/answersbd-persinfohtm.html

It sounds like "KYC", i.e., know your customer.

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#177

Post by kingkawn » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 5:32 PM UTC

Cieplak wrote: post #26

I’m curious what sort of due diligence these companies must do to authenticate you as a person prior to satisfying an information retrieval request. Given that the exchange is entirely digital, it seems plausible that there are bad actors who would pose as someone else to gain access to their personal information. What sort of liability does one of these data controllers bear when they fail to properly authenticate a…

The one that offered an online form requested a copy of a government issued id to confirm identity. How long til someone poses as one of these agencies to collect data too?

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#178

Post by crooked-v » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 5:34 PM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #169

diafygi wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I originally studied chemical engineering, and one of the common catchphrases is, "regulations are written in blood." The reason there's a requirement to put a pressure relief valve on that tank is because at some point a tank like it didn't have one and it blew up and killed people. However, safety in chemical engineering has been evolving over centuries as we have understood more about the dangers and consequenc…

Another interpretation of that catchphrase is that once it's written, it can't be unwritten, and that's true with laws, or at least they've very difficult to change once on the books. We need to understand the full scope of the problem, rather than try to fix what isn't fully grasped, and honestly I have very little faith in the US government to accurately grasp the subtleties and nuances of the advertising and priva…

But that's not an interpretation of that phrase at all.

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#179

Post by llamataboot » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 5:36 PM UTC

brianpgordon wrote: post #145

> When I told Mr. Tan that I was alarmed to see my Airbnb messages and Yelp orders in the hands of a company I’d never heard of before, he responded by saying that Sift doesn’t sell or share any of the data it has with third parties. What a line to say with a straight face. They are the third party that he's uncomfortable sharing his data with!

With what we know about the likelihood of major data breaches, even if you liked Sift, and thought their purposes were noble, you would have to admit that they are one big sitting duck for a targeted hack that could provide you with massive amounts of aggregated information on an individual.

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#180

Post by 4bpp » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 5:36 PM UTC

rhegart wrote: post #134

Dating apps too? Wtf, imagine if they knew your preferences were same sex and you flew to Dubai or China and you’ve criticized them, they could sell that data and get you arrested or honeypot you. Great way to get dissidents overseas with other compromising information

Oh boy. Considering that the most authentication that happens seems to be based on government IDs (which are well within the capability of any government to fake in such a way that a random startup would be fooled), this could actually be a serious problem for any dissident who is high-profile enough to attract personal attention from a state.

(On that matter though, how hard is it to fake a convincing scan of a government ID? Do any GDPR data controllers actually verify with the authorities that John Example has a passport with number soandso that expires on soandso?)