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I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

nytimes.com

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Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#221

Post by ineedasername »

CPLX wrote: post #124
ineedasername wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are literally two very different types of data. This isn't an ambiguous issue: One is a continuous variable, the other categorical. Whether or not one or the other could erroneously flag someone doesn't change that, and doesn't mean they're the same. Because the nature of those differences means the use cases are different. A continuous score has much wider versatility than a black & white binary value, and allo…

You were replying to a comment that said "a binary score is still a score" The comment you appear to be arguing with, is completely true. A binary score is of course a score, and in fact that's almost always how credit and trust scores are actually perceived. From the company's perspective many scores are continuous, but from the consumers perspective that's mostly a distinction without a difference. Usually from the…

I never said it wasn't a score, my issue was the implications that, both being scores, they were somehow equivalent. They are not. A continuous score may be used with a threshold to perform the binary categorization. In fact that is all but guaranteed. But the continuous score, as I stated, has more possibilities for nuanced use. The binary score is derived from something continuous.

And you aren't usually told you got the loan or not. That is one possibility, but the more likely one is the continuous score of the credit rating translates into a continuous score for the interest rate. This is why the distinction between a binary and continuous score is important: t This continuous assignment of interest rate isn't possible with a single binary variable.

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#222

Post by nitwit005 »

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…

They have to verify your identity somehow, or anyone could get at the data.

Ideally you'd verify your identity to your government and they'd provide a limited time verification ID you could use for this sort of thing.

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#223

Post by Jach »

whatshisface wrote: post #200
dkonofalski wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>will our representatives actually give teeth to real data protection legislation No. The majority of them don't even understand what data is being collected, how it can be used, or the technology behind any of it. Until the people in office change, the idea that our representatives can or will protect us is toothless and spineless.

What trouble Congress is in! They have to be experts in law, warfare, every industry from oil refining to adtech, science (at least as far as funding it goes), ecology, economics, medicine... In fact I would say that it's impossible to expect anyone to understand enough to know what they're legislating. Aside from being a powerful libertarian argument against the excessive involvement of government, I think it shows…

A quick refresher on the details of how congress actually goes about their day-to-day plus the roles of the various permanent government and de facto government organs, shows "expertise doesn't scale" isn't really a problem. If it was, the whole thing would have come toppling down ages ago. So the libertarian argument is only "it's hard to do well", not "it's impossible".

I'll leave you to find your own references to get a detailed picture, but in short two basic forms of organizing do a lot of the work: big teams/staff for each congressman to help out, and special interest committees and caucuses. On top of that at least some take the idea of "representation" somewhat seriously, so if they need to know about a topic they're not experienced in, they tend to meet with supposed experts in those topics (which can come from a dedicated pool, lobbyists, state university department, and occasionally private industry owners or high level employees) for information and sometimes policy recommendations.

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#224

Post by murph-almighty »

dheera wrote: post #201
papln wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notarization essentially puts a $30-$100 price tag on the operation, which meets with a lot of resistance.

Considering how many people are notaries and how easy it is to become a notary, I don't think it's any form of security. It's just an artificially created market for people to make quick bucks signing documents.

The point of a notary is that there's a witness to you signing papers. You can't serve as an unbiased witness if you're the person signing the papers.

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#225

Post by sk5t »

dmurray wrote: post #44
rags2riches wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. List your new consumer scoring company and an address for requesting your personal records. 2. Collect personal data supplied as verification for personal record requests. 3. Send personal record requests to other companies holding actual consumer data. 4. You are now in business, ready to sell consumer data!

Not a great business plan as yet - "Zeta Global [...] told me that 10 people have requested their data so far" - but maybe you can be a first mover here.

That number might not move if Zeta's form never sends the confirmation email, which, thus far, seems to be the case.

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#226

Post by therealx »

0xffff2 wrote: post #153
Cieplak wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite possibly a composite key comprising name, gender, age and locale. "87% of the U.S. population is uniquely identified by date of birth, gender, postal code." [0] [0] https://dataprivacylab.org/projects/identifiability/paper1.p...

I would expect it's more complicated than that. I doubt that they just start over every time you move to a different city.

I seem to have slipped through these cracks easily. When I do anything that involves pulling my credit, it's a hassle because I give my correct address information, however the credit agencies have out of date information.

Tips to slip through the cracks: have a different mailing vs home address, dont apply for new loans/update work info with existing creditors over more than one job cycle, move frequently. When your credit card asks how much you make, they are doing so because the agency doesnt have good info on you and they are updating their files.

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#227

Post by mdavidn »

Androider wrote: post #190

The Sift report is based on your email address, among other things. My email box is full of random people's insurance quotes, medical and electric bills, birthday greetings, and welcome emails to services I've never heard of. We all know the company is going to spend approximately zero time to sanity check or sanitize that data firehose. Turns out the movie Brazil was a documentary.

I have this problem too. E-mail addresses are terrible identifiers.

So many services fail to implement validation loops, and their customer support teams have no process when I call. The presumption everywhere is that a provided e-mail address is correct. Even after I explain the situation, some representatives will refuse to help because I couldn't validate a birthday or last-four of a credit card.

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#228

Post by ineedasername »

maxerickson wrote: post #121
ineedasername wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are literally two very different types of data. This isn't an ambiguous issue: One is a continuous variable, the other categorical. Whether or not one or the other could erroneously flag someone doesn't change that, and doesn't mean they're the same. Because the nature of those differences means the use cases are different. A continuous score has much wider versatility than a black & white binary value, and allo…

Categorization into groups that you will or will not do business with is scoring. Pedantically explaining what sort of scoring it is doesn't change that.

Except that sort of will/won't is the only possible result of binary variables, while continuous allow more possibilities, like assigning a continuous variable interest rate on the basis of a continuous input.

I wasn't explaining some basic aspect of statistical variables for it's own sake, in this context it is not some pedantic hair splitting, it's a relevant aspect of the types of things that can be done with this data.

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#229

Post by btc-100k »

blhack wrote: post #88

The fact that coinbase is sharing this information with some third party is absolutely infuriating. I almost don't believe that.

Looks like Coinbase is buying the data (Sift Score) to help them make better decisions on account takeover vs. not account takeover, credit card fraud vs. not credit card fraud, ACH fraud vs. not ACH fraud.

In this context it makes perfect sense. Unless they force 2FA for every login, how else are the going to protect good users from account takeover. Same goes for buying crypto, they need a tool to help determine if someone is using a stolen payment method or not.

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