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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

#251

Post by ekingr »

Simulacra wrote: post #56

Two points: First, the very act of requesting your data is in a way confirming and verifying the accuracy of the data. Second: Every prescription you've ever filled with insurance - and even some without - is recorded by companies like Milliman.[0] When you want to buy life insurance, health insurance, etc. they can request to see what medications you're on, have been on, etc. [0]. https://clark.com/insurance/how-to-…

> Two points: First, the very act of requesting your data is in a way confirming and verifying the accuracy of the data.

Same dilemma as hitting the "unsubscribe" link on spam: when doing so you confirm them you have a valid email address. It's a pure act of faith, you hope that they will comply and not take advantage of you even more.

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#252

Post by cortesoft »

earthboundkid wrote: post #241
cortesoft wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this idea in principle, but I am unsure of how it would work in practice. Say you open a credit card, then try to say it wasn't you..... what would a bank need to do to prove it was you? The things they would provide are already the things they have... your signature, your information, etc. What EXTRA bit would they start collecting that would prevent fraud? Currently, banks ARE on the hook for fraud....…

It has been done better in other countries and could be done better in the US if there were political will to do it. There's a whole universe of cryptographically signed certificates that we in the US don't use. The hard part is not signing a cert; it's making sure the certs are given to the correct people and having a procedure for when a cert is lost. Estonia has done this well; Korea has done this poorly. But it's…

Does that then make the cert a high value target? How do you get people to protect it and use it properly? If it is stolen, does it actually make it HARDER to prove you didn't open the credit line?

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#253

Post by reggieband »

There is a scene at the beginning of the movie Brazil [1] where a literal bug falls into a tele-type, causes an error that starts a chain reaction that frames the events of the movie. The bug is a metaphor in the movie, just some nice visual story-telling to indicate how errors in automated processes can have unintended consequences.

I honestly fear that entire lives will be ruined by AI systems mis-analyzing some data and locking people out from education, work, credit and health opportunities. For some reason, which will be mostly inexplicable to even the engineers that trained the ML system, people will get denied or flagged for spurious reasons.

As we automate everything this is inevitable. We're actively creating digital gatekeepers. 99% of the time you won't even realize it has happened to you nor would you have any recourse. It will be as innocent as an application you don't get a response from, or a simple generic "sorry" email. Then the brick wall of literal no customer service, or automated customer service that refuses to escalate you to a human tier. Then maybe if you are lucky a clueless customer service rep that compassionately explains there is nothing they can do and they wish you the best with your continued search. Fair enough their TOS likely allows them to deny service to anyone for any reason. Why would they waste the effort to figure out why their multi-million dollar system targeted you as an edge case? It works for 98% of cases which is probably good enough for them.

Brazil is a fictionalization that imagines an extreme case and the events of the movie get quite dark. The reality will be more mundane but IMO just as insidious. In the not very distant future AI will be choosing who is healthy and who is rich.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGge4rj4v_Y

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#254

Post by 0xffff2 »

lisper wrote: post #236
nitwit005 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> They have to verify your identity somehow, or anyone could get at the data. Yes, but the mere fact that I possess a photocopy of my drivers license does not prove that I'm me. That is manifestly true because they now possess a photocopy of my drivers license and they are not me.

Well, you don't have to give them a perfect copy of your DL. They now posses a heavily redacted and aggressively watermarked image of my driver's license that is unlikely to be of any use outside of this specific request.

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#255

Post by glofish »

lisper wrote: post #211
cortesoft wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this might come down to how you define corruption.

I define it the way the dictionary does: dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power in order to advance their own interests over those of others. How would you define it?

the magnitude of it matters.

Order a Big Mac - does it look like the ad? Probably not. Drink a Cola, does it feel like your life has turned around, probably not. is advertising dishonest - of course, but we all know that and we learned to deal with it. Is advertising corrupt, I would not say that.

Thus for something to be truly corrupt it needs to go beyond a certain level of illegality.

There are plenty of small banks and credit unions out there thus the point that you cannot open a bank is not quite valid. Are some of the rules onerous, probably. Are some of the rules unfair and ridiculous, probably ... does it mean it is corrupt I don't think so.

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#256

Post by 0xffff2 »

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.

Out of curiosity, do you have a particularly simple email address? Over the years, my various email addresses have been some combination of my name and separator characters and I've had exactly one time where I got someone else's confirmation for an airline booking. For most people, I think email is a reasonable identifier. For people whose email is "bob@gmail.com" or the like (who are probably more common on HN than in the general population) not so much, but I'm pretty sure they're the exception not the rule.

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#257

Post by rlucas »

scarejunba wrote: post #163
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?

The use-case isn’t advertising, it’s QoS. So you collect the data and give your best customers fast access, or maybe you balance it out: your most complaining customers get preferential treatment and the most reasonable wait a little longer on the line because you know they won’t complain.

Or, framing it more broadly: mass personalization implies a worse deal on average for everyone on the atomized/consumer/low-power (individual) side, because the high-power participants (companies) will optimize their outcomes at the expense of individuals.

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#258

Post by lisper »

0xffff2 wrote: post #254
lisper wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They have to verify your identity somehow, or anyone could get at the data. Yes, but the mere fact that I possess a photocopy of my drivers license does not prove that I'm me. That is manifestly true because they now possess a photocopy of my drivers license and they are not me.

Well, you don't have to give them a perfect copy of your DL. They now posses a heavily redacted and aggressively watermarked image of my driver's license that is unlikely to be of any use outside of this specific request.

Heh, now you tell me. :-/

[UPDATE] If the heavily redacted version was good enough to convince them that you are you, then it will almost certainly be enough for them to convince someone else that they are you should they choose to do.

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#259

Post by btc-100k »

blhack wrote: post #239
btc-100k wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The article author claims that part of the information they got from sift was information about one of their own logins. So it would appear that coinbase is sharing information. The reason I'm so flabbergasted by this is that this seems to really, really damage account security. Now there is one company that has a massive profile on me, that also knows very specific details about when I log into my account, from wher…

This should help everyone better understand if interested: https://sift.com/developers/docs/curl/apis-overview/overview

Sift makes risk predictions in real-time using your own data and data from the 100s of millions of users in Sift’s global network. Our machine learning systems identify patterns of behavior across thousands of devices, user, network, and transactional signals. These are often patterns that only a machine learning system can spot. Using Sift, businesses have stopped 100s billions of dollars of fraud worldwide.

There are many abuse use cases that Sift can stop:

Payment Protection - Reduce friction at checkout to increase revenue and stop chargebacks before they hurt your business.

Account Abuse - Stop fake accounts from polluting your service and block bad users before they harm your business.

Account Takeover - Stop bad actors from hijacking users accounts. Keep your users safe and ensure that they always trust your service.

Content Integrity - Stop spammy and scammy posts from polluting your service. Keep your users safe from malicious actors.

Promotion Abuse - Make sure you’re only rewarding real users by stopping referral rings and repeated use of promotions.

Sending Data to Sift

To use Sift, we need to know about your users, what they do with your service, and what actions you take in response to your users. This includes:

How your users are interacting on your website and/or mobile apps (eg what pages they are visiting, which devices they are using, how long they spend on each page, etc). We automatically collect this data when you add our JavaScript snippet to your website and our Mobile SDKs to your app.

What actions your users are taking, usually key user lifecycle events (eg creating an account, placing an order, posting content to other users, etc.). You will send this data from your application to Sift via our REST API.

What actions your business is taking in response to users (eg approve an order, ban user due to fraud, cancel order due to chargeback, etc). You will also send this data from your application to Sift via our Decisions API.

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#260

Post by snagglegaggle »

reggieband wrote: post #253

There is a scene at the beginning of the movie Brazil [1] where a literal bug falls into a tele-type, causes an error that starts a chain reaction that frames the events of the movie. The bug is a metaphor in the movie, just some nice visual story-telling to indicate how errors in automated processes can have unintended consequences. I honestly fear that entire lives will be ruined by AI systems mis-analyzing some da…

I'm not sure we can solve this as it relates to AI/ML if we can't even solve it as it exists in human society today. Various heuristics are used, knowingly or not, to gate access to employment, education, healthcare, etc.

As an example I had to drop out of education (in the US) due to mental health issues. 6-7 years later, I'm still having problems getting back in as I wasn't able to get the problems documented in time. I also am unable to get any money as most of my classmates were despite my far above average performance pre-uni.

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