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IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

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Re: IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

#51

Post by upearly3 »

bArray wrote: post #19

This is just yet another push by financial companies to impose on your freedom of speech. Why on earth do people keep pushing for private companies to become political activists? They have already come for individual bank accounts, in the UK for example an activist named 'Tommy Robinson' [1] is not allowed to open a bank account due to his politics [*]. "What business of mine is it So long they don’t take the yam Fro…

It's worth considering whether the 'far-right', which probably just means stuff-that-everyone-thought-20-years-ago, would go the same route if they had the upper hand in the West currently.

Maybe it's all more just a matter of opportunity than it is belief system.

Re: IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

#52

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

HWR_14 wrote: post #22
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not incorrect. That said, to use your words, organization X does not publish Y without certain level of support for Y within X.

You seem unaware that there are many opinion or whatever sections within organizations that are designed to publish things they consider provocative and of sufficient quality (and possibly by people in sufficient power to make their opinions into fact). And excellent example is the NYT regularly publishes opinion pieces from politicians all around the political spectrum. In other cases (CNN's Crossfire was a very bad…

I disagree. I would welcome you to search for any number of truly provocative topics and you will see a chasm bordering. It is rarely a question of 'sufficient quality' as such is in the eye of the beholder. The issue is that of whether it can garner maximum amount of eyes with a minimum amount of real scrutiny.

What you might think is provocative, I see simply as topics that are designed to induce 'engagement'. While the two overlap, those are not the same thing.

In the end, editors have to decide whether it goes in. There needs to be a sufficient 'will' to make it happen. My point stands. There needs to be an internal support for any opinion pieces ( since that is the counter example you went with ).

Re: IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

#53

Post by travoc »

archildress wrote: post #48

Credit scores are so fundamentally broken anyway. In financial analysis of a company, the number one item you tend to look at is "free cash flow" - the "cash available for the company to repay creditors or pay dividends and interest to investors." [1] Why then do we not take income into account in credit worthiness? Why do I not periodically upload my W2 or tax return to the credit bureaus in order to show that yes,…

Can you tell us who is giving out large loans without verifying income?

Re: IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

#54

Post by nanis »

NiceWayToDoIT wrote: post #13

Somehow I have a feeling that each passing day, things are getting tighter and tighter and private corporation and government institutions are getting more controlling and totalitarian. That feeling like slowly being boiled into 1984.

Various parts of the U.S. are already there. You know where those are if you live in them. Ask yourself: How many times have stopped yourself from asserting 2 + 2 indeed is four[1] in conversations with colleagues, neighbors, teachers, or even family because you may lose your income or worse if you did not at least remain silent in the face of assertions to the contrary?

For those not familiar, here is the beginning of the relevant passage[1]:

> 'It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party. That is the fact that you have got to relearn, Winston. It needs an act of self-destruction, an effort of the will. You must humble yourself before you can become sane.'

> He paused for a few moments, as though to allow what he had been saying to sink in.

> 'Do you remember,' he went on, 'writing in your diary, "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four"?'

> 'Yes,' said Winston.

> O'Brien held up his left hand, its back towards Winston, with the thumb hidden and the four fingers extended.

> 'How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?'

> 'Four.'

> 'And if the party says that it is not four but five—then how many?'

> ...

[1]: https://2x2.rocks/

Re: IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

#55

Post by II2II »

ravenstine wrote: post #43
rootsudo wrote: post #3

Hey, they got that system in place already in China! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System Go to HackerNews, post a dissenting topic, enjoy no travel or credit! Work in a high compliance job where you have to submit financials yearly, no more!

What is sad is I think as generations go by people will be more willing to accept it. All we need is crisis after crisis to get people to trade freedom for safety bit by bit. Create a crisis where billions are stolen because "the system is broken", offer up social credit and a new monetary system as a solution, have the AP and Reuters send the same propaganda copy to all the news institutions for them to recite in un…

It is hard to say whether the problem is going to get better or worse. Many people live in an already precarious position, and this would only make matters worse. Both the left and the right already see the system as broken, even if they don't agree upon how it is broken or how to fix it. I would suggest that most of those people see themselves as moderates or at least representing the majority (whether or not they are is another question). Eventually things are going to boil over. We can only hope that it does so in a peaceful way.

Re: IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

#56

Post by p410n3 »

leshenka wrote: post #46

This is bizarre. I don't live in the US and have questions. a) how do they acquire users' web history? Do they purchase it from ISP? b) how do they know what ISP to ask? c) how does the ISP know my web history? Last time I checked, almost all websites I visit use https, so the only thing they can see is domain, not /pathname/ d) how does it feel to poke your nose where it doesn't belong?

a) Yes. Amongst others, many ISPs sell data. I picked comcast as a random example, here in Germany ISPs do that too:

"We may also share personal information that does not identify you with third parties for their own marketing and advertising purposes, which you can opt out of. This mainly occurs when you interact with our websites and mobile applications that contain third-party cookies or other advertising trackers. To learn more about this, please read our Cookies Notice."

Coupled with: https://www.vice.com/en/article/gygx7y/your-anonymous-browsi...

b) Afaik there's data brokers that know this and collect data from many different kinds of sources (isps being only one of them) those then sell to people like private investigators and private intelligence companies. Sadly I don't have a source ready, I learned this on a podcast and completely forgot which one. But the vice article above goes into that direction too.

c) That's correct, but that's also already valuable on it's own. I assume the /pathnames/ can come from third party tracking / ad companies, but dns data alone is also valuable. It's all in the patters of the (meta)data

d) Very likely exciting to many. Voyeurism and the "forbidden apple" aren't exactly new concepts

Re: IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

#57

Post by [deleted] »

cjfd wrote: post #30
tigershark wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop spreading disinformation and conspiracy theories here please.

Stop calling opinions and projection of a possible future 'disinformation and conspiracy theories'. That you disagree with something does not make it disinformation. Nor a conspiracy theory.

[deleted]

Re: IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

#58

Post by throwawaygh »

archildress wrote: post #48

Credit scores are so fundamentally broken anyway. In financial analysis of a company, the number one item you tend to look at is "free cash flow" - the "cash available for the company to repay creditors or pay dividends and interest to investors." [1] Why then do we not take income into account in credit worthiness? Why do I not periodically upload my W2 or tax return to the credit bureaus in order to show that yes,…

> To start throwing nonsensical parameters like browsing history into the equation is second derivative asinine.

And trivially exploitable...

> Credit scores are so fundamentally broken anyway.

The bigger problem is that the organizations designing credit scores (and alternative metrics) are incompetent.

Re: IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

#59

Post by Mengkudulangsat »

gruez wrote: post #23
cmattoon wrote: post #17

A better conversation is whether IMF/credit scores deserve to exist in the first place. Didn't these geniuses JUST add field-specific search to SWIFT, so orders for "cubanos" don't get held up because of Cuba sanctions? Maybe these clueless old men should stick to what they know - mountains of physical paperwork and pointless policies and procedures, and stay away from anything that uses electricity or internet. Bitc…

>A better conversation is whether IMF/credit scores deserve to exist in the first place >Bitcon/DeFi will render them obsolete in a few years' time anyway. Credit scores exist because banks want to know how likely they're going to get their money back. I'm not sure how that'd be replaced with "bitcoin/difi". Most of the "loans" I see are difi are either flash loans or overcolateralized loans, which have limited appli…

You know I've been wondering about that!

Can an autonomous bot on some smart contract have a credit score? Why is credit a privilege only humans can enjoy?

We should be able to spool up a persistent pseudonym that can have a credit score based solely on its selectively disclosed transaction history since inception.

If we screw up the credit score of that pseudonym, we should be able to create another and another. The market decides what score to give based whatever factor it feels relavant, which should result in abuse prevention over the long term.

Re: IMF working paper suggests using browsing history in credit score calculations

#60

Post by cube00 »

From the IMF blog post[1]:

> Even a well-paid expatriate moving to the United States can be caught in the conundrum of not getting a credit card for lack of credit record, and not having a credit record for lack of credit cards.

> Fintech resolves the dilemma by tapping various nonfinancial data: the type of browser and hardware used to access the internet, the history of online searches and purchases.

I enjoy the framing of this; give us the keys to the kingdom and we'll give you even more credit (to get yourself further into debt!)

Of course it won't stop there, better pay down that mortgage before you search or buy the "wrong" thing if you want to keep your house (they won't take it outright, just raise the interest rate on your loan because you now represent a higher risk based on "new information")

[1] https://blogs.imf.org/2020/12/17/what-is-really-new-in-finte...

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