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

“Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

ersei.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 172 posts

Re: “Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

#81

Post by jrochkind1 »

flutas wrote: post #25
nine_k wrote: post #3

Privacy.com is not about hiding your identity from authorities. It's mostly about hiding the fact that the same person, you, are paying to merchant A and merchant B. It allows you to easily have a card per merchant, and lock it to the merchant so that when its number is stolen, it can't be used anywhere else. The domain name is a bit lofty, yes.

>It allows you to easily have a card per merchant, and lock it to the merchant so that when its number is stolen, it can't be used anywhere else. In my experience even that can fail. I had a card number stolen from them, charged to the tune of $200+, and their support refused to even entertain the idea of it being fraud, and when I mentioned a chargeback they basically said "we don't do those, because we have contrac…

Woah, that is concerning. Making it harder, rather than easier, to chargeback fraudulent uses is not what I'm looking for.

Re: “Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

#82

Post by junon »

cmeacham98 wrote: post #75
junon wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phishing is typically tricking an individual into divulging sensitive information. Credential stealing is typical, but still a subset. Plaid uses banking credentials on a user's behalf. Yes, it's similar to using stolen credentials because... it's the same thing, except consent, audits, insurance, etc. all play a role whereas with criminal activity they do not.

This seems to be some weird semantic angle where because Plaid is audited that makes what they're doing not phishing? I'm not sure I agree with that definition or that it is particularly common. That said, if it makes you feel better, pretend my comment read "Plaid pretends to be the users' banks in order to trick users into giving Plaid their bank credentials and stores those credentials without their knowledge or c…

That is the definition of phishing. This is why "vishing" is "voice phishing", etc. Phishing is stealing information. It's not a "semantic angle" - it's the definition of phishing. You're free to consulting a dictionary to fact check me.

Plaid is not phishing, by any true definition of the word.

Re: “Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

#83

Post by markovbot »

junon wrote: post #79
markovbot wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the ask was pretty clear: not to share confidential identification information with sketchy companies that are clearly sharing that information with everyone.

So you're saying Privacy should reinvent the wheel with an incredibly difficult, terrible-to-manage process, itself requiring an entire company worth of people and a huge support staff, laden with insane amounts of red tape, just to perform a small function of their business, instead of contracting out another company that specializes in doing this exact thing? This seems like a larger security/privacy surface area t…

No, i didn't say that, nor did the post. You keep making these absurd leaps. Privacy.com advertises themselves as being private. I expect them to be private. They're the ones who chose to hinge 100% of their marketing strategy, all the way down to their name and domain, on how very private they were.

Re: “Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

#84

Post by [deleted] »

vorpalhex wrote: post #31
_8j50 wrote: post #23

Ahhh FFS, this post is complaining about third party KYC providers. Give me a break, in what world can you get a visa or mastercard without KYC? They provide privacy not anonymity, payment privacy that is not hiding your identity privacy. Your payments are private. Your payment info can't be easily tracked across the different cards you create. That's it.

It's not the existence of KYC, it's that their KYC provider is slimey and not privacy respecting. Selling your data to potential bidders is a no go.

[deleted]

Re: “Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

#85

Post by drdaeman »

tempsy wrote: post #33

I have the Apple credit card. If you just want to generate 1-time credit card numbers to use once it's the best experience imo - can easily do it in the Wallet app. Also lots of these subscription websites now detect card generated from something like a Privacy.com is prepaid and will prevent you from using it which defeats the purpose. Not the case with Apple.

> If you just want to generate 1-time credit card numbers to use once it's the best experience imo - can easily do it in the Wallet app.

I'm sorry, but how? To best of my awareness, there is only one virtual card (though it has a rotating CVV) and the only option I see is "request new card number" that should be used in event of having the current number compromised. I don't see any way to have multiple virtual cards there.

Well, technically there are 3+ cards - the physical card (without a CVV, so not really useful), the virtual card (see above), and one-per-device Apple Pay cards numbers (probably not useful unless merchant accepts Apple Pay).

Re: “Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

#86

Post by jrochkind1 »

twelve40 wrote: post #76
2Gkashmiri wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why can't banks have oath like authentication so this BS doesnt happen?

because there are close to 20000 of them in the US, and while chase has the resources to do oauth properly, not every junky credit union can afford that

Few/no small credit unions (or banks) have their own bespoke online portal they developed just for them. They use a vendor. I bet a few vendors would cover a pretty large % of those 20K banks.

Re: “Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

#87

Post by bluehatbrit »

junon wrote: post #79
markovbot wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the ask was pretty clear: not to share confidential identification information with sketchy companies that are clearly sharing that information with everyone.

So you're saying Privacy should reinvent the wheel with an incredibly difficult, terrible-to-manage process, itself requiring an entire company worth of people and a huge support staff, laden with insane amounts of red tape, just to perform a small function of their business, instead of contracting out another company that specializes in doing this exact thing? This seems like a larger security/privacy surface area t…

OP's original point is that a company marketing themselves as a privacy tool are forcing customers to use a 3rd party for processing very personal identification data. That 3rd parties TOS, which binds customers of privacy.com, says they can and will share data with anyone they want for any reason. That's nearly the antithesis of the privacy the company is marketing itself on.

Privacy.com don't have to use Onfido, there are other options out there. There could be a myriad of reasons why they chose Onfido over the competition but the TOS bind the privacy.com users and they don't offer any alternative.

For a company leaning on "privacy" as their primary marketing tool, this is a double standard. It doesn't mean Privacy.com is a bad company with horrible people building a terrible product. They're just calling out a company for doing something seemingly opposite to their marketing, and saying that's why they personally aren't using the product.

You can disagree with OP but doesn't make their point wrong, invalid, or stupid.

Re: “Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

#88

Post by Kiro »

vorpalhex wrote: post #30
volandovengo wrote: post #15

Privacy.com is a great service. I use them all the time to generate 1 time use card numbers for sites & then cancel the card so they cannot mysteriously charge me. I've been with them for years & their CEO is a wonderful & smart person. When you're allowing strangers to perform financial transactions - you're taking on risk that the money that is sent needs to actually be funded. They need to conform to KYC laws like…

KYC does not require the use of sketchy 3rd parties who leak data like a sieve.

Nothing sketchy about Onfido. You're hating on them all over this thread based on nothing but one sentence from their privacy policy, quoted on a random blog. A sentence that's not even saying what you think it's saying.

Here's the full paragraph:

"As part of a business transfer. Onfido may disclose your personal information to an actual or potential buyer, investor or partner (and its agents and advisers) in relation to any actual or proposed divestiture, merger, acquisition, joint venture, bankruptcy, dissolution, reorganization, or any other similar transaction or proceeding"

Re: “Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

#89

Post by DerekBickerton »

twelve40 wrote: post #71
junon wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they don't. One of the main features is being able to put in any billing information you want and they'll accept it. Typically a bank will validate the name and sometimes the address against your account on file. Privacy ignores it. This IS a privacy enhancement in many cases.

Nope. You have to go through KYC with them, give them your address, last 4 of social, dob, and yes, I got stuck on identity check too. Just because it didn't happen to you, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

This. You have to waive your privacy to privacy.com to get privacy on vendors/merchants. If I lived in the US I would happily waive it to privacy.com, since I buy stuff on e-commerce sites a lot. Enough times that I would be pissed if my personal info got leaked. Also being able to manage my card and lock it to specific vendors is sorely needed and should be a feature on all CC providers.

Re: “Privacy”.com–Yeah Right

#90

Post by tempsy »

drdaeman wrote: post #85
tempsy wrote: post #33

I have the Apple credit card. If you just want to generate 1-time credit card numbers to use once it's the best experience imo - can easily do it in the Wallet app. Also lots of these subscription websites now detect card generated from something like a Privacy.com is prepaid and will prevent you from using it which defeats the purpose. Not the case with Apple.

> If you just want to generate 1-time credit card numbers to use once it's the best experience imo - can easily do it in the Wallet app. I'm sorry, but how? To best of my awareness, there is only one virtual card (though it has a rotating CVV) and the only option I see is "request new card number" that should be used in event of having the current number compromised. I don't see any way to have multiple virtual cards…

Yeah its just one at a time. I still find this useful for one time use on a website or free trial.

If you want multiple cards with limits Citi does this and it's exactly the same as Privacy except you can use your credit card.

Post reply on HN