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Block: Inflated user metrics and “frictionless” fraud facilitation

hindenburgresearch.com

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Re: Block: Inflated user metrics and “frictionless” fraud facilitation

#241

Post by bryanlarsen »

gessha wrote: post #165
bfeynman wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is entirely on you if you give away your phone to those kids. I would think they would just run away with it

Ah, yes, it’s the people who got scammed who are at fault. Everyone should always be ultra suspicious of everyone around them, no happiness or fun allowed. \s I want to live in a world where I can trust a random stranger, not suspect them of robbing me. Justifying some extra protections like a pin or a fingerprint check to finalize a transactions should not be this big of a deal.

If you choose a stranger at random, you can likely trust them.

If somebody chooses you, you're not choosing at random.

Re: Block: Inflated user metrics and “frictionless” fraud facilitation

#242

Post by lanstin »

olalonde wrote: post #225
stuartjohnson12 wrote: post #3

Chesterton's Fence strikes again - every so often, someone has the bright idea of uninventing all the rules for just long enough that all of the reasons the rules were invented in the first place can regress back into existence.

If I had a penny whenever someone incorrectly referenced that principle in response to a libertarian's desire to eliminate or disregard regulations. Naturally, they understand the reasons for the regulations' existence, they just hold a different viewpoint.

The corpus of libertarian writing in social media about crypto and banking regulations and fractional reserve banking and FDIC would tend to disprove your statement about libertarian beliefs.

No doubt in some academic tower of excellence, the arguments are tightly wound and full of data, but it isn’t propagating to the common discourse.

Re: Block: Inflated user metrics and “frictionless” fraud facilitation

#243

Post by lanstin »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #119
gonzo41 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always think about uber. The moment that they have to start treating drivers like employee's they can't make money because self driving cars are still a dream and the taxi business is cut throat and always has been.

> moment that they have to start treating drivers like employee's they can't make money Revel, in New York, has employees and does fine.

Many transit solutions are successful in NYC but not elsewhere.

Re: Block: Inflated user metrics and “frictionless” fraud facilitation

#244

Post by olalonde »

lanstin wrote: post #242
olalonde wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I had a penny whenever someone incorrectly referenced that principle in response to a libertarian's desire to eliminate or disregard regulations. Naturally, they understand the reasons for the regulations' existence, they just hold a different viewpoint.

The corpus of libertarian writing in social media about crypto and banking regulations and fractional reserve banking and FDIC would tend to disprove your statement about libertarian beliefs. No doubt in some academic tower of excellence, the arguments are tightly wound and full of data, but it isn’t propagating to the common discourse.

I meant to reference Block CEO Jack Dorsey in my comment. I'm pretty sure he knows the intended objectives behind AML regulations and so on. I doubt that he would go "oh! I didn't think about this" if someone were to explain their purpose to him. Plus, in case that was your point, Chesterton's Fence is about a lack of reasoning about the purpose of the rules, not a bad reasoning.

Re: Block: Inflated user metrics and “frictionless” fraud facilitation

#246

Post by MonkeyMalarky »

hotpotamus wrote: post #82
hoofhearted wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. A scam here in Baltimore that keeps occurring is that the squeege kids will run up on someone unsuspecting and start cleaning their windshield. They will pressure the driver for a tip, and the driver will say they don’t have cash of course. They will say that’s cool, you can send me a tip. They ask the driver for their phone so they can look up their cashapp for them, and bam the driver got scammed. What’s h…

I mean, it's also an anti-pattern with wallets if you hand them your wallet full of cash and tell them to take a tip. A PIN is not a bad idea though. I think this might be an actual generational difference; I feel weird letting someone else use my phone or using someone else's phone now. I can remember a time when phones were much more communal - the family shared a phone, and public phones existed, and I wonder if o…

I don't know if it's a scam but there's been guys hanging around the local greyhound station with stories like "my phone battery died while I was on the bus, can I use your phone to call my buddy to pick me up". And I don't want to be a jerk but something about it felt a bit too pushy, and if I give then my phone I was probably never going to see it or them again. Now just giving it unlocked to a squeegee kid? Hell no, that's just plain naive.

Re: Block: Inflated user metrics and “frictionless” fraud facilitation

#247

Post by lanstin »

agentgumshoe wrote: post #210
rvz wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just about all of silicon valley seems to have run the longest and broadest grift we've seen. I would say nearly all of Silicon Valley tech startups. Around 90% them are a complete SaaS grift and are also eternally unprofitable and are very good at losing money. Hence why they are solely dependent on begging for VC money every month to pump the pyramid scheme that recently collapsed a week a ago. We saw which start…

Indeed, VC's loaded with 'free' money pumping whatever idea could bring in the consumers enough to keep a narrative spinning. I haven't seen any particularly strong profitability case for ChatGPT and the like yet, unless you call ad dollars from promoting "ChatXX does this amazing trick!" as proof. People barely even questioned the ludicrous wages being thrown around in silicon valley, supported by 'funding rounds' a…

Yeah. I used to work outside the valley, until 2008. I moved to San Jose to work with friends I worked with from Netscape.

Until I moved, I earned five figures, you know a bit more each year, and was happy. I had a house, a big spacious house by San Jose standards, and a nice town with friendly friends and so on. When I started in SV, they raised me to USD 120,000 and the HR recruiter literally apologized for it not being more. Since then it has gone up about four x, for no really good reason that I can see, since it is fun work I would do for much less. Only when you get into profit per worker does it make sense.

And that isn’t due to some moral failure entirely, but something about the weird asymmetries that networked technology seems to facilitate. One little neighborhood, but services and products for dozens or hundreds of countries. Each time a country is added to the network, the winner takes some more.

Re: Block: Inflated user metrics and “frictionless” fraud facilitation

#248

Post by starkparker »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #228
hoofhearted wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re minimizing major fraud being committed by juveniles, and it’s easy money for them lol.

It is not fraud, it is theft. It has nothing to do with Cash app. It could just as well be Zelle, or PayPal, or Venmo, or physical cash.

Zelle, PayPal, and Venmo have more in place to trace or recover illegal transactions, or at least to make creating and deleting accounts to move illegally acquired money more difficult.

The link's whole thesis is that Cash App doesn't really care, which is why criminals prefer it. Being so radically frictionless for the underbanked also facilitates scams, including those that distinguish between theft and fraud.

Re: Block: Inflated user metrics and “frictionless” fraud facilitation

#249

Post by JumpCrisscross »

paganel wrote: post #236
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> these analysts used only black people as the "criminals" in their example video Block targets Black Americans. This is like complaining about a gardening company’s analysts only talking about gardeners.

> Block targets Black Americans Even worse. So one of the companies that tries to address/serve the black demographic is being put down but what I assume are not black financial analysts. Like I've said, this Hindenburg company seems to not be aware of the whole societal background.

> one of the companies that tries to address/serve the black demographic is being put down but what I assume are not black financial analysts

This sounds like Adani’s defenders getting mad about Hindenburg not being Indian. Fraud is fraud. Their specialty is fraud. Why is fraud okay or not depending on who’s committing it?

Re: Block: Inflated user metrics and “frictionless” fraud facilitation

#250

Post by tennisflyi »

mkoryak wrote: post #49

I had never heard of cash app (probably because I'm not underbanked) until my mother in law fell for some phishing scam and the scammer was trying to get her to send money through cash app.

Nah. You’re underbanked in a different way.
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