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LinkedIn forcing me to disclose my phone number to log in? No thanks

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Re: LinkedIn forcing me to disclose my phone number to log in? No thanks

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm embarrassed to admit this but I created a fake LinkedIn account of a woman I used to rope in men for sales calls. I "friended" probably 200 odd linked in open networkers over the course of a week and then would flirt with guys using my catfish account. Those guys would enevitably get sappy and I would rope them onto a sales call with me as a bait and switch. I hated doing sales as well as myself and got out of it…

What were you selling, and was your flirting via the LI app?

Shitty analytics software for cpg companies.

Re: LinkedIn forcing me to disclose my phone number to log in? No thanks

#52
post #25
post #9

It's a standard measure to increase the cost of fake identities to decrease spam and Sybil attacks. If you exclusively belong to communities that don't have such measures, you will be dominated by third parties who create mass accounts instead of the platform. Choose your poison I guess.

if the guy has had the account for 20 years without being banned then he's probably not a bot its a data harvesting exercise

You would think that, but you’d be wrong. Old inactive accounts get purchased and sold to bot networks all the time.

Re: LinkedIn forcing me to disclose my phone number to log in? No thanks

#53

I have a friend who is a lawyer and has access to LexisNexis. When I found out what is in there for sale (and it's like a 30 year old service!), I kinda wanted to give up. It all feels like "Privacy Theater". Why would I worry about linked in when people can buy my most private info from so many places that I didn't even know existed? Are we just kidding ourselves? (I live in the USA.)

lol, this inspired me to try to opt-out of LN and I got this beautiful and intimidating warning.

https://consumer.risk.lexisnexis.com/img/State_Use_of_Indivi...

Re: LinkedIn forcing me to disclose my phone number to log in? No thanks

#54

I have a friend who is a lawyer and has access to LexisNexis. When I found out what is in there for sale (and it's like a 30 year old service!), I kinda wanted to give up. It all feels like "Privacy Theater". Why would I worry about linked in when people can buy my most private info from so many places that I didn't even know existed? Are we just kidding ourselves? (I live in the USA.)

You can freeze or opt-out to protect your privacy.

https://consumer.risk.lexisnexis.com/freeze

https://optout.lexisnexis.com/

Re: LinkedIn forcing me to disclose my phone number to log in? No thanks

#55

I have a friend who is a lawyer and has access to LexisNexis. When I found out what is in there for sale (and it's like a 30 year old service!), I kinda wanted to give up. It all feels like "Privacy Theater". Why would I worry about linked in when people can buy my most private info from so many places that I didn't even know existed? Are we just kidding ourselves? (I live in the USA.)

You can freeze or opt-out to protect your privacy. https://consumer.risk.lexisnexis.com/freeze https://optout.lexisnexis.com/

And they have the cheek to ask you your SSN on your way out. Nice!

Re: LinkedIn forcing me to disclose my phone number to log in? No thanks

#56

Demanding a phone number will not help stop the fraud. HR execs advertising for nonexistent positions have drawers full of burner phones. I wish fraudulent job advertisements were prosecuted as felonies. The value is typically in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, but there are no prosecutions.

What is the motivation for HR execs to flood the site with nonexistent positions, and does LinkedIn do anything to stop abuse like that?

Re: LinkedIn forcing me to disclose my phone number to log in? No thanks

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My approach has been, gradually, to put everything into LLCs and trusts. Mailing address is one of the storefront vendors. Two real phone numbers and a couple VOIP numbers. I mostly use Signal for people I want to speak with. I don't yet have a good screen of the address on my driver license, as I get some perks where I live and want to keep that for now. I am using passport more domestically for ID because it does n…

Note that if you are in the US, you will have to report yourself as beneficial owner of these LLCs to FinCEN starting Jan 1 2024[0]. The government super duper promises not to leak the info[1]. [0] https://www.fincen.gov/beneficial-ownership-information-repo... [1] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/12/16/2022-27...

I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about. The first time was unprecedented. The people responsible for the second leak were probably really very clever, and it was a different time back when the third leak happened:

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/bloomberg-law-analysis/analysi...

Also, that article from when the third leak happened points out they had three leaks in three years. It doesn’t mention anything after the 2020 leak. It’s definitely fine now.

Re: LinkedIn forcing me to disclose my phone number to log in? No thanks

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have private relay enabled via iOS iCloud. I have no extensions installed. Preload top hit is enabled on safari by default. (Not sure if this is could be a factor). I only use safari across my devices. 2FA is enabled for LinkedIn and save password. That is it. I access LinkedIn frequently throughout the day.

> I have private relay enabled via iOS iCloud I can see that might be it - because it means LinkedIn would be seeing you logging-in from different IP addresses in different geolocations every time (though Apple doesn't let you virtually change-country, I understand in the US it does make it look like you've moved-state).

I also use iCloud Private Relay and LinkedIn seems happy in my case. There has to be more to it and I wish they’d make these kinds of guards more transparent. You can’t just ban people because some crappy algo thinks you’re a bot.

Re: LinkedIn forcing me to disclose my phone number to log in? No thanks

#59
post #25
post #9

It's a standard measure to increase the cost of fake identities to decrease spam and Sybil attacks. If you exclusively belong to communities that don't have such measures, you will be dominated by third parties who create mass accounts instead of the platform. Choose your poison I guess.

if the guy has had the account for 20 years without being banned then he's probably not a bot its a data harvesting exercise

Not to defend Linkedin, but it is always possible that new measures (filters) are devised by people who don't consider all the possible parameters.

In other words, some less-thinking Linkedin employee decides to do a thing without adequate consideration of all the information available (such as length of time of membership). Maybe Linkedin let some moron apply rules, or Linkedin is grabbing data for marketing/sales purposes, or there's an explanation we haven't realized yet.

Re: LinkedIn forcing me to disclose my phone number to log in? No thanks

#60
post #6

It is infuriating how many websites require you to give out your phone number in order to sign up or log in these days.

I would like to see a better alternative way to discourage both bot-accounts and, to a lesser extent, human-farmed accounts. Well, we do, and it’s Device Attestation, but that’s just as bad, if not worse, honestly - at least with a phone-number we can use our own hardware.

From a user standpoint, I'd take privacy over not actually secure "security" practice any day.
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