This is why we should replace names with uuids.
At the very least names should be unique strings, preferably pronouncable
I Am Mark Zuckerberg
321–330 of 459 posts
Re: I Am Mark Zuckerberg
#322A friend of mine has a relatively common first name and last name, and she regularly gets mail that is clearly not meant for her. She started a Facebook group for homonyms to help her route mail, and it now have a hundred members and have helped people get important documents. At some point, they even organized an impersonation because someone needed to retrieve an official document and couldn’t be there in person. A…
It's ridiculous that the US still runs on name matching when you could just have a public Id number (unlike the SSN that everyone needs to pretend it's secret).
We still have to pretend SSNs are private until both law and common practice change. I expect that to be “functionally never”. Maybe within our lifetimes. Maybe.
My SSN is out there several times over at this point, thanks to breaches at phone companies, insurance companies, CRAs, ISPs, and the rest. I stopped tracking breaches that included the kind of info you’d need to impersonate me, about six years ago. The list was long and it seemed to be a pointless exercise by then.
I also have a mixed credit file with all major CRAs because of more than one person with the same name I have, one of whom lived in the same area.
Even if I didn’t have freezes everywhere, over the phone KBAs stopped working years ago even with my SSN.
Re: I Am Mark Zuckerberg
#323Last I heard, the other Mike Warot was a guard at the British Museum. I'm sure there are more.
My brother in law, William Morris, got me more than one notice when his caller ID showed up at the marketing firm I used to work at. ;-)
A few years ago, I was trying to find fun things to show my friend Ward, and you wouldn't believe how many Ward Christensens there are mentioned in newspapers.com.
This must be some analog of the birthday paradox.
Re: I Am Mark Zuckerberg
#324"Welcome to iammarkzuckerg.com" Okay, the site needs a little revision =p
Yes I also spotted that and wondered if it was intentional or not
Re: I Am Mark Zuckerberg
#325Michael Bolton: https://youtu.be/WjZKVKxZcAo
I celebrate the guy's entire catalog.
Re: I Am Mark Zuckerberg
#326This website looks a lot like the one of Saul Goodman from Breaking Bad.
I think that's the usual way the american attorneys advertise. I kinda like that style. In Poland, attorneys aren't allowed to advertise that expressively, which I think is a stupid regulation.
Poland's universal health care also removes the incentive for the type of lawyer who most commonly uses "Saul" style advertising -- personal injury attorneys.
It is a big business because people need to recover their costs or be render homeless is someone hits them with their car or whatever.
As a fun cherry on top, part of the opioid crisis stems from people abusing prescription drugs to return to work sooner than they would in the EU.
Re: I Am Mark Zuckerberg
#327I'd never heard of anyone with the same name as me, until '94 or so, when I put up a Web page, and some nice person with the same name contacted me.
Name-wise, apparently there are at least two instances of a Dutch man (surname) unable to resist the marriage-material charms of the Irish.
Decades later, my namesake and I have email addresses differing by one letter, and I still forward email intended for him.
My namesake is accomplished and respected, and at least once I inadvertently rode on his reputation. A remote colleague referred offhand to me being a volunteer firefighter, apparently having Web searched, and confusing me with my better namesake (whose contributions include being a fire chief).
Re: I Am Mark Zuckerberg
#328A friend of mine has a relatively common first name and last name, and she regularly gets mail that is clearly not meant for her. She started a Facebook group for homonyms to help her route mail, and it now have a hundred members and have helped people get important documents. At some point, they even organized an impersonation because someone needed to retrieve an official document and couldn’t be there in person. A…
I have nickname@berkeley.edu as my alumni email address and I get a lot of interesting emails directed towards more important people…
Re: I Am Mark Zuckerberg
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it hypothetically was a crime, I wonder how often it would actually get prosecuted given someone used their real ID, showing the office failed to check anything other than a name known to have dupes, and/or given they had no intent to steal something and acted with knowledge and permission of the intended recipient, showing no malicious intent. I can imagine reasons those wouldn’t be considered a valid defense, bu…
Obtaining something of value through deception is fraud.
They didn't obtain anything, though.
Re: I Am Mark Zuckerberg
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's ridiculous that the US still runs on name matching when you could just have a public Id number (unlike the SSN that everyone needs to pretend it's secret).
We still have to pretend SSNs are private until both law and common practice change. I expect that to be “functionally never”. Maybe within our lifetimes. Maybe. My SSN is out there several times over at this point, thanks to breaches at phone companies, insurance companies, CRAs, ISPs, and the rest. I stopped tracking breaches that included the kind of info you’d need to impersonate me, about six years ago. The list…
The most American approach would be for SSNs to become a de facto universal ID number that you have to give everywhere, while still continuing to function as an unchangeable password to all your most important things.