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

Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 236 posts

Re: Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

#131

Post by huac »

OJFord wrote: post #58
robzyb wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is, of course, perfectly legal to do that with permission. The problem here is that it was done without permission. The OP is claiming that the impersonation without permission is a crime, and that it is impossible to waive the crime-ness of it through a contract.

Parent is replying to a comment stating: > If an offence is criminal it can't be magically made OK > by a contract. I think this must be mistaken (IANAL either). Boxing, assisted suicide, and voting by proxy come to mind.

Contracts must have 'legality of object' - the 'thing' that is contracted cannot be criminal, tortious, or against the prevailing public policy.

You will find that in each of your examples that there is a particular statute legalizing that activity in a particular state.

Re: Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

#132

Post by drdaeman »

svckr wrote: post #72
OJFord wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parent is replying to a comment stating: > If an offence is criminal it can't be magically made OK > by a contract. I think this must be mistaken (IANAL either). Boxing, assisted suicide, and voting by proxy come to mind.

The quote sounds right to me. If the act of impersonating someone is indeed a criminal offense, you can not smooth that over with a contract. Voting by proxy is not impersonation, you give someone the right to act (vote in this case) in your name. Thus, no criminal offense. The other cases: Assisted suicide is a criminal offense in many countries. For example (similar, but not the same), there has been some legal str…

> If the act of impersonating someone is indeed a criminal offense, you can not smooth that over with a contract.

IANAL, but it's like having sex: it's perfectly okay if all participants are consenting adults, but without this important condition it's a felony.

From what I understand, the important part here is consent, and only lack of one makes it a criminal offense. I.e. the act of impersonating isn't a crime (on its own) - the act of doing so without consent is. Well, to be certain, I guess one should take penal code of the jurisdiction in question, find the article and check the exact wording used.

Re: Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

#133

Post by notalaser »

vidarh wrote: post #111
notalaser wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on where you are in the world, but in most places in the civilized world, criminal law does not work that way. If something is illegal, we cannot sign a contract that says it's ok between you and me, and magically make it legal. E.g. if I kill someone, the state will prosecute me for murder, regardless of whether or not that guy and I signed a contract that said it was fine. If impersonating someone is a c…

The point is that the specific criteria defining what is criminal can include whether or not there is consent. A contract can establish consent. E.g. if I go into your house without permission and take stuff, then it is theft. If I have a contract saying that I have permission to go into your house and take stuff, then it is not. I have not contracted my away from something illegal. The contract has established conse…

Yes, but consent is not something that can be universally declared in a credible manner. There are things that remain illegal even after you have consented to them. For instance, having sex with someone below the age of consent is illegal even if they have consented to it (the idea being, of course, that they may be coerced into expressing that consent).

> All jurisdictions I'm aware of (not a lawyer) have the concept of agents that may act on your behalf with consent. To what extent such agents can act using your name (with consent) vs. using their own name but on your behalf, varies greatly.

They do, but things are not as simple as "can act on your behalf with consent". Around here, for instance (but I'm in Europe), they can only act on your behalf if:

a) You have explicitly given them consent to act on your behalf in that specific situation (i.e. you told them "you can go to the bank on this date and cash in this much in my name"), or if you have explicitly given them consent to act on your behalf with that particular party and for a specified period of time (i.e. you can go to this bank and do anything in my name for this period of time), and

b) The contract that states this has been validated by a notary and recorded by authorities, and

c) The party that they are acting on your behalf with knows about this, has been explicitly informed that they are acting on your behalf, and agrees to work with them under these conditions.

If they fail to do any of these, it's flat-out illegal. I think this is covered under civil law here, though, so it can be voided by a contract -- but the idea is that consent is not as trivial as signing a sheet of paper that says yeah, do whatever you want. It's bound by specific terms, too, the breach of which makes the whole thing illegal, even if on the whole the operation was consensual (i.e. if an agent, with my consent, goes to the bank to cash in a deposit, but does not explicitly inform the cashier that they are acting on my behalf so that they record the transaction accordingly (i.e. done by X on behalf of NotALaser), he's breaking the law).

(Edit: or, to make it clearer: he can represent me, but he cannot claim he's me. He has to explicitly inform the other party that he's acting on my behalf, declare his identity and present the proper authorization etc.)

Re: Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

#134

Post by lisper »

JupiterMoon wrote: post #35
nakedrobot2 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you have authorized them to do this under the Terms and Conditions of course.....

No! If an offence is criminal it can't be magically made OK by a contract. I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice.

Of course it can. Lack of consent is a key element in many crimes. Rape, for example.

Re: Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

#135

Post by protomyth »

OJFord wrote: post #58
robzyb wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is, of course, perfectly legal to do that with permission. The problem here is that it was done without permission. The OP is claiming that the impersonation without permission is a crime, and that it is impossible to waive the crime-ness of it through a contract.

Parent is replying to a comment stating: > If an offence is criminal it can't be magically made OK > by a contract. I think this must be mistaken (IANAL either). Boxing, assisted suicide, and voting by proxy come to mind.

Boxing is not illegal. Boxing is regulated under certain conditions.

Re: Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

#136

Post by pavel_lishin »

lisper wrote: post #134
JupiterMoon wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No! If an offence is criminal it can't be magically made OK by a contract. I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice.

Of course it can. Lack of consent is a key element in many crimes. Rape, for example.

But in your example, the act in question would be sex - which is not itself a criminal act.

Re: Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

#137

Post by thaumasiotes »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #105
wojt_eu wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it make it impossible under California law to have an agent that impersonate me? Have them tweet from my account, reply to emails in my name etc.

These are two different things: 1. Hi, my name is John, I am contacting you on behalf of wojt_eu to confirm that he has been added to the "Cool New Project" as lead DEV. 2. Hi, it's me wojt_eu, I just wanted you to confirm that I've been added to the "Cool New Project" as lead DEV. You can legally authorize someone to act on your behalf, in basically any Western Nation - although rules as to how this work will vary,…

You are not describing the facts on the ground.

http://semanticcompositions.typepad.com/index/2004/03/flexib...

Re: Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

#138

Post by rspeer »

OJFord wrote: post #86
svckr wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quote sounds right to me. If the act of impersonating someone is indeed a criminal offense, you can not smooth that over with a contract. Voting by proxy is not impersonation, you give someone the right to act (vote in this case) in your name. Thus, no criminal offense. The other cases: Assisted suicide is a criminal offense in many countries. For example (similar, but not the same), there has been some legal str…

> you give someone the right to act (vote in this case) in > your name. Thus, no criminal offense. Right, it would be an offence, except that you've given express permission; so it isn't. Assisted suicide is, yes. But my point is that we have separate legislation for it, implying that is required. Boxing, again, that's my point. Regarding identity specifically, what I imagine we're talking about here is an automated…

I definitely have a problem with that. It's an abuse of e-mail to automatically impersonate someone, especially for a purpose as banal as expanding a social network.

The Gmail warning that "this message may not be from who it claims to be" never worked well, but I wish they'd make it work for cases like this.

It's too bad e-mail is so unverified and insecure. A smartphone app can be prevented from making calls or sending text messages from your number: all you have to do is deny it that permission. But there's no way to prevent a website that has your name and e-mail address from sending e-mails as you.

Re: Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

#139

Post by lisper »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #136
lisper wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it can. Lack of consent is a key element in many crimes. Rape, for example.

But in your example, the act in question would be sex - which is not itself a criminal act.

Impersonating someone isn't a criminal act either. It is impersonating someone without consent that is the criminal act. Read the statute:

"...any person who knowingly AND WITHOUT CONSENT credibly impersonates another actual person..."

(Emphasis added.)

Re: Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

#140

Post by dzohrob »

Hi there,

I’m Dave and I work at AngelList on our Talent platform. Please accept our sincere apologies for what happened here.

Sending an email without giving you a heads-up or control over its content was wrong. Here’s what we’re doing to fix it:

* We’ve made it clearer that tagging a company on a project may notify them by email.

* We’ve revised the project tagging email to clarify that it’s automatically generated by AngelList.

* We’re looking through all emails we send on behalf of our users to make sure that a) it’s clear when an action may generate an email notification, and b) any automatically generated notifications come directly from AngelList.

As long as you keep your profile up-to-date by tagging your current and previous employers, we won't show them you’re looking for a job— they won’t see your name or resume appear when using our recruiting tools.

Again, please accept our apologies. We’re working to make this better. Please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns -- dave@angel.co.

Thanks, dave

Post reply on HN