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Fury at Facebook as login requests “Government ID”

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Re: Fury at Facebook as login requests “Government ID”

#131

Post by jdbernard »

crististm wrote: post #63
DominikR wrote: post #32

I am going to get a lot of downvotes for this but I am still curious to hear what solutions the HN community could come up with for the problem Facebook is facing: Some of the accounts have been hacked. You locked the accounts as a security measure. Now you need to validate that some person is the actual owner of the account. How would you solve this problem? (Sending a code via text message to the owners mobile devi…

Facebook's problems are their own. Why should HN community bother with their problems? - What's wrong with secret questions?

Regarding secret questions: they are basically a second set of weak passwords that tend to be impossible for a user to remember, but easier for an attacker to find out. They are often based on public information (e.g. mother's maiden name), information that is semi public (lots of people know where I went to school), or just not difficult to guess.

Re: Fury at Facebook as login requests “Government ID”

#132

Post by devrelm »

scorpion032 wrote: post #107
Amadou wrote: post #90

How does Facebook intend to validate these government IDs? I'm pretty sure they can't. They want you to send a scan of some photo-id - that means that all the anti-tamper / anti-forgery tech that might be on the actual ID will be non-existent. If you are lying about who you are, it will take about 10 minutes in photoshop to come up with something that will pass their test. Are there any countries that even provide va…

The same argument could be made for house hold locks. An experienced lock smith could open an average house hold lock in probably minutes. (not to forget most people are neither skilled lock smiths nor photoshop editors) That doesn't mean a locked home isn't secure. Most people would never think about breaching such a social contract and breaking in locks. If one wants to break in or if one wants to lie, one can alwa…

Except that someone with the ability to "hack" a Facebook account will also likely be able to come up with a convincing ID.

Re: Fury at Facebook as login requests “Government ID”

#133

Post by thehme »

Doesn't really make sense to why FB would want people's Gov IDs to then allow them to simply upload pictures, gossip, or comment of other people comments. Does this behavior remind anyone of 1984 and the whole idea about controlling people's behavior/thinking by pretending or actually monitoring their activities/life? What is two-step verification, passcode generators or answer your secret questions, if not for this?

Re: Fury at Facebook as login requests “Government ID”

#134

Post by VLM »

DominikR wrote: post #32

I am going to get a lot of downvotes for this but I am still curious to hear what solutions the HN community could come up with for the problem Facebook is facing: Some of the accounts have been hacked. You locked the accounts as a security measure. Now you need to validate that some person is the actual owner of the account. How would you solve this problem? (Sending a code via text message to the owners mobile devi…

Delete the accounts, obviously.

I'm not saying lock them out for all eternity or whatever, just set up new accounts.

Its not that big of a deal, and seems fairly obvious?

Re: Fury at Facebook as login requests “Government ID”

#135

Post by sneak »

mhurron wrote: post #126
sneak wrote: post #89

One of my least favorite memes in western society is that individual people actually believe that the government has some say in defining your name or the boundaries of your family. Everything from the idea of "legally changed his name" to "same-sex marriage" illustrates the problems of turning to city hall for approval or consent of individuals' and families' deeply personal and private matters. I wish the US had tw…

I'm going to take issue with just one statement here because I'm short on time - > special kind of oppressor to tell you ... who you are allowed to love and allow into your family. They don't. You can have a polygamous marriage all you want, you can have an open marriage, you can be as gay as you want. However, husband, wife, father, mother, son, daughter and what not also have legal ramifications, and that is where…

These legal ramifications should be either abolished or applied to everyone who applies those titles equally. Anything else is state-sponsored discrimination and harassment, which is our current sad state of affairs.

Re: Fury at Facebook as login requests “Government ID”

#136

Post by alextingle »

gngeal wrote: post #119
eksith wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll make a slight addendum: Most people have an email address if they frolic online, however I rarely meet people who prefer to conduct communications over it. Of course, they need one for FB or Twitter either way, but... Either they go to FB or DM over Twitter or some other "social thing", but they view email as far more cumbersome. This is especially true with family these days as the first question I get is, "are…

Either they go to FB or DM over Twitter or some other "social thing", but they view email as far more cumbersome. E-mail clients need to be reinvented. There's no real reason for e-mail operation to be cumbersome. I mean, we have such a wonderful, decentralized, asynchronous messaging protocol based on pure text; why do most (if not virtually all) client applications suck so badly?

Two reasons people prefer FB messaging to e-mail:

- Spam is basically non-existent in FB messaging.

- Mobile e-mail clients are hard to set up and use (for average folk).

Re: Fury at Facebook as login requests “Government ID”

#137

Post by petrounias »

batuhanicoz wrote: post #106
Amadou wrote: post #90

How does Facebook intend to validate these government IDs? I'm pretty sure they can't. They want you to send a scan of some photo-id - that means that all the anti-tamper / anti-forgery tech that might be on the actual ID will be non-existent. If you are lying about who you are, it will take about 10 minutes in photoshop to come up with something that will pass their test. Are there any countries that even provide va…

Turkish Government has an API. You post all the info on the ID to it, and it returns true or false. You have to be a legal entity in Turkey to access it. (Edit: Correction, everyone can access it, and it doesn't require all the info anymore, just ID number, name and birthday. https://tckimlik.nvi.gov.tr/Service/KPSPublic.asmx?op=TCKiml... ) I'm guessing there are other countries that provides this?

Greece has several such open API endpoints for validating information, including VAT/company number, the equivalent of social security number, whether your personal tax returns have been processed, whether you were admitted to a state university, and so on.

For most of these services, all you need to access results is a subset of the relevant information. There is no requirement to register or authenticate, but they do seem to have crude forms of rate limiting in place.

Re: Fury at Facebook as login requests “Government ID”

#138

Post by VLM »

kalleboo wrote: post #82
dlss wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take a stab at this. Before I get in to it, we need to correct a misconception on your part: using a government ID doesn't work in every case. It turns out hackers know how to forge government ID images, and some of FB's users don't have government IDs (for instance, before I turned 16 all I had was a private school id). With that out of the way, I think they should do what you suggested: sms verification. Email…

> As does having a user's friends vouch for them (they call their friends and ask). This is probably the most "Facebook" of the options. They already do something similar for some account lockout situations ("identify 5 photos of your friends to gain access").

"identify 5 photos of your friends to gain access"

Really? I don't use FB so I can't verify, but that sounds like an epic security hole for prankers, stalkers, ex's, and abusive spouses.

Re: Fury at Facebook as login requests “Government ID”

#140

Post by jimwalsh »

algorias wrote: post #2

With each passing day, I look less and less like a lunatic for avoiding facebook (and its ilk) like the plague. You should try it.

I love how the HN type of people come into Facebook threads like this claiming that using the site is bad and that they are above everyone for never using it.

It's not that simple for people that aren't in the same circles as HN readers. Younger generations utilize it as their primary means of keeping in touch with people. That's fine if you get along well without it. But take a step back and look at all the teenagers who grew up with never not having Facebook to keep in touch with their friends/setup events/etc. You remember how difficult the social aspect of your younger days were in school.

Facebook/Twitter/Instagram alleviate some of that for the younger generation. I've seen that in many youth that I've worked with over the years.

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