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

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

#41

Post by temphn »

Animats wrote: post #26

This might be "false personation" under California law. See California penal code 529.[1] This is slightly different from identity theft. It's a criminal offense. The key elements of this offense are that someone else impersonated you in some way, and they derived some benefit from doing so. Because this is a criminal offense, AngelList's TOS's arbitration clause does not apply. You can file a police report with the…

Are you seriously advocating reporting someone to the police based on a one sentence secondhand account from a single dumb Hacker News front page post?

You have zero context for what happened here (could well be user error!) and yet you are encouraging an angry mob to go and SWAT someone.

If you want to play that game, I'm sure that filing false police reports -- or encouraging others to do so -- is a flagrant violation of California's penal code. It is you, John Nagle, who should be thrown in jail if this turns out to be a nothingburger (as is likely the case!).

Or we could all just calm down and report it as a bug. Jesus Christ.

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

#42

Post by OoTheNigerian »

HN users confuse me quite a bit.

How would they confirm if you are lying or Telling the truth? I believe the only wah would be to confirm from the organization owner. Or else, ANYONE can claim to have done any project.

I believe they do the same verification (it's simple verification) for roles in an organization.e.g Adviser, Co founder, Investor etc. And the verification is the other way too. If an employer adds you as an employee, you are to verify it too.

I struggle to find what the issue is. Perhaps they should have told you they were going to verify your project?

Animats / John, when you invite your friend on a social network and they send a message on your behalf, is that criminal too? Remember, OP(Oliver) took an action by claiming he did a project in an organization. It could have been true or false.

Don Hopkins, take a deep breath man. You can pass a message without being mean. Except that's the intention for a reason not stated here. In that case, it's all good.

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

#43

Post by dchest »

Karunamon wrote: post #34
nakedrobot2 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, you cannot contract your way out of criminal law.

In this case, every giving would be stealing. If I gave you something, you didn't steal it from me. Likewise, if I gave you the right to impersonate me in particular circumstances, it's not a criminal offense if you do.

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

#45

Post by [deleted] »

Negative1 wrote: post #20
DonHopkins wrote: post #11

I had big problems with the "Angel List" web site, because it was extremely flakey and appeared to be a typical piece of garbage that some dime-a-dozen huckster with very little experience had just thrown together after watching the Ruby on Rails Make Your Own Trendy Dot Com Crud Web Site in 10 Minutes screencast. Major features were totally broken. Many things about the design were devoid of thought and just haphaza…

Insulting, bordering on abusive hyperbole. You seem to have a major chip on your shoulder. Did Angel List eat your baby or something? Also, if you hate them so much but seem to have some sort of reliance on their service, why not take yourself off the site and make a competing product?

[deleted]

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

#46

Post by robzyb »

wojt_eu wrote: post #39
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.

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.

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.

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

#47

Post by 9935c101ab17a66 »

dchest wrote: post #43
Karunamon wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, you cannot contract your way out of criminal law.

In this case, every giving would be stealing. If I gave you something, you didn't steal it from me. Likewise, if I gave you the right to impersonate me in particular circumstances, it's not a criminal offense if you do.

Except he obviously didn't give them permission to do this.

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

#48

Post by thom »

They do something similar (though less creepy) when you add a team member to your own org. I've got replies from people to emails sent out with my name, and my address in the reply-to field. They're deliberately crafted to seem personal, with I/you/me/us peppered throughout the body and "Thanks, [your name]" in the sig.

Ultimately it's a social network with accounts for orgs and people - it's no surprise that people are getting _some_ notification, but the impersonation is a little discomforting. It would be totally find if they just showed it as a template and said "hey, we're about to send this, okay?"

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

#49

Post by IanCal »

dchest wrote: post #43
Karunamon wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, you cannot contract your way out of criminal law.

In this case, every giving would be stealing. If I gave you something, you didn't steal it from me. Likewise, if I gave you the right to impersonate me in particular circumstances, it's not a criminal offense if you do.

The comparison to stealing is frankly ridiculous, as the law doesn't say you can't transfer money. It will explicitly talk about consent. If contracts allowed you to agree to anything then minimum wage laws couldn't work. Which side the impersonation laws fall on will depend on how they're written.

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

#50

Post by bachback »

AngelList lists startups, so why are you registering there if you are employed? That's likely a violation of your contract in the first place, and their ToS, and it's public info anyway. AngelList is for companies, not projects. You do realise this info is meant to be public? AngelList is a public register of startups showing the people behind them. If you don't want that info public, don't register there.
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