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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”

#41

Post by adhipg »

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…

Some options:

* A video call with a Facebook agent who verifies you.

* Uploading a picture of yourself holding a card that says 'Facebook', their city and the current date or similar. The city is something that FB can verify with IP address and account profile.

Yes, these aren't 'web scale' methods but I surely hope that they aren't just using OCR to validate Government IDs.

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

#42

Post by frio »

algorias wrote: post #23
sillysaurus2 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People think those who don't use Facebook are lunatics? Why?

For younger generations who grew up with this kind of tech, it's just not conceivable. For them, Facebook is a synonym for having contact with their friends. In a discussion we once had in class, I mentioned that an option that hadn't been listed besides Facebook, Google+, Diaspora, etc was "none of the above". I got bewildered stares of disbelief in return.

Maybe. This is rapidly becoming less true. I had to give a talk at a school the other day ("tech is cool, join the tech industry!") and the bulk of the students didn't have Facebook accounts -- because their parents are on it.

Maybe that'll change when they reach a University age, but it was striking how few of them used it.

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

#43

Post by EliRivers »

sillysaurus2 wrote: post #5
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.

People think those who don't use Facebook are lunatics? Why?

This attitude will die soon enough; the very young are starting to see Facebook as a niche website for grandparents.

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

#44

Post by tempestn »

dlss wrote: post #40
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…

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…

That shoe-on-head verification could've been an awesome PR win too. (Assuming it was presented as one option among many. Best would be to offer the choice of several of the options you suggested, as well as the government ID option.)

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

#45

Post by darkbot »

pavs wrote: post #29
sillysaurus2 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People think those who don't use Facebook are lunatics? Why?

Yes definitely. People who doesn't use facebook by choice are thought of being crazy. I use facebook, for me its a great to keep in touch with my friends and family members who are all over the world. I have a friend who doesn't want to jump in to the facebook bandwagon and our mutual friends thinks he is crazy for not using facebook. The side effect is he almost never gets invited if there is a get together and have…

Have a look at Diaspora

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

#46

Post by FridayWithJohn »

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.

@algorias, I once considered people like you to be weird not to communicate on FB... but for a while now I have really started to mistrust FB. The revelations by Snowden most certainly played a big role, but now that they are asking for freaking IDs I draw the line there. It is now time to really think about me leaving this crap... I think my boss might like that too as I'm sure to do more work now, haha

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

#47

Post by jgeerts »

Tarang wrote: post #21
ohwp wrote: post #8

What amazes me even more is that almost all of those people are screaming an shouting and are entering the ID the next day and forget about it.

Thats the problem. I wish people would care more about their data. Lots of us who build stuff are more aware of how stuff works and the repercussions of putting data up just once.

This is most valid, data should be centralized, not distributed and not in the hands of facebook. Imagine that there would exist a website that contains all your personal data with 1 password, websites request access to a part of that data and if this website also actively checks that it is valid data that the site is requesting to function, I would pay for that.

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

#48

Post by vincie »

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 hear ya. And you know, I've come across a few morons who insinuated to me that I am anti-social and have Aspergers' because of my resistance to using Facebook.

I think this is the genesis of it all: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2184658/Is-joining-F...

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

#49

Post by Soarez »

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 already has a good mechanism for validating account owners which involves showing users random unlabeled photos of their friends and asking them to guess who's who.

I guess an excuse like "you got hacked" helps you get much more important information from your users.

No one is talking about how all of the sudden, a lot of accounts supposedly got "hacked".

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

#50

Post by ZoFreX »

alextingle wrote: post #16
aestetix wrote: post #3

Two comments on this: We started http://www.nymrights.org to combat issues like this. One of our long term goals is to get companies to adopt policies preventing data demands like this unless sufficient protections (read, laws) are in place. (if you're a company debating adopting such a policy, I'd love to chat!) Second, if you're European, check out the European Court of Human Rights, which offers protection against…

How would you formulate such a law? What does Germany's Telemedia Act actually say? I can refuse to let you into my house if you won't show me your passport. If you don't have a passport, then I can just refuse to let you in no matter what. How does that change if I'm running a business? Or a web-site? Surely it would be better to focus on supply rather than demand. If government ID is mandatory for everyone (e.g. Ge…

> I can refuse to let you into my house if you won't show me your passport. If you don't have a passport, then I can just refuse to let you in no matter what. How does that change if I'm running a business? Or a web-site?

Well, you would presumably be keeping some kind of record of my ID. Perhaps you write down my name, date of birth, and passport number. As a business, in the UK you would have to (amongst other obligations):

* Not keep the data any longer than is necessary * Update any inaccuracies in the data upon request * Tell me what data you are keeping upon request

It's not about asking for data, it's about what you do after I give it to you. (NB to those wanting to know more about this, these particular obligations are due to the Data Protection Act)

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