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I verified my LinkedIn identity. Here's what I handed over

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Re: I verified my LinkedIn identity. Here's what I handed over

#511

Post by ljm »

notpushkin wrote: post #452
ljm wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an entire cottage industry of linkedin scrapers that put a lot of effort into guessing your email address to enable cold outreach. I'm ashamed to say I worked at one such place for several months. Apollo is probably the most comprehensive source for this. It's creepy as fuck.

I’m a bit on the fence with this one. Sure, spam is bad, but they also enable you to reach out to somebody outside of the LinkedIn’s walled garden (personally, without automation). If it enables a tiny startup trying to solve the exact problem I have to reach out to me – I’d say it’s a net positive (but not by a huge margin), and having to blacklist @mongodb.com with their certifications bullshit is a price I’m ready…

I think your example goes out of the scope of an expensive platform like Apollo that exists to maintain a shadow profile based off of your online presence, though.

Maybe the thought occurs that one is only accessible on LinkedIn on purpose and just because a recruiter from 8 years ago has your number, it's not up for grabs?

Re: I verified my LinkedIn identity. Here's what I handed over

#512

Post by logifail »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #497
logifail wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> their democracy appears to be very high functioning, which demonstrates this form of democracy can work well This probably depends on your definition of "working well". In March 2025, after the last Federal elections were held in Germany (February 2025), but before the new parliament was constituted (within 30 days of the results?), the new governing coalition engineered a constitutional amendment which required a…

I added that last line as a honeypot, as part of my ongoing project on HN. No matter what I say positive about some country, culture, or institution, someone will pop into the conversation to say: "Yes, but what about this one incident. See, X is not so great after all." I think we need an equivalent of Brandolini's law for counterpoint of negativity in all HN discussions. It is as though people think they are dispro…

> I added that last line as a honeypot

Ouch.

> No matter what I say positive about some country, culture, or institution, someone will pop into the conversation to say: "Yes, but what about this one incident. See, X is not so great after all."

Isn't this what's called "balanced reporting"? Life is shades of grey.

Aside: not that long ago, half of Western Europe used to look up to Germany as it was the home of "Made in Germany" and the place where the trains ran on time ... ... VW emissions and Deutsche Bahn, how times change.

> I think a more nuanced view would be to say that all highly functioning democracies have incidents that are "perfectly legal, but appear as an abuse of process". I don't really think that detracts from the overall statement that Germany is a highly functioning democracy.

I suspect we may need to hear your definition of "a highly functioning democracy" to assess that claim.

If - hypothetically - your political worst enemies were to pull the same stunt immediately after losing an election, binding the winners of said election, would you be as supportive?

Re: I verified my LinkedIn identity. Here's what I handed over

#513

Post by throwaway2037 »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #506
throwaway2037 wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I added that last line as a honeypot, as part of my ongoing project on HN. No matter what I say positive about some country, culture, or institution, someone will pop into the conversation to say: "Yes, but what about this one incident. See, X is not so great after all." I think we need an equivalent of Brandolini's law for counterpoint of negativity in all HN discussions. It is as though people think they are dispro…

> To react to your specific incident, I think a more nuanced view would be to say that all highly functioning democracies have incidents that are "perfectly legal, but appear as an abuse of process". I don't really think that detracts from the overall statement that Germany is a highly functioning democracy. Moreover, highly functional democracies regularly change parliamentary rules to reduce incidents like this. I…

Another idea for the debt brake: What if they set strict limits, like a max of 3% for 7 years, or 5% for 5 years. Literally, you have a "bank of GDP percent points". You can gain them by running a surplus and spend them by running a deficit. Start the initial bank balance at 25%.

    > but I guarantee that this action will be brought up again and again by populists in the future, as an example of how the "elites" don't care about democracy.
This is a good point that I didn't think about.

Re: I verified my LinkedIn identity. Here's what I handed over

#514

Post by throwaway77385 »

throwaway77385 wrote: post #8

How does this work for the myriad banks I've had to prove my identity to in the same way? I'll be attempting steps 1-4 and see what Persona comes back with.

To report back on this, I contacted the various email addresses given in OP's article.

For people with GDPR rights, this link helps make a DSAR (though interestingly the US and many other countries are also available from the country dropdown, maybe they follow these rules everywhere): https://withpersona.com/dsar

This of course brings up the problem of having to verify the ID of the person who's requesting their ID to be deleted from their DB. So I am probably going to stop here.

I also received a separate email stating that my data was already scheduled for deletion if I used Persona through LinkedIn.

Re: I verified my LinkedIn identity. Here's what I handed over

#515

Post by philipallstar »

Barrin92 wrote: post #491
csmpltn wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "We just would need the courage to ban LinkedIn and every other American social media company. We'd have a clone up and running in a month. You only need to look to China who did exactly this." That's socialist dictatorship. Why do you want the EU to be more like China, instead of the EU being more like the US? It will result in further isolation and decline of Europe which sorely depends both on the US (and China)…

>Why do you want the EU to be more like China I don't want to, but if people like you represent how Americans think, with nothing but contempt for Europe and only obsessed with power, then the Chinese were right about who Americans are and we were naive. Then achieving autonomy quickly is necessary. And it's not about isolationism, just different priorities. The Chinese aren't isolated either. It's the US that's isol…

> but if people like you represent how Americans think, with nothing but contempt for Europe and only obsessed with power, then the Chinese were right about who Americans are and we were naive.

I think it's much more the other way round. As a not-American, the amount of contempt I see Europeans having for Americans for not "valuing family" (i.e. lots of free childcare and maternity pay), or generally not having really expensive social programmes, and having medicine prices based on the R&D costs, when the only reason they can do that is because the US taxpayer funds most global shipping, and most health R&D in the world, is much higher than the reverse.

Saying "oh we should be autonomous" won't ever remove all the free help the US has given those countries in the past, even if they stop relying on it in the future.

Re: I verified my LinkedIn identity. Here's what I handed over

#516

Post by justpollen »

This is a great breakdown. The $50 liability cap on your biometric data is almost comically dystopian. What strikes me is that LinkedIn has made verification feel mandatory through social pressure, not actual necessity. I work in the LinkedIn ecosystem (building https://www.justpollen.com, an AI content advisor) and even among power users, nobody can articulate what the blue checkmark actually does for them beyond "it looks more legit." Meanwhile you've handed a US company the mathematical geometry of your skull. The cost-benefit here is absurd once you read the fine print.
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