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People are always terrified of the Big Brother from government, but any time I have to verify my identity with questions like "What street of the listed have yo

by FTA 9y ago

People are always terrified of the Big Brother from government, but any time I have to verify my identity with questions like "What street of the listed have you lived on?" or "Which of these banks do you have a loan with?" it makes me realize how much aggregated data private (especially financial) companies have. I can imagine these corporations selling that info for good money, like how many transactions you make at a fast food restaurant in a given month to health insurance providers.

tmarkovich 9y ago
Check out companies like cardlytics and acxiom. Cardlytics basically provides the exact service you're wondering about.
zitterbewegung 9y ago
A recent HN post about four square is that they pivoted to an API that tells you who is shopping and where. They use Instagram data . https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14052444 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14052444
- ryanwaggoner 9y ago
  I believe Instagram is using their data.
smokeyj 9y ago
I don't say this often, but this observation is pure garbage. People who live in terror of "big brother" aren't in terror because they may be offered an unwanted credit card, or because it's their precious privacy that they value. They're in terror because their government wants to silence them and kill them. Maybe for who they associate with, their religious belief, sexual orientation or their political beliefs. On the topic of Big Brother, there was a law passed called The Patriot Act that required stringent KYC regulations.. Meaning financial institutions are required to ask these stupid questions and keep tabs on you. The government is forcing companies to keep tabs on you, along with telecom and other industries - so they can siphon this data.. But whatever. Stupid conspiracy theorists. Probably dumb libertarians or something.
- FTA 9y ago
  A visit to many internet forums will yield people fearing that "big brother" will expose their emails or internet history--though not life-threatening, the damage of embarrassment or job loss is still a real fear in their eyes. Also, do you not think financial companies would naturally aggregate this data in this day and age even if not required by law? Facebook has no mandate by law to collect information on their users for advertisers, yet they do. I imagine that financial companies in the business of understanding users' spending and lending habits would naturally gravitate to compiling and selling this data even without that mandate since humans and their data are the commodity of the 21st Century.
  - smokeyj 9y ago
    It's just historically ignorant to lump people who fear an all knowing state with people who want privacy online. I know that you personally don't fear your government - but please, let's not write off the entirety of history because you can't personally relate. > Facebook has no mandate by law to collect information on their users for advertisers, yet they do. In the age of NSL requests let's just admit that you don't know that. We have secret laws and secret courts in our "post 9/11 era". It's entirely possible that FB is secretly considered a national security resource and is compelled by threat of law to collect and relay all their data. Considering an early backer of FB was an investment arm of the CIA and that FB tracking cookies are used by the NSA to target attack vectors on the internet.. who knows, maybe I'm officially nuts :P
user5994461 9y ago
As an European who've tried the American way. I have to say that it is clearly worse. In the EU country I was, when i get a job/flat/whatever, I give a copy of my national ID and tax statement, and that's alright. In the USA/UK, when I get a job/flat/whatever, noone trusts me or the government. I have to give plenty of documents and 5 years of history to a 3rd party shady check agency, that's gonna resell the data and spam me. You can be sure that after a few years of your life, everything about you have been resold by these agencies and is available to the world: all your addresses, jobs, income, family situation, etc... You American guys have hundreds of private big brothers incentivized against you, all because you wanted to avoid trusting a government. That didn't go well.
- snarfy 9y ago
  > all because you wanted to avoid trusting a government. That didn't go well. I'm not so sure considering the current administration.
  - 0xfeba 9y ago
    Well, perhaps, but even the one thing we did trust them with (OPM data) all got pilfered away.
  - user5994461 9y ago
    The administration already has all these information. You're registered for taxes, healthcare, criminal background, etc. You're not hiding anything from them and you're not helping yourself by duplicating that to shady agencies.
  - Super_Jambo 9y ago
    You trust people who sell your info to spammers not to sell or even give it to the gov?
  - oblio 9y ago
    I'd say that the two are connected. The US has a such an anti-government attitude that the Republican Party becomes the majority party instead of being laughed out of Congress. A party whose members frequently advocate cutting healthcare for the poor, reducing education budgets, scaling back environmental policies, etc.
1_2__3 9y ago
And the whole thing is effectively structured as a 4th amendment sidestepping initiative. Which is why it will never go away.
tommynicholas 9y ago
You're very right, although that method of authentication (known as "Knowledge Based Authentication" or "Out of Wallet Questions" more specifically) is highly ineffective. Users can't answer the questions reliably, hackers can reliably steal the info. Look for that method to be entirely out of the industry within the next 5 years. There are better ways.
- dopamean 9y ago
  I'm curious. What are the better ways?
  - tommynicholas 9y ago
    First of all, basically any way is better than Out of Wallet Questions because they don't work on both ends. They don't really prevent fraud and most legit people fail them. Better techniques involve data / device triangulation, lighter weight Knowledge Based Authentication via data matching, and deeper fraud scoring to detect potentially stolen identities. It takes a real strategy and real time to implement something that actually works which is why many people just default back to OOQs but that will change.
raubkatze 9y ago
That's why one should rather pay cash and not donate them your data..

by FTA 9y ago

tmarkovich 9y ago

Check out companies like cardlytics and acxiom. Cardlytics basically provides the exact service you're wondering about.

zitterbewegung 9y ago

A recent HN post about four square is that they pivoted to an API that tells you who is shopping and where. They use Instagram data . https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14052444 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14052444

ryanwaggoner 9y ago
I believe Instagram is using their data.

smokeyj 9y ago

I don't say this often, but this observation is pure garbage. People who live in terror of "big brother" aren't in terror because they may be offered an unwanted credit card, or because it's their precious privacy that they value. They're in terror because their government wants to silence them and kill them. Maybe for who they associate with, their religious belief, sexual orientation or their political beliefs. On the topic of Big Brother, there was a law passed called The Patriot Act that required stringent KYC regulations.. Meaning financial institutions are required to ask these stupid questions and keep tabs on you. The government is forcing companies to keep tabs on you, along with telecom and other industries - so they can siphon this data.. But whatever. Stupid conspiracy theorists. Probably dumb libertarians or something.

FTA 9y ago
A visit to many internet forums will yield people fearing that "big brother" will expose their emails or internet history--though not life-threatening, the damage of embarrassment or job loss is still a real fear in their eyes. Also, do you not think financial companies would naturally aggregate this data in this day and age even if not required by law? Facebook has no mandate by law to collect information on their users for advertisers, yet they do. I imagine that financial companies in the business of understanding users' spending and lending habits would naturally gravitate to compiling and selling this data even without that mandate since humans and their data are the commodity of the 21st Century.
- smokeyj 9y ago
  It's just historically ignorant to lump people who fear an all knowing state with people who want privacy online. I know that you personally don't fear your government - but please, let's not write off the entirety of history because you can't personally relate. > Facebook has no mandate by law to collect information on their users for advertisers, yet they do. In the age of NSL requests let's just admit that you don't know that. We have secret laws and secret courts in our "post 9/11 era". It's entirely possible that FB is secretly considered a national security resource and is compelled by threat of law to collect and relay all their data. Considering an early backer of FB was an investment arm of the CIA and that FB tracking cookies are used by the NSA to target attack vectors on the internet.. who knows, maybe I'm officially nuts :P

user5994461 9y ago

As an European who've tried the American way. I have to say that it is clearly worse. In the EU country I was, when i get a job/flat/whatever, I give a copy of my national ID and tax statement, and that's alright. In the USA/UK, when I get a job/flat/whatever, noone trusts me or the government. I have to give plenty of documents and 5 years of history to a 3rd party shady check agency, that's gonna resell the data and spam me. You can be sure that after a few years of your life, everything about you have been resold by these agencies and is available to the world: all your addresses, jobs, income, family situation, etc... You American guys have hundreds of private big brothers incentivized against you, all because you wanted to avoid trusting a government. That didn't go well.

snarfy 9y ago
> all because you wanted to avoid trusting a government. That didn't go well. I'm not so sure considering the current administration.
- 0xfeba 9y ago
  Well, perhaps, but even the one thing we did trust them with (OPM data) all got pilfered away.
- user5994461 9y ago
  The administration already has all these information. You're registered for taxes, healthcare, criminal background, etc. You're not hiding anything from them and you're not helping yourself by duplicating that to shady agencies.
- Super_Jambo 9y ago
  You trust people who sell your info to spammers not to sell or even give it to the gov?
- oblio 9y ago
  I'd say that the two are connected. The US has a such an anti-government attitude that the Republican Party becomes the majority party instead of being laughed out of Congress. A party whose members frequently advocate cutting healthcare for the poor, reducing education budgets, scaling back environmental policies, etc.

1_2__3 9y ago

And the whole thing is effectively structured as a 4th amendment sidestepping initiative. Which is why it will never go away.

tommynicholas 9y ago

You're very right, although that method of authentication (known as "Knowledge Based Authentication" or "Out of Wallet Questions" more specifically) is highly ineffective. Users can't answer the questions reliably, hackers can reliably steal the info. Look for that method to be entirely out of the industry within the next 5 years. There are better ways.

dopamean 9y ago
I'm curious. What are the better ways?
- tommynicholas 9y ago
  First of all, basically any way is better than Out of Wallet Questions because they don't work on both ends. They don't really prevent fraud and most legit people fail them. Better techniques involve data / device triangulation, lighter weight Knowledge Based Authentication via data matching, and deeper fraud scoring to detect potentially stolen identities. It takes a real strategy and real time to implement something that actually works which is why many people just default back to OOQs but that will change.

raubkatze 9y ago

That's why one should rather pay cash and not donate them your data..