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It does, but that's because the companies who benefit from it being seen as your fault for being careless or unlucky rather than theirs for being lackadaisical

It does, but that's because the companies who benefit from it being seen as your fault for being careless or unlucky rather than theirs for being lackadaisical in their verification process are the ones with the marketing departments.

mosselman 9y ago
That is exactly the point. All sorts of companies and government have shaved off every possible cost of operation, in this case verification of identity, and then try to pass on this operational debt on to you when someone games their system. I couldn't care less if the phone company never checked identities, but when I say "that wasn't me" whenever they serve me €2000 bills I think they should just wave the case and clear my name. That €2000 is still nothing compared to what they save on proper verification mechanisms.
- jsjohnst 9y ago
  Playing devils advocate, the issue is that if there’s zero responsibility on your end, then it’s also easy to claim it wasn’t you when it really was.
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
    Responsibility on your end only makes sense if you actually have control over whatever you are supposed to be responsible for. So, responsibility to not share a secret password with a third party? Fine! Responsibility to pay a bank money because the bank believed some criminal when they said they were you? Not OK! What matters is that the power to actually do something about a problem needs to be aligned with responsibility, so if the bank decides to use unreliable authentication, that's fine, but then they have to bear the responsibility and live with the fact that some people who actually were the real person later claim it wasn't them. If they don't want to bear that responsibility, it's up to them to use reliable authentication so they can actually prove it was you.
    - jsjohnst 9y ago
      Define “reliable authentication” then. Most banks already require government ID (which is fakeable generally) due to KYC laws. What more is standardized so they could use it?
      - TheCoelacanth 9y ago
        To open a bank account. Not to open a credit card account. Applying for a credit card involves essentially no verification of identity other than asking for some information that is supposedly but not really secret.
        jsjohnst 9y ago
        > Not to open a credit card account. And there is a large part of the problem. If equivalent to KYC laws applied to credit cards it would likely cut down on criminal's ability to get credit in someone else's name.

mosselman 9y ago

That is exactly the point. All sorts of companies and government have shaved off every possible cost of operation, in this case verification of identity, and then try to pass on this operational debt on to you when someone games their system. I couldn't care less if the phone company never checked identities, but when I say "that wasn't me" whenever they serve me €2000 bills I think they should just wave the case and clear my name. That €2000 is still nothing compared to what they save on proper verification mechanisms.

jsjohnst 9y ago
Playing devils advocate, the issue is that if there’s zero responsibility on your end, then it’s also easy to claim it wasn’t you when it really was.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
  Responsibility on your end only makes sense if you actually have control over whatever you are supposed to be responsible for. So, responsibility to not share a secret password with a third party? Fine! Responsibility to pay a bank money because the bank believed some criminal when they said they were you? Not OK! What matters is that the power to actually do something about a problem needs to be aligned with responsibility, so if the bank decides to use unreliable authentication, that's fine, but then they have to bear the responsibility and live with the fact that some people who actually were the real person later claim it wasn't them. If they don't want to bear that responsibility, it's up to them to use reliable authentication so they can actually prove it was you.
  - jsjohnst 9y ago
    Define “reliable authentication” then. Most banks already require government ID (which is fakeable generally) due to KYC laws. What more is standardized so they could use it?
    - TheCoelacanth 9y ago
      To open a bank account. Not to open a credit card account. Applying for a credit card involves essentially no verification of identity other than asking for some information that is supposedly but not really secret.
      - jsjohnst 9y ago
        > Not to open a credit card account. And there is a large part of the problem. If equivalent to KYC laws applied to credit cards it would likely cut down on criminal's ability to get credit in someone else's name.