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Most people are willing to accept the risk that the NSA is listening in on them. Most people are not willing to accept the risk of an arbitrary person being abl

Most people are willing to accept the risk that the NSA is listening in on them. Most people are not willing to accept the risk of an arbitrary person being able to steal their identity.

junkscience2017 9y ago
That already happened as a result of Equifax. Your SSN is no longer secret...so rejoice, you are free to choose whatever phone you like!
- zaarn 9y ago
  Sadly, the world is not America and most people on this planet are unaffected by the latest problems of America.
  - pxndx 9y ago
    s/Sadly/Fortunately/
    - zaarn 9y ago
      Naturally. For some reason my brain treats those two phrases as equivalent.
- ben_w 9y ago
  Like 95% of the world, I don’t have an SSN. Even if every American owns one of those outdated Android phones, 2/3rds of the phones would still have to be owned by people who don’t have SSNs.
mindslight 9y ago
If one's "identity" is so bland that it can be trivially "stolen", then perhaps it's not much of an identity after all.
- nindalf 9y ago
  For people living in America an identity is a name, date of birth, mother's maiden name and SSN. If you lose these, you could be the victim of fraud. But you already knew that didn't you? You deliberately misinterpreted what he meant by identity theft.
  - mindslight 9y ago
    Mexico and Brazil use SSNs? I am a USian. The nonsensical concept of "identity theft" has been promulgated by the surveillance industry to avoid responsibility for their own negligence. A person cannot become a "victim of fraud" in the way you describe. The banks are the only parties that stand to be defrauded, and they could avoid this by stopping to pretend that a few bits of semi-public information is enough to identify a person. So far it has been more profitable to keep the gravy train of easy credit rolling, which is fine. But that doesn't mean we should bear the burden for them! When someone earnest talks about their "identity being stolen", I prefer to think of them as complaining that one of their friends bought the same pair of red Nikes or whatever.

Most people are willing to accept the risk that the NSA is listening in on them. Most people are not willing to accept the risk of an arbitrary person being able to steal their identity.

junkscience2017 9y ago

That already happened as a result of Equifax. Your SSN is no longer secret...so rejoice, you are free to choose whatever phone you like!

zaarn 9y ago
Sadly, the world is not America and most people on this planet are unaffected by the latest problems of America.
- pxndx 9y ago
  s/Sadly/Fortunately/
  - zaarn 9y ago
    Naturally. For some reason my brain treats those two phrases as equivalent.
ben_w 9y ago
Like 95% of the world, I don’t have an SSN. Even if every American owns one of those outdated Android phones, 2/3rds of the phones would still have to be owned by people who don’t have SSNs.

mindslight 9y ago

If one's "identity" is so bland that it can be trivially "stolen", then perhaps it's not much of an identity after all.

nindalf 9y ago
For people living in America an identity is a name, date of birth, mother's maiden name and SSN. If you lose these, you could be the victim of fraud. But you already knew that didn't you? You deliberately misinterpreted what he meant by identity theft.
- mindslight 9y ago
  Mexico and Brazil use SSNs? I am a USian. The nonsensical concept of "identity theft" has been promulgated by the surveillance industry to avoid responsibility for their own negligence. A person cannot become a "victim of fraud" in the way you describe. The banks are the only parties that stand to be defrauded, and they could avoid this by stopping to pretend that a few bits of semi-public information is enough to identify a person. So far it has been more profitable to keep the gravy train of easy credit rolling, which is fine. But that doesn't mean we should bear the burden for them! When someone earnest talks about their "identity being stolen", I prefer to think of them as complaining that one of their friends bought the same pair of red Nikes or whatever.