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> someone steals that identity This is exactly the fantasy that we need to dispel, not rationalize. Nobody steals your identity. You always have your identity

> someone steals that identity This is exactly the fantasy that we need to dispel, not rationalize. Nobody steals your identity. You always have your identity, and nobody else ever does. Your identity is not the few pieces of trivia a criminal can easily discover about you. The criminal never takes or has your identity. The bank is simply neglecting to correctly identify someone. > steals that identity to abuse it Criminals are not abusing your identity, they are abusing the banks' careless failure to correctly identify people. > to abuse it and leave you with the baggage The criminal is not leaving you with the baggage, the bank is. They use willfully inept processes, because they have tricked you into believing you should bear the responsibility for the consequences of their own hubris.

GauntletWizard 3y ago
You're confusing two concepts that share a word: Your identity in the sense of self worth and personal ideals, and other people's view of you, your identity to them - Their interpretation of the former, to some extent, but also their judgements on your trustworthiness. It's the latter that's being stolen. It's a crime against both you and your friends and creditors.
zamadatix 3y ago
Having your identity stolen and having your identity permanently removed are not identical actions. If I use a keylogger to grab your passwords and impersonate you in emails, forums, and so on then your identity is stolen, it's in use by someone else instead of you without consent for a period of time. This does not mean your identity has been removed from you permanently. This also does not mean your identity was always in your control just because the sites should have done more verification to see if it was you. It was still stolen but the fraud wasn't caught, and the lost money due to fraud falls between the criminal and 3rd party regardless independent of your identity being fraudulently used. Keep in mind that's how it is today, if your identity is stolen it is already the bank that eats the loss due to fraudulent lending. If you still disagree please try to make an argument without mentioning banks. Identity theft covers a lot more than banking fraud so the explanation shouldn't explain how you want the term to be changed to something which focuses solely on banks. The processes in place do suck. That has nothing to do with the name of the crime though.
- oxygen_crisis 3y ago
  > identity, noun, The condition of being a certain person or thing. Someone who steals my passwords can impersonate me, they can not become me. Someone who tricks people into thinking they are me is still not me. An account is not an identity. My online accounts are not me, and I am not my online accounts.
  - zamadatix 3y ago
    There are many dictionary definitions of identity. Take Merriam-Webster: "1a: the distinguishing character or personality of an individual 2: the condition of being the same with something described or asserted 3a: sameness of essential or generic character in different instances" Or the Cambridge dictionary: "a person's name and other facts about who they are:" Of course, you're always welcome to intentionally pick the incorrect context (going back to Merriam-Webster): "4: an equation that is satisfied for all values of the symbols" And just as easily rant the name of the crime has nothing to do with math so it needs to be renamed.
    - oxygen_crisis 3y ago
      If it's open to interpretation, you're choosing the worst interpretation. How this is interpreted is the primary problem that needs to be solved in order to legislate the issue, and from the interpretations you're supporting, it seems you're firmly on the side of the parties failing to identify fraudsters correctly, versus the innocent individuals.
      - zamadatix 3y ago
        "Worst interpretation" isn't about matter of preference on which interpretation is moral rather intentionally choosing the least supportive definition as proof the phrase is a misnomer. Ignoring the Cambridge one, which seems to be post phrase, definitions like "sameness of essential or generic character in different instances" are very stealable things, even if another definition is not. As I've stated I'm in favor of the individuals. When doing so, I like to stick to factual and logical reasons why instead of insist the root of the problem is the chosen definition of "identity" does not match my preferred one. The root of the problem is the current process for dealing with identity theft is more burdensome than it needs to be on individuals. If you change the name it's still too burdensome because, outside of you, everyone already interprets "identity" to mean what it should in this case. That the process is bad is not proof the interpretation of the phrase is bad and needs to be fixed, it's proof the process is bad and needs to be fixed. Just because someone disagrees with one component of your stance does not mean they automatically agree with all opposing positions that followed from it.
vineyardmike 3y ago
I mostly agree with you that banks are hiding their victim status but I think your framing is too intense. The magical idea of identity as an intangible self isn’t helpful. It is bank fraud and imitation with the intent to abuse the reputation of the person imitated. It should be illegal to imitate you when it negatively hurts you. It’s illegal to imitate police and doctors etc because it uses their reputations for fraudulent means. This is the same thing. Banks are the financially defrauded victims in this situation, but the victims are also individuals because banks passed the reputational risk of fraud to the customers. If your credit score is hurt and you need to hire lawyers to fix it or you get denied for a mortgage (or just a good rate), you’ve experienced tangible harm. Banks know they experience harm here. They plan for it. It’s baked into the prices and financial statements. Read the essays by Patrick McKenzie, he’ll argue that fraud is intentionally tolerated. They know that the consumer won’t be expected pay once the fraud is discovered. That’s not their goal, and they’re not being deceitful here. You can argue if this system is overall good or bad, but it almost certainly has led to cheaper credit for everyone. Outsourcing credit worthiness to a magic national number (or 3) is cheaper than every credit union assessing risk themselves, with less knowledge.
- oxygen_crisis 3y ago
  > the victims are also individuals because banks passed the reputational risk of fraud to the customers In that case I am not a victim of the fraudster, I am a victim of the bank. The banks do not have sufficient incentive to improve their identification methods, so long as we tolerate the concept that we bear any responsibility for a transaction that involves only themselves and a fraudster who knows the answers to a few trivia questions about me.
  - true_religion 3y ago
    It’s like defamation. If someone goes and spreads a bunch of terrible lies about you by pretending to be you… then you are their victim. You’re not the victim of people who merely believe the lies and start to avoid you.
    - 3y ago
dragonwriter 3y ago
What is stolen is information relied on for authentication, but using “identity” with that meaning is common, even in technology. That is, after all, what an “identity provider” actually provides.
- drdaeman 3y ago
  "Identity provider" in technology is something that should be disavowed heavily, too. Identity is hard to define, but it's definitely not something that should be provided, unless we're talking about assuming others' identities. Giving up ownership of our own identities led to very harmful results.

GauntletWizard 3y ago

You're confusing two concepts that share a word: Your identity in the sense of self worth and personal ideals, and other people's view of you, your identity to them - Their interpretation of the former, to some extent, but also their judgements on your trustworthiness. It's the latter that's being stolen. It's a crime against both you and your friends and creditors.

zamadatix 3y ago

Having your identity stolen and having your identity permanently removed are not identical actions. If I use a keylogger to grab your passwords and impersonate you in emails, forums, and so on then your identity is stolen, it's in use by someone else instead of you without consent for a period of time. This does not mean your identity has been removed from you permanently. This also does not mean your identity was always in your control just because the sites should have done more verification to see if it was you. It was still stolen but the fraud wasn't caught, and the lost money due to fraud falls between the criminal and 3rd party regardless independent of your identity being fraudulently used. Keep in mind that's how it is today, if your identity is stolen it is already the bank that eats the loss due to fraudulent lending. If you still disagree please try to make an argument without mentioning banks. Identity theft covers a lot more than banking fraud so the explanation shouldn't explain how you want the term to be changed to something which focuses solely on banks. The processes in place do suck. That has nothing to do with the name of the crime though.

oxygen_crisis 3y ago
> identity, noun, The condition of being a certain person or thing. Someone who steals my passwords can impersonate me, they can not become me. Someone who tricks people into thinking they are me is still not me. An account is not an identity. My online accounts are not me, and I am not my online accounts.
- zamadatix 3y ago
  There are many dictionary definitions of identity. Take Merriam-Webster: "1a: the distinguishing character or personality of an individual 2: the condition of being the same with something described or asserted 3a: sameness of essential or generic character in different instances" Or the Cambridge dictionary: "a person's name and other facts about who they are:" Of course, you're always welcome to intentionally pick the incorrect context (going back to Merriam-Webster): "4: an equation that is satisfied for all values of the symbols" And just as easily rant the name of the crime has nothing to do with math so it needs to be renamed.
  - oxygen_crisis 3y ago
    If it's open to interpretation, you're choosing the worst interpretation. How this is interpreted is the primary problem that needs to be solved in order to legislate the issue, and from the interpretations you're supporting, it seems you're firmly on the side of the parties failing to identify fraudsters correctly, versus the innocent individuals.
    - zamadatix 3y ago
      "Worst interpretation" isn't about matter of preference on which interpretation is moral rather intentionally choosing the least supportive definition as proof the phrase is a misnomer. Ignoring the Cambridge one, which seems to be post phrase, definitions like "sameness of essential or generic character in different instances" are very stealable things, even if another definition is not. As I've stated I'm in favor of the individuals. When doing so, I like to stick to factual and logical reasons why instead of insist the root of the problem is the chosen definition of "identity" does not match my preferred one. The root of the problem is the current process for dealing with identity theft is more burdensome than it needs to be on individuals. If you change the name it's still too burdensome because, outside of you, everyone already interprets "identity" to mean what it should in this case. That the process is bad is not proof the interpretation of the phrase is bad and needs to be fixed, it's proof the process is bad and needs to be fixed. Just because someone disagrees with one component of your stance does not mean they automatically agree with all opposing positions that followed from it.

vineyardmike 3y ago

I mostly agree with you that banks are hiding their victim status but I think your framing is too intense. The magical idea of identity as an intangible self isn’t helpful. It is bank fraud and imitation with the intent to abuse the reputation of the person imitated. It should be illegal to imitate you when it negatively hurts you. It’s illegal to imitate police and doctors etc because it uses their reputations for fraudulent means. This is the same thing. Banks are the financially defrauded victims in this situation, but the victims are also individuals because banks passed the reputational risk of fraud to the customers. If your credit score is hurt and you need to hire lawyers to fix it or you get denied for a mortgage (or just a good rate), you’ve experienced tangible harm. Banks know they experience harm here. They plan for it. It’s baked into the prices and financial statements. Read the essays by Patrick McKenzie, he’ll argue that fraud is intentionally tolerated. They know that the consumer won’t be expected pay once the fraud is discovered. That’s not their goal, and they’re not being deceitful here. You can argue if this system is overall good or bad, but it almost certainly has led to cheaper credit for everyone. Outsourcing credit worthiness to a magic national number (or 3) is cheaper than every credit union assessing risk themselves, with less knowledge.

oxygen_crisis 3y ago
> the victims are also individuals because banks passed the reputational risk of fraud to the customers In that case I am not a victim of the fraudster, I am a victim of the bank. The banks do not have sufficient incentive to improve their identification methods, so long as we tolerate the concept that we bear any responsibility for a transaction that involves only themselves and a fraudster who knows the answers to a few trivia questions about me.
- true_religion 3y ago
  It’s like defamation. If someone goes and spreads a bunch of terrible lies about you by pretending to be you… then you are their victim. You’re not the victim of people who merely believe the lies and start to avoid you.
  - 3y ago

dragonwriter 3y ago

What is stolen is information relied on for authentication, but using “identity” with that meaning is common, even in technology. That is, after all, what an “identity provider” actually provides.

drdaeman 3y ago
"Identity provider" in technology is something that should be disavowed heavily, too. Identity is hard to define, but it's definitely not something that should be provided, unless we're talking about assuming others' identities. Giving up ownership of our own identities led to very harmful results.