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For those who didn't know, KYC stands for "know your customer". It's a good idea to spell out abbreviations the first time they're used, especially since the ab

For those who didn't know, KYC stands for "know your customer". It's a good idea to spell out abbreviations the first time they're used, especially since the abbreviation itself is not used in the linked article. It's also worth noting that the proposal is about US infrastructure as a service (IaaS) products specifically, not "internet services" in general.

probably_jesus 2y ago
[dead]
SOLAR_FIELDS 2y ago
Yeah this is a very industry standard term in banking and anyone in that industry is going to immediately know what you are talking about, but outside of that industry, chances are high that a layman will not
- gdcbe 2y ago
  In the past that would be true. But given most blockchain platforms require it, I imagine it is more widely known in the tech-savy hn-like realms? Then again I worked on blockchain tech around half a decade ago, so I might be knowledge biased here?
  - rangerelf 2y ago
    Definitely biased. I had no idea what KYC means. I don't think typing it out fully once at the beginning is too much to ask, is it?
    - gdcbe 2y ago
      No definitely not, I fully agree with you and others there. Just was a bit surprised by how many of you were there. But that’s okay. Days where we learn are rich days. The richest of them all.
    - reaperman 2y ago
      In defense of the person who wrote the HN title, I’ve seen KYC discussed in front-page articles roughly weekly for the past several years straight. I’ve learned about as much of it as I care to know (and more, honestly) from HN comments on 1st and 2nd page posts in that time. In just the past year, I can see that there have been about 1,000 comments mentioning KYC, and about 21 1st/2nd page posts that are explicitly about KYC (nearly 2 per month). Honestly I don't expect all of HN to know what KYC is, but I did expect most HN readers to have a general idea of what it is and why it's a huge pain for a small % of people (but very large number, 1% of the USA is still >3 million people). Once you're familiar with it, your brain/eyes key onto "KYC" much more strongly than "know your customer". I might have missed the latter, but "KYC" in the title grabbed my attention instantly and reading the title made my heart jump a bit, because generally KYC means a pain in my ass, and even moreso for friends here on visa. I have a Canadian friend visiting and staying with my girlfriend and I for a month or so. KYC causes actual headaches for her, to the point that she just decides not to get cellular service at all while she visits unless I get a pre-paid SIM under my name and hand it to her. When she pays for things like restaurants, I can't just Venmo/Paypal/Zelle/ApplePay her back on the spot, I have to withdraw cash at some point and coordinate giving it to her. The general concept of "KYC" makes sense for some situations, but actual implementations really fucking suck for a lot of people. It's very scary to me to see it be required for more and more categories of services because of the way it's currently implemented.
      - andybak 2y ago
        I've heard of it and I roughly know what it is. But remembering the meaning of an acronym while scanning front page post titles without much context? No. My brain is pretty ruthless at evicting TLAs that are reasonably distant from my core areas of interest.
    - cynusx 2y ago
      Maybe less important than knowing what it stands for is knowing what the implications are for businesses. KYC is essentially about knowing who you are doing business with. For individuals that's relatively easy, just the name and identification is required but typically there is the need to verify that the identification actually belongs to the person signing up. In banking that's why you typically have some video call with a verification provider. For businesses it gets a lot more complex because it's not enough to know what business your client is, you also have to look through its corporate structure to figure out who the "ultimate beneficial owner" is. Essentially, who is actually controlling the business. Now it got a lot easier recently as many countries now require businesses to file who their ultimate beneficial owners (UBOs) are. The painful part is that it introduces friction in customer journeys as now you have to request the documentation. In the financial industry you also have to run checks on those UBO's so that they are not known terrorists or sanctioned individuals but it seems this regulation is just that IaaS providers need to know who actually operates a server. Presumably for forensic analysis after a cyber attack.
  - AdamH12113 2y ago
    I posted my comment because the linked proposal itself never uses the abbreviation "KYC" and none of the early comments spelled it out, so if (like me) you didn't already know what it means a quick Ctrl-F wouldn't help. The proposal seems to use the term Customer Identification Program (CIP) instead, mentioning KYC (spelled out) only once, in the introduction: > Section 1 of E.O. 13984 requires the Secretary to propose, for notice and comment, regulations that mandate that U.S. IaaS providers verify the identity of foreign persons that sign up for or maintain accounts that access or utilize U.S. IaaS providers' IaaS products or services (Accounts or Account)—that is, a know-your-customer program or Customer Identification Program (CIP).
  - thomastjeffery 2y ago
    A very significant percentage of us (I suspect a large majority) haven't really bothered with blockchain tech. Blockchain tech doesn't solve any problems that most of us actually need solving.
- ZephyrBlu 2y ago
  KYC is that poorly known? I would have expected most white-collar professionals to have at least heard of it.
  - kube-system 2y ago
    If someone knows about KYC because of their profession, they are quite literally the opposite of a layperson.
  - gedy 2y ago
    I thought it was a zipper manufacturer tbh
- pwenzel 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - mr_toad 2y ago
    Except it’s goose that they’re cooking.
- jandrewrogers 2y ago
  Unfortunately, KYC has been bleeding into far more commercial interactions over time. I now deal with KYC multiple times per year in unrelated contexts and I don't work in finance. It has become quite intrusive.
- webspinner 2y ago
  I've studied crypto currency. I know exactly what KYC means.
erie 2y ago
synthesia requires KYC:" Your avatar can be created only with your explicit consent, following a thorough KYC-like procedure.
nightpool 2y ago
Google is your friend
buildbuildbuild 2y ago
In practice this often means requiring a photo ID scan.
- hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
  It depends, but I'd say not usually. Many financial service applications, which have strict KYC requirements, just correlate different data sources to ensure everything matches up, and tries to determine some level of risk about the client making the application (i.e. match applicant name with DOB with SSN with known addresses, etc.) FWIW, given the huge number of data breaches I'm not sure why that info is sufficient, but it usually is. It's only when some backend risk engine determines "This data doesn't match up, or this client looks sketchy" is a photo ID requested.
AnimalMuppet 2y ago
In fairness, though, HN has a limit on title length, so I'm not sure it was all that possible in the headline here.
- andybak 2y ago
  > We have 4 days to contest "Know Your Customer" would have been a better title. The missing information is more easily guessed from skimming the article than the mystery acronym.
willmadden 2y ago
KYC in the context of internet services stands for "violating the 4th Amendment".
- ryanisnan 2y ago
  I don't disagree with your premise that KYC enables governments to violate the 4th amendment, but in general, for certain industries this is just generally a really good idea. Banking is the first industry where I encountered KYC, and it strikes me as being obviously good there. Isn't effectively the majority of what the Snowden leaks covered essentially violating the 4th amendment?
  - willmadden 2y ago
    What is being proposed here will be used as a tool of fear by the government to suppress speech it doesn't like. Comparing what one individual did in the past to a formal government policy doxxing away peoples' 4th amendment rights is a strawman argument.
    - ryanisnan 2y ago
      I think we don't understand each other. I'm not giving a moral or legal judgement on what Snowden in particular did. I'm saying, the information he disclosed showed a vast and total violation of American's 4th amendment rights on behalf of the US government. This KYC requirement seems to me, at a glance, as being a small erosion of our digital privacy.
      - freedomben 2y ago
        You're not wrong, but there is an important big difference between this and the Snowden revelations: The Snowden stuff was illegal and was being done in secret, and once exposed they had to stop. It was considered bad and embarrassing. This would be legal, and will set a strong precedent.
        2y ago
lumb63 2y ago
It also looks like it only applies to foreign peoples? That said, I don’t know how you select for only foreigners without collecting identity.
- freedomben 2y ago
  Yeah that's a clever way to avoid having the rules struck down as unconstitutional. In practice though to avoid liability and possibly jail time, providers will have to assume that every customer is a foreigner until they "prove" their US citizenship (by uploading the same ID and other documentation required by foreigners).
  - ssaannmmaann 2y ago
    Resulting in AT&T 2.0 data breach. Already dealing with the consequences of our SSN#s being leaked in AT&T 1.0 breach.
    - ranger_danger 2y ago
      Can you name some of those consequences?
  - webspinner 2y ago
    It sseems unconstitutional to me. that's just me though.
    - freedomben 2y ago
      It does to me as well, but unfortunately our opinions don't matter. Only the opinions of the nine supreme Court justices do.
- EasyMark 2y ago
  The US government has shown over and over that these dragnet types of regulations are used to gobble up any information the TLAs want and hand wave it away as meta or "incidental" information "found in pursuit of foreign {$INVESTIGATION}"

probably_jesus 2y ago

[dead]

SOLAR_FIELDS 2y ago

Yeah this is a very industry standard term in banking and anyone in that industry is going to immediately know what you are talking about, but outside of that industry, chances are high that a layman will not

gdcbe 2y ago
In the past that would be true. But given most blockchain platforms require it, I imagine it is more widely known in the tech-savy hn-like realms? Then again I worked on blockchain tech around half a decade ago, so I might be knowledge biased here?
- rangerelf 2y ago
  Definitely biased. I had no idea what KYC means. I don't think typing it out fully once at the beginning is too much to ask, is it?
  - gdcbe 2y ago
    No definitely not, I fully agree with you and others there. Just was a bit surprised by how many of you were there. But that’s okay. Days where we learn are rich days. The richest of them all.
  - reaperman 2y ago
    In defense of the person who wrote the HN title, I’ve seen KYC discussed in front-page articles roughly weekly for the past several years straight. I’ve learned about as much of it as I care to know (and more, honestly) from HN comments on 1st and 2nd page posts in that time. In just the past year, I can see that there have been about 1,000 comments mentioning KYC, and about 21 1st/2nd page posts that are explicitly about KYC (nearly 2 per month). Honestly I don't expect all of HN to know what KYC is, but I did expect most HN readers to have a general idea of what it is and why it's a huge pain for a small % of people (but very large number, 1% of the USA is still >3 million people). Once you're familiar with it, your brain/eyes key onto "KYC" much more strongly than "know your customer". I might have missed the latter, but "KYC" in the title grabbed my attention instantly and reading the title made my heart jump a bit, because generally KYC means a pain in my ass, and even moreso for friends here on visa. I have a Canadian friend visiting and staying with my girlfriend and I for a month or so. KYC causes actual headaches for her, to the point that she just decides not to get cellular service at all while she visits unless I get a pre-paid SIM under my name and hand it to her. When she pays for things like restaurants, I can't just Venmo/Paypal/Zelle/ApplePay her back on the spot, I have to withdraw cash at some point and coordinate giving it to her. The general concept of "KYC" makes sense for some situations, but actual implementations really fucking suck for a lot of people. It's very scary to me to see it be required for more and more categories of services because of the way it's currently implemented.
    - andybak 2y ago
      I've heard of it and I roughly know what it is. But remembering the meaning of an acronym while scanning front page post titles without much context? No. My brain is pretty ruthless at evicting TLAs that are reasonably distant from my core areas of interest.
  - cynusx 2y ago
    Maybe less important than knowing what it stands for is knowing what the implications are for businesses. KYC is essentially about knowing who you are doing business with. For individuals that's relatively easy, just the name and identification is required but typically there is the need to verify that the identification actually belongs to the person signing up. In banking that's why you typically have some video call with a verification provider. For businesses it gets a lot more complex because it's not enough to know what business your client is, you also have to look through its corporate structure to figure out who the "ultimate beneficial owner" is. Essentially, who is actually controlling the business. Now it got a lot easier recently as many countries now require businesses to file who their ultimate beneficial owners (UBOs) are. The painful part is that it introduces friction in customer journeys as now you have to request the documentation. In the financial industry you also have to run checks on those UBO's so that they are not known terrorists or sanctioned individuals but it seems this regulation is just that IaaS providers need to know who actually operates a server. Presumably for forensic analysis after a cyber attack.
- AdamH12113 2y ago
  I posted my comment because the linked proposal itself never uses the abbreviation "KYC" and none of the early comments spelled it out, so if (like me) you didn't already know what it means a quick Ctrl-F wouldn't help. The proposal seems to use the term Customer Identification Program (CIP) instead, mentioning KYC (spelled out) only once, in the introduction: > Section 1 of E.O. 13984 requires the Secretary to propose, for notice and comment, regulations that mandate that U.S. IaaS providers verify the identity of foreign persons that sign up for or maintain accounts that access or utilize U.S. IaaS providers' IaaS products or services (Accounts or Account)—that is, a know-your-customer program or Customer Identification Program (CIP).
- thomastjeffery 2y ago
  A very significant percentage of us (I suspect a large majority) haven't really bothered with blockchain tech. Blockchain tech doesn't solve any problems that most of us actually need solving.
ZephyrBlu 2y ago
KYC is that poorly known? I would have expected most white-collar professionals to have at least heard of it.
- kube-system 2y ago
  If someone knows about KYC because of their profession, they are quite literally the opposite of a layperson.
- gedy 2y ago
  I thought it was a zipper manufacturer tbh
pwenzel 2y ago
[flagged]
- mr_toad 2y ago
  Except it’s goose that they’re cooking.
jandrewrogers 2y ago
Unfortunately, KYC has been bleeding into far more commercial interactions over time. I now deal with KYC multiple times per year in unrelated contexts and I don't work in finance. It has become quite intrusive.
webspinner 2y ago
I've studied crypto currency. I know exactly what KYC means.

erie 2y ago

synthesia requires KYC:" Your avatar can be created only with your explicit consent, following a thorough KYC-like procedure.

nightpool 2y ago

Google is your friend

buildbuildbuild 2y ago

In practice this often means requiring a photo ID scan.

hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
It depends, but I'd say not usually. Many financial service applications, which have strict KYC requirements, just correlate different data sources to ensure everything matches up, and tries to determine some level of risk about the client making the application (i.e. match applicant name with DOB with SSN with known addresses, etc.) FWIW, given the huge number of data breaches I'm not sure why that info is sufficient, but it usually is. It's only when some backend risk engine determines "This data doesn't match up, or this client looks sketchy" is a photo ID requested.

AnimalMuppet 2y ago

In fairness, though, HN has a limit on title length, so I'm not sure it was all that possible in the headline here.

andybak 2y ago
> We have 4 days to contest "Know Your Customer" would have been a better title. The missing information is more easily guessed from skimming the article than the mystery acronym.

willmadden 2y ago

KYC in the context of internet services stands for "violating the 4th Amendment".

ryanisnan 2y ago
I don't disagree with your premise that KYC enables governments to violate the 4th amendment, but in general, for certain industries this is just generally a really good idea. Banking is the first industry where I encountered KYC, and it strikes me as being obviously good there. Isn't effectively the majority of what the Snowden leaks covered essentially violating the 4th amendment?
- willmadden 2y ago
  What is being proposed here will be used as a tool of fear by the government to suppress speech it doesn't like. Comparing what one individual did in the past to a formal government policy doxxing away peoples' 4th amendment rights is a strawman argument.
  - ryanisnan 2y ago
    I think we don't understand each other. I'm not giving a moral or legal judgement on what Snowden in particular did. I'm saying, the information he disclosed showed a vast and total violation of American's 4th amendment rights on behalf of the US government. This KYC requirement seems to me, at a glance, as being a small erosion of our digital privacy.
    - freedomben 2y ago
      You're not wrong, but there is an important big difference between this and the Snowden revelations: The Snowden stuff was illegal and was being done in secret, and once exposed they had to stop. It was considered bad and embarrassing. This would be legal, and will set a strong precedent.
      - 2y ago

lumb63 2y ago

It also looks like it only applies to foreign peoples? That said, I don’t know how you select for only foreigners without collecting identity.

freedomben 2y ago
Yeah that's a clever way to avoid having the rules struck down as unconstitutional. In practice though to avoid liability and possibly jail time, providers will have to assume that every customer is a foreigner until they "prove" their US citizenship (by uploading the same ID and other documentation required by foreigners).
- ssaannmmaann 2y ago
  Resulting in AT&T 2.0 data breach. Already dealing with the consequences of our SSN#s being leaked in AT&T 1.0 breach.
  - ranger_danger 2y ago
    Can you name some of those consequences?
- webspinner 2y ago
  It sseems unconstitutional to me. that's just me though.
  - freedomben 2y ago
    It does to me as well, but unfortunately our opinions don't matter. Only the opinions of the nine supreme Court justices do.
EasyMark 2y ago
The US government has shown over and over that these dragnet types of regulations are used to gobble up any information the TLAs want and hand wave it away as meta or "incidental" information "found in pursuit of foreign {$INVESTIGATION}"