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It is a common misconception that facts are reported because they are surprising. Facts are reported because they are important. More and more governments are p

It is a common misconception that facts are reported because they are surprising. Facts are reported because they are important. More and more governments are passing age verification laws which put exactly this data in to the hands of even more shady private companies. This breach serves as evidence that those laws are misguided, and spreading news of this event may help build public support for those efforts.

boriskourt 1y ago
This is the essential point, and why it’s always a bit frustrating seeing ‘is anyone surprised’ take come up so often here. It lowers the quality of the possible discussion by trivialising it.
- franga2000 1y ago
  "Is anyone surprised" is an important question to ask, although in this case it would be more valuable to ask on a less techy forum. I'm not surprised and many people here are not surprised, but most people are still surprised when they hear something like this, which is why they gladly give their information to anyone that asks. If the majority of Discord users knew breaches are inevitable and refused to give their information or at least took some protective measures like partial redaction and use-case watermarking, this breach would be less of an issue and/or such breaches would be less common. We need to make sure nobody is surprised. Everyone should rewrite every "upload" button in their head to say "publish".
  - pessimizer 1y ago
    > "Is anyone surprised" is an important question to ask It definitely is not, unless you are doing some sort of survey.
    - nobodywillobsrv 1y ago
      It does feel like it hide the important context often summarized as a meme: a) it doesn't happen b) ok it happens, but it's rare c) ok it's not rare but the impact is minimal d) ok it's not rare and the impact is not minimal but here's why it is necessary and a good thing Of course blanket "not surprised" is perhaps not helpful without linkage to the people who denied the risks at steps a, b, c etc. But this is why we really need decision makes and politicians to be treated like anyone making a bet: we need to have collateral takes and enforcers. The "I am surprised" people who are silent would be forced to show they believe "it does not happen" by backing the bet and the "I'm not surprised" people would be raking it in. With no bets, no collateral (or rather other people's lives), you just get this kind of lying in accounting and a scam. It happens in all kinds of domains with commons risk. This is a particularly good example because it is not so emotionally triggering and divisive (most people presumably don't want their data leaked and can't argue immediately that you are Xist or whatever). Anyway, I love thinking about this stuff. Hopefully HN does not think these meta-discussions are spammy.
  - ashtakeaway 1y ago
    It should say "publish" because that's what happens after the fact, not what it's "doing" for an amount of time until it stops.
- monooso 1y ago
  It's a valid question, which speaks to the frequency with which these things happen. That's isn't trivialising the problem.
  - philipov 1y ago
    No, it's very much used to express the sentiment "I don't care about this, and wish people would stop talking about it."
    - vthriller 1y ago
      ...which could also be a PTSD-esque reaction and not a sign of ignorance. As in "I'm so tired of being affected by this nonsense, when this would even stop". People who don't really care would, in my experience, use sarcastic tone more often.
    - monooso 1y ago
      That's your interpretation, and there's nothing in the original statement to support it. You're welcome to your opinion, of course. Just don't project it onto others.
  - viridian 1y ago
    The person might not intend to be trivializing the problem, but that is the common outcome. This was very observable in the wake of the Snowden leaks, where "is anyone actually surprised?" was a key prong in the narrative that argued that you shouldn't actually care about what the NSA was getting up to.
- troyvit 1y ago
  To me it's an important point. We're all being worn down so much by these idiotic mistakes and intrusions that it's just another Thursday when it happens, like school shootings. I don't know what the great filter looks like on other planets, but here it's because we're smart enough to make all sorts of incredible toys and stupid enough to not know how to use them properly and we're just going to drive ourselves into the ground.
consp 1y ago
In the example you give there is no needed provision to store the id or all information in the document. Only extracting the date of birth, name and document number is sufficient. Yes I know this a utopia and it won't happen. Edit: afaik storing the photo is only needed in medical cases to alternatively asses having the correct person. Bit much for something simple as age verification.
- mcintyre1994 1y ago
  This breach is them being irresponsible with customer support software. In the case of automated age verification, the providers say that nothing identifiable gets stored and they might be lying but it’s feasible that you could run that service the way they say they do. This breach is about the manual alternative to that, where you can appeal to Discord customer support if the automated thing says you’re not the right age. They seem to do that in part by having you send a picture of your ID. I’m sure in their database they’re then just storing the date of birth etc, but then they obviously just don’t bother deleting the private image from the customer service software.
  - DrewADesign 1y ago
    Sounds like a great use case for an automated ML cleanup/reporting feature. Maybe as a daemon as a bolt-on fix, or integrated as a feature into the support software itself.
    - kmbfjr 1y ago
      Add in blockchain and we’ll be all set.
      - DrewADesign 1y ago
        Yeah ok. Using a small purpose-built model to see if a picture has an ID in it to protect PII isn’t exactly a hype-driven “check out our brand new product — it’s exactly like our old product but with av useless chat bot” idea. You’re overcorrecting.
sph 1y ago
> Facts are reported because they are important. Without going too much off-topic: In a vacuum, you are right. In reality, facts are reported because they sell. It is a good day when important facts like this one happen to coincide with what people what to know more about. (the recent UK attempt at stripping the rights of its citizens) Tomorrow, people will have forgotten all about it, and the government can continue to expand its powers without anyone talking about it.
nomilk 1y ago
Wonder if this will cause a surge in demand for fake IDs that are sufficient for age-verification but harmless if leaked.
- AznHisoka 1y ago
  Heck, i would like a fake name, social security number, and birthdate as well while I am at it
  - SequoiaHope 1y ago
    Sure! I’ll give you all of those at once: “five”.
- bell-cot 1y ago
  Might that be a business model for an enterprising Secretary of State? They carefully verify your real ID, the fake ID's trivially tie back to that if the cops ask (not so useful for committing crimes), there are upcharges for multiple fake ID's, or tweaked ages / weights / photos. More upcharges for "vanity" names... "Really, your honor, it's hardly different from an author getting a DBA or LLC for his pen name."
  - pessimizer 1y ago
    So many were issuing IDs for illegal immigrants. I was like, why can't I have one? I'd love to erase my past arbitrarily and be unidentifiable. I decided that it was for the same reason that I couldn't get a civil union for a heterosexual partnership; politics and control. Don't we still have states and countries issuing new IDs for trans people that don't link to their old identities? Do I have to threaten to kill myself because people won't treat me like a pretty girl in order to get one; or should erasing your past, anonymity, or at least pseudoanonymity be a right that we all get? > "Really, your honor, it's hardly different from an author getting a DBA or LLC for his pen name." This is the worst, really. The only way to be truly anonymous is to open corporations, because corruption relies on laundering money through corporations.
monooso 1y ago
I don't think there was any suggestion that the story should not have been reported, or that only "surprising" facts should be considered news.
iinnPP 1y ago
Things that cease to be surprising can also cease being important. Which is made clear reading the remainder of the post. It's my take as well, frankly.
some_random 1y ago
Reminds me of the Panama Papers, which exposed a huge international money laundering/tax evasion ring that no one seemed to care about because "everyone knows they're doing this stuff"
- ratelimitsteve 1y ago
  Hey now, that's not fair. Someone cared enough to murder the journalist that published them with a car bomb.
  - r2_pilot 1y ago
    That allegedly would be Yorgen Fenech, via Alfred and George Degiorgio, Vincent Muscat, and as for the explosives, Robert Agius and Jamie Vella.
- alwayseasy 1y ago
  Well, in a few notorious cases the tax services cared and the voters cared.
- NoNotTheDuo 1y ago
  I think it's a combination of "everyone knows they're doing this stuff" and "the ones who could do something about it (i.e. charge/prosecute, change laws, etc.) are implicated". Much like the problem in the US Congress: they are not subject to insider trading laws, so they can make huge sums of money acting on non-public information. The only people that can change that are ... members of the US Congress.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- lesuorac 1y ago
  Some countries cared more than others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactions_to_the_Panama_Papers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactions_to_the_Panama_Papers

boriskourt 1y ago

This is the essential point, and why it’s always a bit frustrating seeing ‘is anyone surprised’ take come up so often here. It lowers the quality of the possible discussion by trivialising it.

franga2000 1y ago
"Is anyone surprised" is an important question to ask, although in this case it would be more valuable to ask on a less techy forum. I'm not surprised and many people here are not surprised, but most people are still surprised when they hear something like this, which is why they gladly give their information to anyone that asks. If the majority of Discord users knew breaches are inevitable and refused to give their information or at least took some protective measures like partial redaction and use-case watermarking, this breach would be less of an issue and/or such breaches would be less common. We need to make sure nobody is surprised. Everyone should rewrite every "upload" button in their head to say "publish".
- pessimizer 1y ago
  > "Is anyone surprised" is an important question to ask It definitely is not, unless you are doing some sort of survey.
  - nobodywillobsrv 1y ago
    It does feel like it hide the important context often summarized as a meme: a) it doesn't happen b) ok it happens, but it's rare c) ok it's not rare but the impact is minimal d) ok it's not rare and the impact is not minimal but here's why it is necessary and a good thing Of course blanket "not surprised" is perhaps not helpful without linkage to the people who denied the risks at steps a, b, c etc. But this is why we really need decision makes and politicians to be treated like anyone making a bet: we need to have collateral takes and enforcers. The "I am surprised" people who are silent would be forced to show they believe "it does not happen" by backing the bet and the "I'm not surprised" people would be raking it in. With no bets, no collateral (or rather other people's lives), you just get this kind of lying in accounting and a scam. It happens in all kinds of domains with commons risk. This is a particularly good example because it is not so emotionally triggering and divisive (most people presumably don't want their data leaked and can't argue immediately that you are Xist or whatever). Anyway, I love thinking about this stuff. Hopefully HN does not think these meta-discussions are spammy.
- ashtakeaway 1y ago
  It should say "publish" because that's what happens after the fact, not what it's "doing" for an amount of time until it stops.
monooso 1y ago
It's a valid question, which speaks to the frequency with which these things happen. That's isn't trivialising the problem.
- philipov 1y ago
  No, it's very much used to express the sentiment "I don't care about this, and wish people would stop talking about it."
  - vthriller 1y ago
    ...which could also be a PTSD-esque reaction and not a sign of ignorance. As in "I'm so tired of being affected by this nonsense, when this would even stop". People who don't really care would, in my experience, use sarcastic tone more often.
  - monooso 1y ago
    That's your interpretation, and there's nothing in the original statement to support it. You're welcome to your opinion, of course. Just don't project it onto others.
- viridian 1y ago
  The person might not intend to be trivializing the problem, but that is the common outcome. This was very observable in the wake of the Snowden leaks, where "is anyone actually surprised?" was a key prong in the narrative that argued that you shouldn't actually care about what the NSA was getting up to.
troyvit 1y ago
To me it's an important point. We're all being worn down so much by these idiotic mistakes and intrusions that it's just another Thursday when it happens, like school shootings. I don't know what the great filter looks like on other planets, but here it's because we're smart enough to make all sorts of incredible toys and stupid enough to not know how to use them properly and we're just going to drive ourselves into the ground.

consp 1y ago

In the example you give there is no needed provision to store the id or all information in the document. Only extracting the date of birth, name and document number is sufficient. Yes I know this a utopia and it won't happen. Edit: afaik storing the photo is only needed in medical cases to alternatively asses having the correct person. Bit much for something simple as age verification.

mcintyre1994 1y ago
This breach is them being irresponsible with customer support software. In the case of automated age verification, the providers say that nothing identifiable gets stored and they might be lying but it’s feasible that you could run that service the way they say they do. This breach is about the manual alternative to that, where you can appeal to Discord customer support if the automated thing says you’re not the right age. They seem to do that in part by having you send a picture of your ID. I’m sure in their database they’re then just storing the date of birth etc, but then they obviously just don’t bother deleting the private image from the customer service software.
- DrewADesign 1y ago
  Sounds like a great use case for an automated ML cleanup/reporting feature. Maybe as a daemon as a bolt-on fix, or integrated as a feature into the support software itself.
  - kmbfjr 1y ago
    Add in blockchain and we’ll be all set.
    - DrewADesign 1y ago
      Yeah ok. Using a small purpose-built model to see if a picture has an ID in it to protect PII isn’t exactly a hype-driven “check out our brand new product — it’s exactly like our old product but with av useless chat bot” idea. You’re overcorrecting.

sph 1y ago

> Facts are reported because they are important. Without going too much off-topic: In a vacuum, you are right. In reality, facts are reported because they sell. It is a good day when important facts like this one happen to coincide with what people what to know more about. (the recent UK attempt at stripping the rights of its citizens) Tomorrow, people will have forgotten all about it, and the government can continue to expand its powers without anyone talking about it.

nomilk 1y ago

Wonder if this will cause a surge in demand for fake IDs that are sufficient for age-verification but harmless if leaked.

AznHisoka 1y ago
Heck, i would like a fake name, social security number, and birthdate as well while I am at it
- SequoiaHope 1y ago
  Sure! I’ll give you all of those at once: “five”.
bell-cot 1y ago
Might that be a business model for an enterprising Secretary of State? They carefully verify your real ID, the fake ID's trivially tie back to that if the cops ask (not so useful for committing crimes), there are upcharges for multiple fake ID's, or tweaked ages / weights / photos. More upcharges for "vanity" names... "Really, your honor, it's hardly different from an author getting a DBA or LLC for his pen name."
- pessimizer 1y ago
  So many were issuing IDs for illegal immigrants. I was like, why can't I have one? I'd love to erase my past arbitrarily and be unidentifiable. I decided that it was for the same reason that I couldn't get a civil union for a heterosexual partnership; politics and control. Don't we still have states and countries issuing new IDs for trans people that don't link to their old identities? Do I have to threaten to kill myself because people won't treat me like a pretty girl in order to get one; or should erasing your past, anonymity, or at least pseudoanonymity be a right that we all get? > "Really, your honor, it's hardly different from an author getting a DBA or LLC for his pen name." This is the worst, really. The only way to be truly anonymous is to open corporations, because corruption relies on laundering money through corporations.

monooso 1y ago

I don't think there was any suggestion that the story should not have been reported, or that only "surprising" facts should be considered news.

iinnPP 1y ago

Things that cease to be surprising can also cease being important. Which is made clear reading the remainder of the post. It's my take as well, frankly.

some_random 1y ago

Reminds me of the Panama Papers, which exposed a huge international money laundering/tax evasion ring that no one seemed to care about because "everyone knows they're doing this stuff"

ratelimitsteve 1y ago
Hey now, that's not fair. Someone cared enough to murder the journalist that published them with a car bomb.
- r2_pilot 1y ago
  That allegedly would be Yorgen Fenech, via Alfred and George Degiorgio, Vincent Muscat, and as for the explosives, Robert Agius and Jamie Vella.
alwayseasy 1y ago
Well, in a few notorious cases the tax services cared and the voters cared.
NoNotTheDuo 1y ago
I think it's a combination of "everyone knows they're doing this stuff" and "the ones who could do something about it (i.e. charge/prosecute, change laws, etc.) are implicated". Much like the problem in the US Congress: they are not subject to insider trading laws, so they can make huge sums of money acting on non-public information. The only people that can change that are ... members of the US Congress.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
lesuorac 1y ago
Some countries cared more than others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactions_to_the_Panama_Papers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactions_to_the_Panama_Papers