4 ms·

I’m a US citizen and absolutely will not be uploading additional information just to use a company’s models. This effectively kills my usage of anthropic for an

I’m a US citizen and absolutely will not be uploading additional information just to use a company’s models. This effectively kills my usage of anthropic for anything beyond their 4.8 models.

ElProlactin 4mo ago
> I’m a US citizen and absolutely will not be uploading additional information just to use a company’s models. I can't speak to your specific use of Anthropic's models, but I find it interesting that people will identify themselves (to set up and pay for an account) and provide all sorts of personal (and often sensitive if not confidential) information to these models on a daily basis, but balk at a 5-minute identity verification.
- -Fu 4mo ago
  It’s not the five minutes that I balk at, it’s entrusting a third party with all they need to steal my identity. But of course, they’ll never get hacked…
  - mcv 4mo ago
    And to me, it's specifically that that third party is Peter Thiel. Not the guy I want to trust with my data.
  - ElProlactin 4mo ago
    It's not like Anthropic is the only company in the world that would have the basic details contained on a driver's license or passport. Odds are all of the PII required for someone to steal your identity is already in criminal hands. The National Public Data breach alone exposed the social security numbers of potentially upwards of 100 million Americans. Numerous companies have literally "all" of your personal data and you never did business with them/gave it to them directly. It's not right but the identity theft cat is out of the bag, which is why precautions like credit freezes, are recommended for all Americans.
    - lobocinza 4mo ago
      But they have all other data as well and this concentration is dangerous.
  - joxdosba 4mo ago
    [flagged]
    - interloxia 4mo ago
      Where possible, I believe it's our duty to educate those who know or care little about how their devices work. Unfortunately stats aren't persuasive for my family, but they might be for some as a starting point. https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/victims-identity-theft-2021 https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/victims-identity-th... Victims of Identity Theft, 2021 October 2023, NCJ 306474 https://bjs.ojp.gov/document/vit21.pdf https://bjs.ojp.gov/document/vit21.pdf
      - joxdosba 4mo ago
        These links claim that identities are stolen, but do not explain how. What happens to the victims, who are now presumably left unidentifiable? How are they tracked if they can’t be identified? Do their families recognise them? How does that work if they were married, had children or something? Does the identity thief just take over their whole life? As far as I know, “identity theft” is a boogeyman invented by the banks. Traditionally, when someone would go to a bank and get a loan by pretending to be another person, we just called it “fraud”. The banks realised that it would be nice to get you to feel some responsibility when they get defrauded, so after a bunch of focus grouping they came up with this new term to imply that you are somehow also a victim when the bank gets defrauded by someone else.
        yurishimo 4mo ago
        I would maybe reframe it as fraud being a natural downstream effect of identity theft. I don't need to steal anyone's identity to forge a check but that's also categorized as fraud. Identity theft also paints a clearer picture of what is required to remedy the situation. If your details have been pwnd hard enough, you might need to get new government documents entirely in order to protect yourself long term. If a contractor takes my money to install a pool and then disappears, I don't need to reset my entire financial identity. I think it's worth having a separate idea to describe the situation as a whole and not just the specific vector in which a crime might have been committed.
- joe_the_user 4mo ago
  Well, if all the data people uploaded to these models provided ironclad personal identification, would Anthropic need to have these identity verification processes? They could have directed Claude to disconnect all non-citizens when the order came, for example. Perhaps they don't to frighten people with that ability. But most likely all the inputs together only add to a rough identity hash.
  - ElProlactin 4mo ago
    > Well, if all the data people uploaded to these models provided ironclad personal identification, would Anthropic need to have these identity verification processes? > But most likely all the inputs together only add to a rough identity hash. You literally provide your name, email address, address and credit card number when you create an account and subscribe. The identity verification they're doing is for legal purposes. Even if they have a way to take your name and IP address and figure out who you are with near-absolute certainty (including through the use of third-party databases), they're doing this so they have a legally-defensible process by which identities were established.
    - rglullis 4mo ago
      > You literally provide your name... Not if you are using through your employer. > they're doing for legal purposes The USA is becoming a Banana Repulic. Having grown up in one, you end up learning that "the law" is never meant to be used for the benefit of the people but only to give the veneer of legitimacy for the authoritarian abuse by those in power. “To my friends, anything; to my enemies, the law”: https://www.undp.org/latin-america/blog/graph-for-thought/%E2%80%9C-my-friends-anything-my-enemies-law%E2%80%9D https://www.undp.org/latin-america/blog/graph-for-thought/%E...
      - ElProlactin 4mo ago
        Differential application of the law has been a part of American society for a very long time. I suppose you could argue that it's more brazen and accepted (or even celebrated in some cases) these days, but that could also be a function of people just being more willing to see it because America's reputation/standing in the world is in decline.
- teliosix 4mo ago
  It is just the standard performative outrage over and over. The same person will be uploading their ID a few days after it is introduced. So many people have internalized an anonymous audience that they are performing to in terms of what they think the anonymous audience wants to hear that they can't tell what is their own actual thoughts and motivations. That is why the motivation changes two weeks later and the ID gets uploaded.
  - mapt 4mo ago
    Some of us hold grudges on account of performative outrage. Ubisoft made invasive DRM the norm in gaming ~20 years ago. While other companies now do the same thing, I'm still boycotting. Fuck'em.
    - skocznymroczny 4mo ago
      I'd say before Ubisoft, Valve was the one to really spearhead DRM by introducing online verification to play Half-Life 2. Before HL2, it was almost unthinkable for a game to require Internet access to be played and most copy protection relied on serial numbers and/or presence of the original game CD. HL2 was high profile enough to make people accept the restriction.
    - pbgcp2026 4mo ago
      +1. You are not alone and please keep boycotting them. I personally do this and never use any websites or services requiring "ID check". If Gov agency wants my face and prints - Ok, I will give them on the border crossing and immigration services to get a passport. Everyone else goes to hell.
- asdfsa32 4mo ago
  It is because you think the contention is about being identifiable, while that is hardly the case. Most people understand or at least accept that in order to facilitate payments and a company to follow various laws that are generally understood as "good for all" (like AML and tax avoidance), but require ID to access is not the same. It is identical to accepting to paying for National Parks car pass or camp ground fees but protesting access fees. Not the same thing.

I’m a US citizen and absolutely will not be uploading additional information just to use a company’s models. This effectively kills my usage of anthropic for anything beyond their 4.8 models.

ElProlactin 4mo ago

> I’m a US citizen and absolutely will not be uploading additional information just to use a company’s models. I can't speak to your specific use of Anthropic's models, but I find it interesting that people will identify themselves (to set up and pay for an account) and provide all sorts of personal (and often sensitive if not confidential) information to these models on a daily basis, but balk at a 5-minute identity verification.

-Fu 4mo ago
It’s not the five minutes that I balk at, it’s entrusting a third party with all they need to steal my identity. But of course, they’ll never get hacked…
- mcv 4mo ago
  And to me, it's specifically that that third party is Peter Thiel. Not the guy I want to trust with my data.
- ElProlactin 4mo ago
  It's not like Anthropic is the only company in the world that would have the basic details contained on a driver's license or passport. Odds are all of the PII required for someone to steal your identity is already in criminal hands. The National Public Data breach alone exposed the social security numbers of potentially upwards of 100 million Americans. Numerous companies have literally "all" of your personal data and you never did business with them/gave it to them directly. It's not right but the identity theft cat is out of the bag, which is why precautions like credit freezes, are recommended for all Americans.
  - lobocinza 4mo ago
    But they have all other data as well and this concentration is dangerous.
- joxdosba 4mo ago
  [flagged]
  - interloxia 4mo ago
    Where possible, I believe it's our duty to educate those who know or care little about how their devices work. Unfortunately stats aren't persuasive for my family, but they might be for some as a starting point. https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/victims-identity-theft-2021 https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/victims-identity-th... Victims of Identity Theft, 2021 October 2023, NCJ 306474 https://bjs.ojp.gov/document/vit21.pdf https://bjs.ojp.gov/document/vit21.pdf
    - joxdosba 4mo ago
      These links claim that identities are stolen, but do not explain how. What happens to the victims, who are now presumably left unidentifiable? How are they tracked if they can’t be identified? Do their families recognise them? How does that work if they were married, had children or something? Does the identity thief just take over their whole life? As far as I know, “identity theft” is a boogeyman invented by the banks. Traditionally, when someone would go to a bank and get a loan by pretending to be another person, we just called it “fraud”. The banks realised that it would be nice to get you to feel some responsibility when they get defrauded, so after a bunch of focus grouping they came up with this new term to imply that you are somehow also a victim when the bank gets defrauded by someone else.
      - yurishimo 4mo ago
        I would maybe reframe it as fraud being a natural downstream effect of identity theft. I don't need to steal anyone's identity to forge a check but that's also categorized as fraud. Identity theft also paints a clearer picture of what is required to remedy the situation. If your details have been pwnd hard enough, you might need to get new government documents entirely in order to protect yourself long term. If a contractor takes my money to install a pool and then disappears, I don't need to reset my entire financial identity. I think it's worth having a separate idea to describe the situation as a whole and not just the specific vector in which a crime might have been committed.
joe_the_user 4mo ago
Well, if all the data people uploaded to these models provided ironclad personal identification, would Anthropic need to have these identity verification processes? They could have directed Claude to disconnect all non-citizens when the order came, for example. Perhaps they don't to frighten people with that ability. But most likely all the inputs together only add to a rough identity hash.
- ElProlactin 4mo ago
  > Well, if all the data people uploaded to these models provided ironclad personal identification, would Anthropic need to have these identity verification processes? > But most likely all the inputs together only add to a rough identity hash. You literally provide your name, email address, address and credit card number when you create an account and subscribe. The identity verification they're doing is for legal purposes. Even if they have a way to take your name and IP address and figure out who you are with near-absolute certainty (including through the use of third-party databases), they're doing this so they have a legally-defensible process by which identities were established.
  - rglullis 4mo ago
    > You literally provide your name... Not if you are using through your employer. > they're doing for legal purposes The USA is becoming a Banana Repulic. Having grown up in one, you end up learning that "the law" is never meant to be used for the benefit of the people but only to give the veneer of legitimacy for the authoritarian abuse by those in power. “To my friends, anything; to my enemies, the law”: https://www.undp.org/latin-america/blog/graph-for-thought/%E2%80%9C-my-friends-anything-my-enemies-law%E2%80%9D https://www.undp.org/latin-america/blog/graph-for-thought/%E...
    - ElProlactin 4mo ago
      Differential application of the law has been a part of American society for a very long time. I suppose you could argue that it's more brazen and accepted (or even celebrated in some cases) these days, but that could also be a function of people just being more willing to see it because America's reputation/standing in the world is in decline.
teliosix 4mo ago
It is just the standard performative outrage over and over. The same person will be uploading their ID a few days after it is introduced. So many people have internalized an anonymous audience that they are performing to in terms of what they think the anonymous audience wants to hear that they can't tell what is their own actual thoughts and motivations. That is why the motivation changes two weeks later and the ID gets uploaded.
- mapt 4mo ago
  Some of us hold grudges on account of performative outrage. Ubisoft made invasive DRM the norm in gaming ~20 years ago. While other companies now do the same thing, I'm still boycotting. Fuck'em.
  - skocznymroczny 4mo ago
    I'd say before Ubisoft, Valve was the one to really spearhead DRM by introducing online verification to play Half-Life 2. Before HL2, it was almost unthinkable for a game to require Internet access to be played and most copy protection relied on serial numbers and/or presence of the original game CD. HL2 was high profile enough to make people accept the restriction.
  - pbgcp2026 4mo ago
    +1. You are not alone and please keep boycotting them. I personally do this and never use any websites or services requiring "ID check". If Gov agency wants my face and prints - Ok, I will give them on the border crossing and immigration services to get a passport. Everyone else goes to hell.
asdfsa32 4mo ago
It is because you think the contention is about being identifiable, while that is hardly the case. Most people understand or at least accept that in order to facilitate payments and a company to follow various laws that are generally understood as "good for all" (like AML and tax avoidance), but require ID to access is not the same. It is identical to accepting to paying for National Parks car pass or camp ground fees but protesting access fees. Not the same thing.