[HN Gopher] YouTube asks channel owner to verify phone, permanen...
___________________________________________________________________
YouTube asks channel owner to verify phone, permanently overwrites
personal info
Author : Tijdreiziger
Score : 377 points
Date : 2025-02-17 01:25 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (old.reddit.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (old.reddit.com)
| beretguy wrote:
| Everybody should stop using Google products.
| jsheard wrote:
| AIUI the VTuber scene is very YouTube-centric compared to most
| other streaming subcultures, so it's easier said than done in
| this case. If they're doing this professionally (or trying to)
| then they need to be where the audience is.
| starkparker wrote:
| Is it possible that being a VTuber isn't a sustainable
| profession, then?
|
| If only one company exists that can pay people to perform
| your role, and that company capriciously locked random
| employees out of all systems over a misunderstanding, and
| it's seemingly impossible to start up a competitor or find
| any other way to get paid doing it... maybe find another job?
| Schiendelman wrote:
| You are absolutely right. People don't really like hearing
| it.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| If your response to someone's worry about job security is
| "quit preemptively" of course they won't want to hear it.
| It's not a great reason to quit.
| Schiendelman wrote:
| It most certainly is. In most cases, it is much easier to
| find a job while you have a job than it is to find a job
| when you don't have a job. The action isn't "quit
| preemptively", the action is finding another job now,
| instead of making some other investment you would With
| your time today.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > In most cases, it is much easier to find a job while
| you have a job than it is to find a job when you don't
| have a job.
|
| I think "streamer" is one of those cases where it's least
| true.
|
| > The action isn't "quit preemptively", the action is
| finding another job now, instead of making some other
| investment you would With your time today.
|
| The action is finding an entirely different career which
| is a lot more obnoxious than finding another job normally
| is.
|
| Sometimes risk is less bad than the alternatives.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Why should someone give up pre-emptively on the thing they
| want to do simply because of a risk of corporate bullshit?
| You're just saying "get a real job", the classic dismissal
| of creatives everywhere.
| Schiendelman wrote:
| I think you're putting words in their mouth (or should we
| say on their keyboard?).
| zmgsabst wrote:
| Is it?
|
| The ones I'm aware of stream primarily on Twitch with YT for
| clips.
| jsheard wrote:
| I think it may actually depend on the region, Japanese
| VTubers seem to primarily stream on YouTube but
| international VTubers lean more towards Twitch. Maybe OP
| could jump ship in that case.
| lmm wrote:
| There are two almost distinct VTuber cultures. One is
| Twitch-based, livestream-oriented, and sees vtubing as an
| extension of individual livestreaming. Another is YouTube-
| based, balances livestreaming with VODs and recorded videos
| (particularly music videos), and sees vtubing as an idol-
| unit-style group activity.
| ulfw wrote:
| Agreed but sadly for something like Youtube it's basically
| impossible at this stage. I've long replaced Mail, Maps,
| Calendar, Photos, Drive, etc with better alternatives from
| Apple and Microsoft.
| zeroday28 wrote:
| > with better alternatives from Apple and Microsoft.
|
| There is no difference in terms of privacy. If that's why you
| replaced them.
| Schiendelman wrote:
| You're seriously suggesting Apple and Google have no
| difference in privacy?
| yellowapple wrote:
| That is indeed a serious suggestion, and an absolutely
| correct one.
|
| Transparency is a dependency of trust. Neither Google,
| Apple, nor Microsoft are transparent about the software
| they offer, the data that software collects, or how they
| use the data collected. They are in fact quite opaque
| about all of those things. The only assurance of privacy
| they offer is their word.
| sureIy wrote:
| Microsoft I agree, same as Google if not worse.
|
| Apple does have the occasional third-party review of
| cryptography and whatnot.
|
| Apple also have _an actual, single phone support number_
| in multiple languages and countries that you can use as a
| paying customer. Day and night with Google.
| xethos wrote:
| And while that's not an unreasonable rebuttal, my first
| argument (in agreement with yours) is that Google does
| not sell their users' information, and neither does
| Apple.
|
| Being up in arms about the lack of privacy _from Google_
| is fair, and something I agree with. But Apple doesn 't
| offer dramatically more privacy _from Apple_ that I 'm
| aware of. Both allow, but discourage, free accounts, and
| run ad networks (that they don't sell user information
| on)
|
| I'm not even arguing there's _no_ difference, just that
| there 's less than everyone likes to pretend
| Schiendelman wrote:
| What do you think of Apple's privacy whitepapers?
| Schiendelman wrote:
| If I showed you that you were wrong, would you change
| your mind?
|
| Usually when you ask this, people just tell you again why
| they're right. That means they aren't really open to
| changing their mind. If I can prove you're wrong, will
| you change your mind?
| inetknght wrote:
| > _I 've long replaced Mail, Maps, Calendar, Photos, Drive,
| etc with better alternatives from Apple and Microsoft._
|
| Honestly it takes quite some cognitive dissonance to say that
| Apple's or Microsoft's products are better than Google's.
|
| I've had multiple Microsoft accounts locked out. None of them
| were originally with Microsoft; they were with companies that
| were later bought out by Microsoft and then migrated to a
| Microsoft account. Goodbye Skype, Halo, Minecraft, etc. I
| won't ever use Office or an Xbox at this point.
|
| And as far as Apple's concerned... well they talk the talk
| but their declining quality control demonstrates they don't
| really walk the walk. It doesn't take a genius to see where
| they're headed in another 10 years.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| A while ago I wanted to use Visual Studio and it required a
| Microsoft account.
|
| I decided I wanted to use Visual Studio enough that it was
| worth creating a Microsoft account for that purpose.
|
| Then, I never did anything with the account other than use
| Visual Studio.
|
| At some point, a message popped up in Visual Studio saying
| "the pattern of behavior for your account looks fraudulent,
| so we're disabling it". Visual Studio still worked fine.
|
| I'm not sure what they were hoping would happen. They
| forced me to create an account I didn't want and had no use
| for, and then they shut it down for fraud when I didn't use
| it. OK?
| rkagerer wrote:
| Can someone clarify whether you can still use it without
| ever creating an account?
| olvy0 wrote:
| In my experience, it's always been possible to use Visual
| Studio Community without a Microsoft account. It might
| recommend that you do, but you don't have to. I've been
| using it this way for years.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| Visual Studio has a "sign in" button. I just don't press
| it and it works.
|
| But skype nags for microsoft account on every login.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _I 'm not sure what they were hoping would happen. They
| forced me to create an account I didn't want and had no
| use for, and then they shut it down for fraud when I
| didn't use it. OK?_
|
| If that's all it was, then I'd just create throwaway
| accounts all day long.
|
| But the writing is on the wall. Microsoft wants to
| associate the software you write with a Microsoft
| account. It builds "trust" and "legitimacy" when they can
| "verify" that the software being deployed into the
| Microsoft store (or elsewhere) was created with a
| specific developer with an associated Microsoft account.
| Data mine your git repository and associate your commit
| metadata (eg; name, email, etc) with other products just
| as they do already on GitHub. Give you extra benefits
| (free hosting! remove advertisements! gain extra
| visibility to recruiters!) if you write software that's
| popular, and especially if it's only available on
| Windows; or penalize you (you don't "qualify" for free
| hosting; it costs $ to remove advertisements from your
| app; your app has fewer enablements; your LinkedIn
| profile is less-visible to recruiters; etc) if you write
| software for other platforms (Linux, macOS, iOS, etc)...
|
| I guess said much simpler: you see the Embrace part by
| Microsoft's actions. I see the Extend and Extinguish part
| being enabled by those actions.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| That role is usually played by code signatures.
| crooked-v wrote:
| I feel like Apple is way up there by comparison just by
| having actual support people you can talk to.
| xyst wrote:
| I miss the days of discovering random sites that had their own
| content. I remember discovering the warez scene and using IRC
| to snatch up the latest discography or film. I think I
| discovered new films and music just by browsing what was served
| up.
|
| It's a shame torrenting never became mainstream for legitimate
| content. Commenting and community engagement can be distributed
| or federated like Lemmy or mastodon and "primary content" to be
| distributed/streamed via P2P.
|
| Successful content creators can ultimately pay for VPS to help
| distribute/seed. And upstarts can share their content on their
| residential connection.
| tjpnz wrote:
| >I remember discovering the warez scene and using IRC to
| snatch up the latest discography or film. I think I
| discovered new films and music just by browsing what was
| served up.
|
| In terms of discoverability their websites were better than
| the streamers of today - and we're going back 20+ years here.
| There's a strong argument to be made that price is only a
| small part in why people opt for piracy. The UI/UX is better,
| the support is better, even the situation around privacy is
| better provided you're going somewhere legit.
| flyinghamster wrote:
| Looks like Reddit is diving further down the enshittification rat
| hole. Link is behind a login wall, at least for me.
| morder wrote:
| it's the /s/ link that does it.
| https://old.reddit.com/r/VirtualYoutubers/comments/1iqmul1/i...
| flyinghamster wrote:
| Aha. I noticed that the /s/ link hits the login wall even if
| I use old.reddit.com.
| morder wrote:
| here's my redirector `https?://www\\.reddit\\.com(?!/(?:(?:
| media|gallery|settings)\b|r/\w+/s/))([/#?].*)?` regex that
| fixes `/s/` links as well as many others
| ycombinatrix wrote:
| redlib proxy link:
| https://redlib.northboot.xyz/r/VirtualYoutubers/comments/1iq...
| hackingonempty wrote:
| use an extension or user script to change the domain to
| "old.reddit.com"
| tczMUFlmoNk wrote:
| Even old.reddit.com blocks all logged-out users over my VPN
| (Mullvad), and I'm not going to disable that, so I just can't
| view Reddit anymore.
| precommunicator wrote:
| Switch server, not all are blocked
| 1over137 wrote:
| > I don't know what to do. All I can ask is that you help me try
| to reach YouTube if possible.
|
| Here's what to do: stop being a digital serf to google.
| kevingadd wrote:
| Sadly in their business your revenue stream is either locked to
| YouTube or to Twitch. There aren't viable alternative services
| ATM and even if you set up i.e. patreon or some sort of stream
| tipping service, most viewers won't use it.
| crest wrote:
| If you're in the EU (or UK) you have the right to have your
| personal (mis)information corrected. Threaten legal action under
| GDPR and follow through.
| robin_reala wrote:
| This is the only correct answer, and luckily the person who
| started the Reddit thread has picked up on it too. The only
| problem is that it's not going to be quick, but there aren't
| any other solutions.
| sussmannbaka wrote:
| Won't they just delete your account since you agreed to them to
| take away your stuff for any reason (including none at all)?
| hnbad wrote:
| I'm not sure if there have been any rulings on this so I
| don't know what lawyers say about this but based on a
| layperson's reading of the GDPR, I would expect that the
| company can not simply unilaterally delete the user's data in
| response to a request to have their data corrected as the
| user retains ownership of their data (the terms of service
| may grant a license for specific purposes but any clauses
| that would waive your basic rights would be unenforceable and
| void).
|
| I know that companies (especially in the US) tend to stuff
| everything they can think of in the ToS or EULA but generally
| European courts seem to hold the opinion that they're not
| allowed to contain "surprising" clauses and it's generally
| not possible to waive your rights (e.g. you can't waive your
| copyright but you can grant a license functionally equivalent
| to putting a work in the public domain in the US). I suspect
| UK courts may still rule similarly with regard to data
| ownership.
| atomicfiredoll wrote:
| > A few days ago, I was prompted to verify my phone number by
| Google. Immediately after completing the verification, I received
| an email notifying me that Google had overwritten all my personal
| information. It turns out that because my mom is the one paying
| the phone bill, they automatically "verified" the name on my
| account to be hers and updated everything on my account without
| my consent.
|
| It sounds like someone at Google (not necessarily a programmer)
| needs to read "Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Phone
| Numbers:"
|
| > 4. A phone number uniquely identifies an individual
|
| What a bureaucratic nightmare.
| metadat wrote:
| Imagine being the implementing engineer at ElGoog:
|
| _Your manager / PM: "Make this change, it's how Google is
| doing things now."_
|
| Yet it's so obviously wrong, but if you push back.. not good
| for you.
| atomicfiredoll wrote:
| Lots of us have had to implement changes we've disagreed with
| or pushed back on, but this one looks so obviously wrong,
| it's particularly mind boggling.
|
| I'm almost inclined to think maybe the process/tech isn't
| designed to do this and there's a bug, or somebody tasked
| with a manual verification made an outright mistake, or
| something else went off the rails. Any number of this could
| have gone wrong.
|
| Then I think of the number of sites and services that have
| started asking for phone numbers, as if they believe doing it
| over and over will somehow change the nature of telephony--it
| would probably be a mistake for me to give Google or any of
| these other companies the benefit of the doubt.
| kylec wrote:
| Link to the Falsehoods article, it's a good read:
|
| https://github.com/google/libphonenumber/blob/master/FALSEHO...
| foota wrote:
| Um... Does anyone else see the repo owner?
| layer8 wrote:
| They meticulously document the falsehoods their programmers
| believe. ;)
| ffsm8 wrote:
| These decisions haven't been made by programmers in over
| 10 years.
|
| These lists made sense in 2000-2010 when programmers had
| the autonomy ( in most corporations ) to decide on what
| feature to develop and how it should behave.
|
| This hasn't been the case since the industry introduced
| roles such as product owner.
|
| I've had to implement my fair share of anti patterns that
| I was fully aware would degrade the experience for the
| user. At the end of the day, the programmers have been
| reduced to essentially blue color workers that just do
| whatever the MBAs decide on.
| ketzo wrote:
| Programmers are some of the most in-demand workers in the
| world. You wield significant influence. And any even-
| slightly-functional workplace will at least _try_ to
| listen to the word of their experts.
|
| Perhaps it's possible you didn't do enough to explain why
| you didn't believe it was the right work to do, or if you
| did, perhaps there were other factors in play than "user
| experience."
|
| Also, uh, "I have to do what my boss says" doesn't make
| you a blue collar worker.
| ffsm8 wrote:
| > doesn't make you a blue collar worker.
|
| I know, I was exaggerating. I thought it was clear from
| my usage of the word "essentially".
|
| > perhaps there were other factors in play than "user
| experience."
|
| Of course there were. There always are - chief among them
| the profitability, because selling the customer on stuff
| they didn't need is profitable. Especially if you frame
| it "right".
|
| But that example is completely unrelated to this case, to
| very little value in getting deeper into it.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| If programmers are some of the most in-demand workers in
| the world, why do they have to send out over 1000 job
| applications and are still treated like trash by hiring
| processes? Hacker News is one of the few places on Earth
| where this belief that programmers are in control of
| everything still exists. Pretty much everywhere else has
| adapted to the reality where programmers are in great
| surplus, but the investor class won't be happy until it's
| a minimum wage job, or even better, an unpaid internship.
| No wonder HN has a reputation for being a bunch of out of
| touch Bay Area investors with little concept of the real
| world.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Do you think this accurately describes a Google engineer?
| smallmancontrov wrote:
| Yesterday? No. Today? Maybe. Tomorrow? Yes.
| ravenstine wrote:
| Programmers have control over things product owners and
| management don't care about. Frankly, those are things
| nobody but programmers cares about. When it comes to
| meaningful decisions that would either improve or harm
| the user experience, I have only ever seen programmers
| treated as advisors at best and obedient little foot
| soldiers at worst. And why wouldn't they be treated this
| way by MBA types? Programmers are a necessary evil that
| management would rather not exist at all. Just because
| there are startups founded by programmers doesn't mean
| that's the reality of the vast majority of the software
| industry, or that said startups won't soon replace their
| leadership with MBA bozos whose only goal is making it to
| the next quarter.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| > Also, uh, "I have to do what my boss says" doesn't make
| you a blue collar worker.
|
| No, but it does make you a non-professional. The
| distinction between professionals and non-professionals
| is that members of professions have ethical obligations
| above and beyond their obligation to their employer.
|
| You will not find lawyers willing to perjure themselves,
| accountants to cook your books, or civil engineers happy
| to sign off on deadly designs.
|
| In contrast, software "engineers" are not professionals,
| we are hired goons and you can easily find a software
| monkey ready to build whatever atrocity you want for the
| right price.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| > You will not find lawyers willing to perjure
| themselves, accountants to cook your books, or civil
| engineers happy to sign off on deadly designs.
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cxe9g0el8epo
|
| https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/practice/general-
| practice/ac...
|
| https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3406928,00.htm
| l
| ForHackernews wrote:
| These are noteworthy counterexamples, the exceptions that
| prove the rules.
|
| You will struggle to find any similar news stories for
| "software engineer jailed for implementing dark patterns"
| jodrellblank wrote:
| they prove your claim "you won't find this" is wrong.
|
| And probably because that's not illegal.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| >that's not illegal
|
| Unintentionally revealing comment here. Software goons
| have no concept of professional ethics and will do any
| terrible thing you pay them to do.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| You made 3 claims, all of them easily disproven. When
| someone else pushed the claim further, immediately
| disproven. All you have left to your comment is
| namecalling.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| You're being intentionally obtuse and I suspect you
| understand full well the difference between professionals
| like accountants, doctors and lawyers (who, yes, on
| isolated occasions fail to uphold the standards of their
| profession) and software developers who are not
| professionals and operate as solo hired guns, absent any
| widely agreed ethical standards from a community of
| peers. It's not name-calling, it's a fact of life: If I
| refuse an instruction from my bosses, I get fired.
|
| I'm going to stop here because this is just an exercise
| in silly faux ignorance on your part.
| egberts1 wrote:
| Mixing three claims together to assert your "perfection"
| does not touch the basic fact that "we are human".
| OJFord wrote:
| None of these is an example of someone in one of those
| professions committing malpractice on their employer's
| instruction.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| That wasn't part of the parent comment, but okay, here:
| Tesco finance chiefs accused of cooking the books and
| bullying the finance employees below them to misconduct
| themselves:
|
| https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/tesco-
| fraud...
|
| "The three defendants who are on trial in this case are
| not the foot soldiers who misconducted themselves. The
| defendants in this case are the generals - those who are
| in positions of trust, and who were paid huge
| compensation packages in order to safeguard the financial
| health of Tesco.
|
| "These defendants encouraged the manipulation of profits
| and indeed pressurised others working under their control
| to misconduct themselves in such a way that the stock
| market was ultimately misled.""
| OJFord wrote:
| It was at least implied, I thought it was the whole
| point, because _obviously_ there are malpractising
| professionals full stop:
|
| > [...] ethical obligations above and beyond their
| obligation to their employer. You will not find lawyers
| willing [on behalf of their employer] to perjure
| themselves [...]
|
| but based on _their_ response to your the examples,
| :shrug:.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| My point is that [ethical] professionals [who are not
| committing malpractice] have an obligation to their
| peers, as embodied in a professional code of ethics that
| is independent from and supersedes their obligation to
| their employers.
|
| [Many/most ethical] accountants [who are not committing
| malpractice] will tell their employer, "no, I can't sign
| off on those fraudulent financial statements," but
| software developers [as a community, I'm sure someone
| will pop up with one colorful example] will not tell
| their employer, "No, I won't run fake bots on the site to
| inflate our user numbers," or "No, I won't implement this
| browser fingerprinting to violate our users' privacy."
|
| The sibling commenter seems to be willfully misreading
| this as "all lawyers are ethical"
| sdiupIGPWEfh wrote:
| Heard the of bimodal salary distribution? I'd bet it
| matches up quite well with a bimodal influence
| distribution.
| antonvs wrote:
| > programmers have been reduced to essentially blue color
| workers
|
| Papa Smurf will not be pleased to hear about this.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| > These lists made sense in 2000-2010 when programmers
| had the autonomy ( in most corporations ) to decide on
| what feature to develop and how it should behave.
|
| Falsehoods programmers believe?
| dingnuts wrote:
| Which part? That programmers ever had that level of
| autonomy?
| twic wrote:
| Is anyone old enough to remember when Google was an
| aspirational place to work? They had the best engineers
| and were doing the best stuff, and people spoke their
| name with awe. Now it's just Microsoft with a salad bar.
| out-of-ideas wrote:
| im sure it will be deleted/modified/adjusted/enhanced;
| though #1 is subjective, "unless it is essential" -> and
| right there, it is essential for google to do lookups of
| phone numbers to correct account ownership information
| based on another-companies paid services. "whenever
| possible try to provide" ... nope, it is never possible;
| phone validation or bust.
|
| edit: i gotta change my first guess that it will be
| modified soon. google does not set the goal to not be evil,
| so they'll likely just leave the repo as-is, unattended.
|
| quote: 1. An individual has a phone number
|
| Some people do not own phones, or do not wish to provide
| you with their telephone number when asked. Do not require
| a user to provide a phone number unless it is essential,
| and whenever possible try to provide a fallback to
| accommodate these users.
| ycombinatrix wrote:
| That is insanely pathetic
| throwaway290 wrote:
| One programmer's falsehood is another manager's
| kyc/regulations.
| mindslight wrote:
| Falsehoods Programmers Believe About the Surveillance
| Industry? Entry #1: Do no evil.
| diggan wrote:
| Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Google:
|
| - Projects under the `google` GitHub organization is from
| Google itself (Google for some reason force projects from
| Google employees to be umbrellaed under their own
| organization for some reason, even if it's a personal
| project)
|
| - Google follows their own rules (applies to any "Big Tech"
| company)
|
| - Google actually cares about correcting mistakes _unless_
| they hit the news /social media
|
| - YouTube and Google tries to make the experience for you,
| the consumer (on YouTube: consumer = creators + viewers), as
| good as they can
| lelandfe wrote:
| > _Google 's common Java, C++ and JavaScript library for
| parsing, formatting, and validating international phone
| numbers_
|
| It does seem this repo is "from Google."
| mtlynch wrote:
| I think they mean that just because code is under
| github.com/google, it doesn't make it an "official"
| Google thing.
|
| For example, yapf[0] is under the Google Github org but
| has the disclaimer:
|
| > _Note YAPF is not an official Google product
| (experimental or otherwise), it is just code that happens
| to be owned by Google._
|
| libphonenumber doesn't have any similar disclaimer and
| does seem to be an "official" Google product, but it's
| hard to tell what Google considers official or not.
|
| [0] https://github.com/google/yapf
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > It sounds like someone at Google (not necessarily a
| programmer) needs to read "Falsehoods Programmers Believe About
| Phone Numbers:"
|
| >> 4. A phone number uniquely identifies an individual
|
| But that has nothing to do with this. The idea here is that
| whoever is paying the phone bill is the same person who uses
| the phone. Nobody believes _that_.
| yellowapple wrote:
| The rationale of that falsehood1 addresses that point:
|
| >> It wasn't even that long ago that mobile phones didn't
| exist, and it was common for an entire household to share one
| fixed-line telephone number. In some parts of the world, this
| is still true, and relatives (or even friends) share a single
| phone number. Many phone services (especially for businesses)
| allow multiple inbound calls to or outbound calls from the
| same phone number.
|
| ----
|
| 1 https://github.com/google/libphonenumber/blob/master/FALSEH
| O...
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Your quote disproves you. That explanation does not address
| the point of who pays. It addresses what point 4 is
| actually about, multiple people sharing a number, which is
| not happening here.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| Mobile phones date from the 1930s.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| How does that address the point? They've got nothing to do
| with each other. Our example user isn't sharing a phone
| number with his mom. He's having his phone bill paid by his
| mom. It is _correct_ to believe that the number uniquely
| identifies him. Explaining that "all phone numbers
| uniquely identify a single individual" is false doesn't
| matter in any way, because it isn't false as applied to the
| phone number that's giving us trouble. That number uniquely
| identifies an individual.
|
| This _should_ be a hint that you 've misdiagnosed the
| problem... shouldn't it?
| yellowapple wrote:
| > Our example user isn't sharing a phone number with his
| mom. He's having his phone bill paid by his mom.
|
| Having his phone bill paid by his mom makes it his mom's
| phone number by default; it's then shared with him,
| making it a non-unique identifier. That's why it falls
| into Falsehood #4 (and likely into Falsehood #3, assuming
| that his mom has a separate phone number that she doesn't
| share with anyone else).
| smgit wrote:
| I have an Indian colleague whose dad was in some kind of coma
| for few months after an accident. He had a real crazy time
| keeping the house running. His dad's number was attached to
| all kinds of bills - electricity, gas, milk, water, internet,
| cable, newspapers etc. Most of the services would send a
| verification sms to his dad's phone for any kind of
| interaction. No one knew the password. And it turned into a
| major nightmare. It wasn't just a question of paying the
| bills. Lot of these services had to be shutdown or have
| settings changed temporarily. And each one had a different
| set of documents/processes required to prove he was a
| relative.
| lmz wrote:
| Remove the SIM card and pop it into some other phone?
| Unless the SIM has a PIN lock, but I guess you could go to
| the telco for help with that.
|
| At least SMS is easy to divert that way. Think about the
| services that verify over Whatsapp or Telegram. Good luck
| finding someone who cares there.
| smgit wrote:
| He was in a different location initially. He eventually
| got access to the sim. So every process requiring sms
| verification became a roadblock.
| sieve wrote:
| The only place where the phone number really matters in
| India is when dealing with banks, AADHAR and the phone
| company.
|
| Phone/Gas/Electricity/Internet/Cable etc bills can be paid
| through any of the hundred-odd mobile wallet apps. Other
| than some exceptional cases, none of them require access to
| the linked phone number.
| kazinator wrote:
| It is related. The belief that a phone number maps to a
| single person, the one paying the the phone bill, is a form
| of belief that a phone number uniquely identifies an
| individual. The reality is that the number identifies two
| individuals: the mom paying the bill and the user of the
| phone.
| rixed wrote:
| I don't know if it is still the case, but in the past
| Android would let you create several user accounts on a
| single phone.
| Y_Y wrote:
| To be completely fair, Android also allows having
| multiple sims and phone numbers on a single phone. I've
| never heard of people sharing a device without sharing
| the number, but it's possible.
| david_allison wrote:
| It's still the case. I have at least 4 on the same
| number.
| chrisandchris wrote:
| This belief gets very interesting with company phones,
| where 1 person pays several hundreds/thousand phones. Oh
| wait, that's not a person but a legal entity?
| wink wrote:
| I don't even want to guess the percentage of couples
| where one partner pays for (both, maybe three)
| phones/landlines, and that's ignoring all children,
| underage or not.
| grapesodaaaaa wrote:
| I currently pay for 4 other people, because the way plans
| work in the US, it's a lot cheaper.
|
| I don't bother to update the names on their lines, so
| they all probably link back to me.
| johnisgood wrote:
| So were they engage in something illegal you would be
| liable?
| onetokeoverthe wrote:
| only if police and judges are stupid.
| johnisgood wrote:
| So depends on their mood, corruption, and whether they
| want to get you.
| onetokeoverthe wrote:
| If you live in a shithole country that's always the case.
| diggan wrote:
| Don't remember what service exactly (Paypal I think?)
| that some time ago asks for me to "verify" the account by
| showing some bills with my name. At that point, the only
| utility bills they accepted for the verification, were
| all in my wife's name, which they didn't accept, so now I
| no longer have Paypal.
| wink wrote:
| Good point. I actually think we're both on some of the
| statements, so that's at least one problem I wouldn't
| have. Still ridiculous overall, of course.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| No one believes now, or ever has believed, that the person
| paying a phone bill is the same person who uses the phone.
| That's not the way money works.
| kazinator wrote:
| According to the bizarre anecdote in this HN submission,
| the person who pays for the phone bill must be the person
| who is validating a YouTube account with that phone
| number.
|
| Validating an account with a phone number constitutes
| phone use so, yes, Google and Youtube have shown an
| instance of belief that the person paying is the same as
| the person who uses.
| _trampeltier wrote:
| In a lot of cases, the company payes the phone bill or there
| are sometimes family plans, so there is just one bill for the
| whole family.
| pjc50 wrote:
| I have some very bad news for you how ID works in countries
| that don't have national ID systems: companies use all sorts
| of awful hacks instead.
|
| The UK treats "utility bills" as proof of address. Yes, these
| are trivially forgeable and often incorrect. Yes, it's a big
| pain that you don't exist if you're not paying bills.
| hyperman1 wrote:
| I've always vaguely wondered how the US knows who to tax,
| if they have no complete, trustworthy register of who the
| citizens are and where they live. It presumably works, I
| just don't understand how.
| pjc50 wrote:
| They rely on a number of inefficient proxy systems, like
| the UK: making employers keep track of the tax of
| employees, and making all the banks report "suspicious"
| transactions.
|
| The US even tries to make its overseas nationals pay tax.
| As a result, everyone _everywhere in the world_ who wants
| to get paid by Amazon has to sign a US tax form saying
| they 're not a US taxpayer.
| htrp wrote:
| https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/accountin
| g/v...
|
| The answer is goodwill and doing the right thing.
| ben_w wrote:
| > The UK treats "utility bills" as proof of address. Yes,
| these are trivially forgeable and often incorrect. Yes,
| it's a big pain that you don't exist if you're not paying
| bills.
|
| Spent the last few months trying to explain to a randomly
| changing E.ON representative how unacceptable it was for
| them to send bills with my name on it to a non-existent
| address.
|
| I moved out of the country in 2018.
|
| They've offered me PS10 _credit_. That I can 't use,
| because I left the country.
|
| I need to gather all the emails together and send them to
| the ombudsman, but there's around 80 emails now.
| crote wrote:
| How does that even work these days? Taking a picture of a
| bill physically mailed to you is bad enough, but all of my
| utility bills nowadays are nothing more than an email!
| How's _that_ supposed to prove anything?
|
| I mean, I guess you could do something with the DKIM
| signature, but good luck getting non-technical people to
| forward a mail in a way which leaves that intact.
| Realistically the best you're getting is a butchered
| screenshot.
| jsemrau wrote:
| Google dies of many little papercuts based on decisions of
| incompetent people.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Which is kind of tragic given their famous hiring process
| that every wannabe great startup feels like copying.
|
| Maybe the process isn't that great after all.
| adamors wrote:
| That hiring process is for engineers tho, do we know how
| they hire the various product people that might end up
| making these decisions?
| pjmlp wrote:
| Well, code quality on Android also speaks for that hiring
| process.
| saagarjha wrote:
| I don't think it does.
| pjmlp wrote:
| An previous consumer of Android teams work, across NDK,
| Studio, Gradle, and userspace libraries, I think it does,
| and am quite happy that Android development is no longer
| something I have to care about.
| david_allison wrote:
| What's the point of code quality if you rewrite
| everything every 3 years?
| formerly_proven wrote:
| I'm actually fascinated Google can apparently query US service
| providers for the billing address given only the phone number?!
| pram wrote:
| Literally anyone could do the same thing with the telephone
| directory in the 80s ;P
| marci wrote:
| It was the fastest way to find Sarah Connors
| ta1243 wrote:
| In practice in the 80s you could do a name->address or
| name->phone lookup
|
| You couldn't do a phone->name or address->name lookup
| devilbunny wrote:
| There were "reverse directories" for phone->name, though
| you didn't get one delivered to your house with your
| phone subscription. You could also call directory
| assistance.
| kbelder wrote:
| You could. Phone companies published reverse phone
| directories, with name and address listed by number.
| diggan wrote:
| Or, change the country to Sweden and anyone can still look
| it up, even online :) Checkout hitta.se, ratsit.se or
| similar services.
|
| Which reminds me that someone claimed that the
| income/amount of tax paid is the most private data American
| citizens have (the context was the DOGE/payments stuff),
| meanwhile every Swedish residents income is very public
| information.
|
| Negotiating your salary is a whole other ballgame when you
| know your colleagues salary and your boss knows that you
| know :)
| olyjohn wrote:
| Yeah but I also remember that when I signed up for phone
| service, I could opt out of being in the phonebook at all
| if I wanted to. And you'd have to wait up to a year before
| the new phone books came out with updated information.
| RataNova wrote:
| And the worst part? Instead of acknowledging the mistake and
| fixing it, they just double down on policy rigidity
| crote wrote:
| They are institutionally incapable of fixing it. Companies
| like Google are too big for that.
|
| Individual workers and even entire teams don't matter. They
| are just another cog in a massive machine. Customer service
| representatives are forced to follow a script, and they are
| technically unable to deviate from it. After all, if there's
| an override button, it just takes _one_ of your tens of
| thousands of minimum-wage workers to go rogue to end up with
| a massive compromise.
|
| To fix it you need your manager's manager's manager to file a
| change request, which will be put on an endless backlog to be
| _potentially_ looked at by two dozen teams a few years from
| now. And if it 's not a frequently-occurring issue, it's not
| worth the effort. Google isn't going to fix it because _as an
| organization_ they aren 't even aware you exist. You are
| collateral damage, and they are totally fine with that.
|
| The only way around this is to shortcut the entire process.
| Post on HN and hope some manager high enough in the
| policy/tech chain can be bothered to personally agenda the
| issue.
| Telemakhos wrote:
| I wonder if there's any sort of quiet constraint outside of
| organizational inertia at work here. Telephone numbers were
| (are?) one of PRISM/XKeyScore's favorite "strong
| selectors," and Google, like all major players in
| communications, does things to make its services play well
| with the current iteration of surveillance tools. I wonder
| if the current, seemingly boneheaded approach to applying
| phone company data to account data via phone numbers,
| including overwriting names, is some new requirement of the
| surveillance system.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| 2020: hey, it's second factor for your safety
|
| 2040: 4 hour ago your body separated from your phone, drink a
| verification can
| have-a-break wrote:
| I wish I could find a the exact court case, but legally you
| cannot associate anything online with an individual.
| trueismywork wrote:
| Indian govt does it do, to great success.
| sebazzz wrote:
| > It sounds like someone at Google (not necessarily a
| programmer) needs to read "Falsehoods Programmers Believe About
| Phone Numbers:"
|
| >
|
| > > 4. A phone number uniquely identifies an individual
|
| The whiteboard algorithmic interview didn't prepare nor test
| for this.
| xyst wrote:
| > Immediately after completing the verification, I received an
| email notifying me that Google had overwritten all my personal
| information. It turns out that because my mom is the one paying
| the phone bill, they automatically "verified" the name on my
| account to be hers
|
| How is Google or YT able to determine the subscriber behind a
| phone number? Caller ID lookup?
| hansvm wrote:
| That's a service most (all?) post-paid phone numbers provide in
| the US. It's one of the reasons FB won't (or didn't used to)
| let you create an account on a lot of the lower-cost cell
| providers.
| Springtime wrote:
| Twilio's verification API for instance has this[1] but only
| for US targets. Though the person in the OP is from the UK. I
| wonder how many other countries' carriers have non-business
| caller name lookups.
|
| The other aspect would be if Google were able to cross-
| reference address book contacts that were obtained from
| permissions from their apps/services to check what name is
| most commonly associated with that number.
|
| [1] https://www.twilio.com/docs/lookup/v2-api/caller-name
| sureIy wrote:
| I know my EU country also had it, but you could opt out due
| to privacy.
|
| I loved looking up number owners as a teen. I don't know
| why. It was right there on the monopoly telco's website.
| o11c wrote:
| Is this just caller id? The system supports it but many end
| users choose not to pay to access it, or don't know how to
| configure it. Remember it generally _is_ totally unverified.
|
| I ended up being on a bunch of conference calls during COVID,
| and from what I recall, there was a _roughly_ (it varied
| significantly between calls) even split between:
|
| * caller ID shows the correct name (but maybe misspelled,
| though misspellings were more common when the host tried to
| add/correct information from one of the other types)
|
| * caller ID shows the name of a spouse/parent/sibling (one
| notable example: husband and wife both joined the call
| separately, both with the husband's name, but one including
| the middle initial)
|
| * caller ID shows the name of somebody vaguely involved with
| the actual person for some reason
|
| * caller ID just shows something generic, like a brand or
| "wireless caller"
|
| * caller ID fails so just a number
|
| Maybe 1% of users used the app and so didn't have an
| associated phone number, just a username/email. At some point
| I was surprised to discover that video calls were in fact
| supported.
| hansvm wrote:
| No, the information is associated with the payer of an
| account. I'm not sure the underlying data source (probably
| Experian and friends?), but there are a number of services
| providing that sort of phone/identify "verification". It's
| orthogonal to caller ID.
| ezconnect wrote:
| He said the form he was filling up asked for the name and
| address of the billed phone number. So he provided google with
| the info and google automatically changed everything to what he
| has provided without any other proof.
| hansvm wrote:
| This isn't practical for everyone, but I've had good luck showing
| up to the Googleplex in person when their errors were too
| egregious.
| koolba wrote:
| I can see this approach being very entertaining at scale.
| jeromegv wrote:
| How? Is the receptionist able to help you?
| pan69 wrote:
| By finding the person who can help you?
| hansvm wrote:
| They give you a direct line or email to whoever can help you.
| Everyone I met was really nice. It's like a proper customer
| support channel.
| yellowapple wrote:
| By being an actual sapient being instead of a poorly-designed
| customer "support" algorithm.
| pests wrote:
| Google is not some black box. It's made up of people. Are we
| so used to lack of service online that in-person service is
| now unheard of?
| sureIy wrote:
| Yes but they can also very well say "sorry, we're not tech
| support, bye" and stand there looking at you. This is
| exceptionally easy to do if there are 5 people a day coming
| in for that reason.
| justin_oaks wrote:
| And they can have you trespassed. Hang around after that
| and the cops can arrest you.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| But why would they when it's probably really easy for
| them to just help you?
| iczero wrote:
| Have you considered that getting someone arrested after
| you ruin a major source of their income is potentially
| not the most polite thing to do?
| sureIy wrote:
| Law doesn't reward politeness. If you have a problem sue
| them, don't trespass.
|
| Governments should figure out a way to allow regular
| people to sue giants without going bankrupt.
| justin_oaks wrote:
| You act like an organization is a single person. The
| person saying "Sorry, I can't help you" when you visit
| Google headquarters is not the one ruining your income.
| kotaKat wrote:
| That's nice, but if Big Tech doesn't let me say "no" to
| their software prompts and questions, I'm saying "no" to
| leaving until my issue is fixed.
| chmod775 wrote:
| Routing people to the right place is quite literally their
| job.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| I really want to hear this story. How did it not end with you
| having a conversation with a rentacop?
| ikiris wrote:
| It probably went pretty decently until the security changed
| after the youtube incident.
| ntherria wrote:
| Did some preliminary searching and couldn't find anything,
| what incident are you referring to?
| grumple wrote:
| Probably this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube_he
| adquarters_shootin...
| klik99 wrote:
| Not at google, but someone took a plane ride to ask about a $20
| billing error in person at a company I worked at. We definitely
| don't do in person customer support, and the flight must have
| been more than the billing error, so front desk gently
| encouraged him to fly back home and make sure someone responded
| to his ticket.
| ycombinatrix wrote:
| Why did they do that? Were you ignoring their tickets? Is
| your service really crucial to them? Was it a Saudi prince?
| DangitBobby wrote:
| Now _that_ is how to make a customer know they have no value!
| Bravo.
| alwa wrote:
| I sincerely hope (and assume) "make" was a type for "made"
| there. That the front desk staffer, not the aggrieved
| customer, "made" somebody respond to the customer's original
| ticket.
| aitchnyu wrote:
| This looks like something out of the 1937 book How to Win
| Friends and Influence People and ends with "they prospered
| together forever and customer would later find the mistake
| from his side".
| ggm wrote:
| This is why a company I know had an armed guard at the door
| after an angry dispossessed former customer turned up and gave
| the reception desk PTSD.
|
| Don't do this.
| TheFreim wrote:
| I find it highly unlikely that someone politely asked for
| help having an issue resolved and it gave the receptionist
| PTSD and required armed security. I expect you're instead
| speaking about a situation where someone showed up and acted
| in a violent/threatening manner, which the post you are
| replying to did not endorse, which should not be used to
| justify keeping upstanding people from trying to get support.
| ggm wrote:
| No part of Mountain View is set up to handle the queue of
| customers of Google seeking restitution. Other major
| corporates have this problem too. You don't fix the problem
| with your gas account overcharging by going to the Exxon
| head office.
|
| Google is a bit of a shit company when it comes to customer
| service, but suggesting you can front into their space to
| get it addressed is really not ok.
|
| The problem is the lack of a real service you really can
| approach. Not, that they wind up needing rent-a-cop in the
| lobby.
|
| If people casually recommend simply visiting the campus of
| Apple, Meta, Google to get customer disputes settled, then
| its a low bar prediction it's going to get bad.
| imp0cat wrote:
| Actually, you can usually get a lot of help if you show
| up in person at a major company site and politely ask.
|
| Nobody really wants to call the security/police on a
| random guy, especially if he is not a complete weirdo.
| sp0ck wrote:
| Saying "bit of a shit" about company who practically
| destroyed 20 years of someone data,by blocking account
| against all facts customer and police provided it not "a
| bit". This is pure evil.
| https://www.businessinsider.com/google-reported-dad-
| police-p...
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| There's going to be a lot more of this happening over the
| next couple of years.
| rectang wrote:
| It made me disconcertingly furious on behalf of that customer
| to read your message, which, however you meant it, echoed in
| my mind as "you have no hope, don't show up in person, don't
| do anything except accept that BigCo screwed you, the world
| is unfair and you lost hahahahaha".
|
| We might wish for every customer to muster infinite patience
| no matter how poorly treated, but when a company behaves as
| unreasonably as described in this story about YouTube, it's
| not solely the fault of the customer finally losing their
| shit when "front desk" turns into "front line".
|
| "Hire armed guards to protect the company from its own
| customers" is a wonderfully apt summary of the modern tech
| approach to customer service.
| ggm wrote:
| If a company doesn't have a real human helpdesk for dispute
| resolution, fronting onto the people who have to man a desk
| to direct visitors to the right meeting room, or handle
| incoming calls to corporate offices, is just wrong.
|
| I'm a customer of google. I pay them money. I would never,
| EVER recommend that people front into the Mountain View, or
| any other google office worldwide to discuss their issues.
| Never.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| It's not wrong to talk to the people at the front desk
| about their company's bullshit practices. I don't have to
| be a customer, and neither do you have to be an employee.
| Dealing with people who need help dealing with your
| company is not going to fucking kill you.
| mort96 wrote:
| If the company makes the person manning the front desk
| the only human customers can get in touch with, that's on
| the company, not customers with a critical issue who just
| needs a person to understand and rectify the company's
| mistake.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| My latest protip when the normal procedure isn't going anywhere
| is to send your complaint to a big org's legal department,
| whether it's of legal nature or not.
|
| You can at least be assured the letter reader will be literate.
|
| And might even get good support for wherever it ends up because
| it will be forwarded from the legal department.
|
| This was a bank. Basically an extension of patio11's advice to
| contact shareholder relations.
| nikanj wrote:
| With the software giants, you get the best results by sending
| your complaint to Hacker News. Your issue will actually be
| noticed by someone who can help
| est wrote:
| Anyone remembers Google Video? Full of crap like this. Lost
| competition to Youtube.
| pests wrote:
| You mean Google bought YT and then Google Video existed in a
| quasi defuct state via the videos search tab until it was all
| replaced
| est wrote:
| yeah and the time before GOOG bought yt.
|
| I tried to upload some vids, gv asks for submiting paperwork
| to prove my real identity.
|
| Shit product designed by lawyers.
| ryandrake wrote:
| We should stop normalizing giving phone numbers out to companies.
| If I don't want you to call me, why would I give you my phone
| number. And on the other side of that coin, why do you want my
| phone number if you're not planning to call me? It's not an
| identifier. Just don't do it.
|
| Same with social security numbers. You don't get it unless I
| expect you to send me a tax-related form at tax time.
| portaouflop wrote:
| Easy to say but some insist on identifying you via a phone
| number.
|
| In most other cases i just type some random numbers or use a
| number generator. SSN is a weird concept that thankfully
| doesn't exist in my country.
|
| But yea unless this is a very important service you get 0 of my
| real data.
| hartator wrote:
| > SSN is a weird concept that thankfully doesn't exist in my
| country.
|
| I am pretty sure you have something similar in your country.
| joseda-hg wrote:
| Usually a bit less dangerous to give away though, most of
| my friends and coworkers have my personal id, because it
| also doubles as a bank account number
|
| Not that it matters on the context of giving away
| information
| hartator wrote:
| It's not something you would want to post online, but
| it's also not that big of deal if it got leaked. Most of
| them are.
|
| I would say a SSN getting leaked is as bad as a passport
| number getting leaked.
| joseda-hg wrote:
| Most people wouldn't but I do ocasionally see some posted
| online, it should never change, there's a second number
| that's usually used to validate further, and that one
| gets changed every time you renew you ID Document
| plagiarist wrote:
| Would be nice. If people collectively refused, the collecting
| of numbers would not happen. So nothing will change.
| Y_Y wrote:
| It people acted collectively? As if through some sort of
| government?
| johnisgood wrote:
| Just like how strikes work.
| what wrote:
| Every time I sign up for something that requires a phone number
| it says I already have an account because the previous user of
| the number signed up. I guess I should take over their
| Venmo/etc and hope a bank account is still linked.
| belZaah wrote:
| That's unfortunately the best you can get without a personal
| identification number. G is doing their best to establish your
| identity in the context, that actively tries to prevent them
| from doing so. Solving contradictory requirements will lead to
| nonsensical situations
| nialv7 wrote:
| Just the other day I was trying to create a new Google
| account, and was surprised by how much PII it was asking from
| me. I have a handful of Google accounts, the newest one
| created I think almost of a decade ago? I don't remember I
| needed any PII to create them, no phone number, no credit
| card, etc.
|
| What happened in these 10 years?
| thrdbndndn wrote:
| I by chance registered several new Google accounts lately.
| It was a few months ago so things might have changed.
|
| You don't need a credit card to register a Google account.
|
| As for the phone number, IIRC you do need to provide one
| during the registration but that number isn't automatically
| associated with your account, it's there more to prevent
| spamming I think. Also you can re-use the same number (to
| certain degree, at least; I have 4 accounts registered with
| the same number).
|
| Please note that I'm not saying this is ideal, but compared
| to some other "major" services, Google is actually on the
| easier side for registering an account.
| martin-t wrote:
| The terrorists kept winning and authoritarianism kept
| rising.
| Y_Y wrote:
| Google has been insisting for years that they need my date
| of birth "to comply with _the law_ " (which law is not
| specified). Never mind that my account is more than twenty
| years old, and I've attached plenty of credit cards and
| devices and addresses to that account. I'm able to skip the
| nag screen, but I do worry that Google are going to get in
| big trouble one of these days and it'll be all my fault.
| joseda-hg wrote:
| Not one for defending corporations, but most places have
| some variation of "No people under X age should be on the
| internet unsupervised", and that one usually isn't
| satisfied with "It's an old account"
|
| How seriously is this enforced varies, Twitch insta bans
| you for saying things to the effect of "I'm twelve years
| old"
| onetokeoverthe wrote:
| new generation of obedient drones
| olalonde wrote:
| I think it's mostly a spam/bot mitigation technique. Getting a
| new phone number costs money and is often difficult to
| automate.
| inetknght wrote:
| It's amazing how much waste our whole world economy incurs as
| a consequence of not enforcing anti-fraud laws against
| operators of compute devices.
| master-lincoln wrote:
| I think that is mostly because the perpetrators are often
| in a different country than victims. There is no global law
| or enforcement of rules, but the internet is global. That
| is a fundamental mismatch in my eyes.
| dathinab wrote:
| or ... because huge companies make a ton of money from it
| and pay lobbyist enough
|
| Like it really isn't that rare to have issues where
| people tell you "nothing can be done, it's from outside
| of our country" or similar. And then you travel and
| realize, it's a "your country" issue and many or even
| most other countries have fixed it or at least massively
| reduced it and the whole "criminals are in another
| country" thing didn't prevent them from fixing it...
|
| This e.g. is the case for US spam/scam/robo calls (which
| isn't "fully fixed" anywhere but starkly reduced by in
| many places including e.g. the EU).
| gruez wrote:
| >or ... because huge companies make a ton of money from
| it and pay lobbyist enough
|
| Which companies are making money off frauds like pig
| butchering scams? I think you're overestimating how
| competent the state is and underestimating how hard it is
| to solve problems like these. For instance, we can barely
| dissuade other countries from buying Iranian and Russian
| oil, and there's pretty much bipartisan consensus on
| that.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _Which companies are making money off frauds like pig
| butchering scams?_
|
| Companies that own dating apps.
|
| > _I think you 're overestimating how competent the state
| is_
|
| I fully agree. The U.S. state is quite incompetent.
|
| > _and underestimating how hard it is to solve problems
| like these_
|
| "We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!"
|
| Have you thought of blocking countries that permit
| malicious activity to cross international borders? Have
| you thought of blocking their IP addresses?
|
| Or is that international money just _too good_ to let a
| "little bit" of malicious activity befall upon your
| fellow citizens?
| gruez wrote:
| >Companies that own dating apps.
|
| And they're lobbying against which regulations that would
| stop them?
|
| >Have you thought of blocking countries that permit
| malicious activity to cross international borders? Have
| you thought of blocking their IP addresses?
|
| The financial system is far more centralized than the
| internet and at least theoretically has KYC, but US
| sanctions against enemy states, terrorist groups, and
| drug gangs are as airtight as a sieve. What makes you so
| sure that IP blocking countries will have any effect,
| when anyone can buy a no-log VPN for $5/month?
| inetknght wrote:
| The grandparent claimed:
|
| > _I think that is mostly because the perpetrators are
| often in a different country than victims._
|
| So, your comment here is moving the goalpost:
|
| > _What makes you so sure that IP blocking countries will
| have any effect, when anyone can buy a no-log VPN for $5
| /month?_
|
| If it's malicious activity behind VPNs in foreign
| countries, then see previous comment about blocking
| foreign countries. Block foreign countries at the
| interconnect until they enact and enforce laws which
| address the malicious activity.
|
| If it's malicious activity behind VPNs in your own
| country then you need only convince your law enforcement
| to enforce existing computer crime laws. Renting a server
| for $5/mo requires payment and payment provides a name &
| address to prosecute. All you need is to demonstrate that
| the malicious activity originated from the rented IP
| address and during the rental period.
| gruez wrote:
| >So, your comment here is moving the goalpost:
|
| There's no point in implementing measures that would be
| trivially bypassed but cause great economic and societal
| harm in the process (ie. creating some sort of KYC regime
| for the internet, or causing millions to be cut off from
| the internet). China, arguably one of the most draconian
| states out there, and the home of pig butchering scams
| can barely keep a lid on it. Countries like the US that
| emphasize civil liberties and free trade don't stand a
| chance.
|
| >If it's malicious activity behind VPNs in your own
| country then you need only convince your law enforcement
| to enforce existing computer crime laws. Renting a server
| for $5/mo requires payment and payment provides a name &
| address to prosecute.
|
| You can pay for no-log VPNs using crypto or anonymous
| gift cards. Apple, Google, and others even have 2-hop
| VPNs that theoretically make it impossible for the
| provider to log connections even if they wanted to. Not
| to mention, there are many countries, including the US
| where you can get prepaid SIMs without presenting any
| sort of ID and pay with cash. Even if you were some how
| able to enforce an airtight KYC regime for the internet
| (doubtful, given how well that works for the financial
| system), you still have to contend with compromised
| routers/IOT devices and shady apps that act as proxies
| for bad guys.
| inetknght wrote:
| So we're back to "we've tried nothing and we're all out
| of ideas" then?
| gruez wrote:
| As I mentioned in my previous comment, China has tried
| "something" and came up empty handed. It makes little
| sense to follow in their footsteps just so some snarky
| internet commenters can't invoke "we've tried nothing and
| we're all out of ideas".
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| On the one hand it makes spam more difficult on the other
| hand it makes breaking into someones most personal accounts
| way more simple, just have to convince the phone carrier
| customer support and then you get into the Apple account and
| all their other passwords.
| dathinab wrote:
| > cost money
|
| yes, but it's surprisingly cheap (if you now where to ask for
| it and your operation is large enough)
|
| could have changed a bit after FTC started pushing a bit more
| against robocalls and for caller verification idk. a year
| ago??
| j16sdiz wrote:
| On the operation side of things, requiring phone number greatly
| reduce throwaway accounts and spam. You can't kill all spam,
| but it is down to a manageable level.
|
| Yes, some legitimate user can't sign up. Depends on what
| business you are in, and how much budget you put into
| spam/abuse prevention, this may or may not make sense.
| pavon wrote:
| And physical addresses while we are at it. If you are shipping
| me something you need my address, but the fact that this became
| a mandatory part of authenticating credit card purchases is so
| invasive and provides practicaly no real security.
| Cu3PO42 wrote:
| Depending on jurisdictions, it may not be about security, but
| just a regulatory requirement. I need to confirm any
| transaction made in the bank's app on my phone, so I feel my
| card is sufficiently secure in that sense. However,
| businesses here are required to collect my billing
| information for transactions that do not happen in person and
| unfortunately address is defined to be a part of that.
|
| That said, I fully agree with you. I see little reason that
| buying, for example, a video game online needs my billing
| information more than walking into a store and buying it
| there, possibly with the same card.
|
| This just reminded me of a quote: "If cash were invented
| today, it would be illegal." I forget who (first) said it,
| but it rings true.
| 35fbe7d3d5b9 wrote:
| > I see little reason that buying, for example, a video
| game online needs my billing information more than walking
| into a store and buying it there, possibly with the same
| card.
|
| In your latter example, a nexus clearly exists between the
| business selling you a video game and the state, so sales
| tax collection is patently obvious.
|
| When you buy online, they have to ask - it's the only way
| to figure out the proper jurisdiction.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| AFAIK, in USA they send some kind of invoice to your address.
| Not sure what it is or does though.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > but the fact that this became a mandatory part of
| authenticating credit card purchases is so invasive and
| provides practicaly no real security
|
| This is insurance against fraud where the card number is
| stolen and goods are ordered to a location other than the
| cardholder address. Which the merchant doesn't want to be
| liable for. So most places will only ship high value goods
| (sometimes any goods) to the cardholder address.
|
| The real security is now "enhanced verification", i.e. some
| sort of second factor and/or password in addition to the
| card. But this is much more annoying to use.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > provides practicaly no real security.
|
| pjc is correct, this does provide real security; i.e. I
| cannot steal your card details and use them to order valuable
| goods sent to my address.
| RataNova wrote:
| We need better alternatives, but right now, it feels like we're
| stuck in a system
| pjc50 wrote:
| Sounds like you guys need some sort of general regulations for
| protecting people's data?
|
| Not like there's any chance of that happening in the DOGE era,
| of course.
| pzmarzly wrote:
| It's 2025, and the split-brain world of Google vs YouTube vs
| AdSense accounts has still not been solved, and is only getting
| worse. It seems you need to be an expert in how Google backend is
| structured to get anything done on YouTube. To my understanding:
|
| Google account: everyone knows what it is, your personal account.
| Unless you have GSuite, then nobody knows what it's meant to be
| and let you do.
|
| YouTube account (channel): there is now a many-to-many relation
| between Google accounts and YouTube accounts, but they otherwise
| function pretty much like pre-Google+ YouTube accounts. You can
| even change the primary Google account of a YouTube account, that
| requires clicking a button and waiting for a week. Then there is
| this brand vs non-brand distinction, where you can convert from
| non-brand to brand, but not the other way around, and some stuff
| used to work only with one of these types. And I think nowadays
| there is some way to make a Google account without a (named)
| YouTube channel, if you're just a viewer that doesn't even
| comment or create playlists, but there is not much reason to do
| that.
|
| AdSense account: A billing account, once again with many-to-many
| mapping to Google accounts, and also many-to-many [0] mapping to
| AdSense projects ("sites"). Requires unique billing details, and
| apparently unique address as well [1], but otherwise shouldn't do
| much.
|
| So in the linked situation, I think editing Google account login
| info changed the AdSense account details, which is definitely
| unexpected. YouTube account was probably not the problem here, I
| suspect the author would have had same issue if they were selling
| ads on a website instead of YouTube channel, though of course you
| have to use different AdSense UI if you sell ads on Youtube vs on
| the web, which probably further complicates things.
|
| Anyway, since it hit the frontpage of ~~Google's only working
| support channel~~ HackerNews, it will soon be solved (for that
| single creator only, probably).
|
| The only good solutions to this mess seem to be to either make
| YouTube account a standalone thing (cutting AdSense from the
| picture, and using Google accounts only for authentication), or
| to decouple all the accounts and make links between them more
| configurable / clear. Anything in-between, and we get (waves
| hands) this.
|
| But both of these solutions would also make it too clear where to
| cut if/when the Google antitrust process comes, which doesn't
| make me think it will happen anytime soon.
|
| [0] https://support.google.com/adsense/thread/11680365/how-we-
| ca...
|
| [1]
| https://old.reddit.com/r/PartneredYoutube/comments/17vb8w8/c...
| jrockway wrote:
| This really sucks. Why is it so important to know someone's legal
| name, anyway? If their content is problematic, delete it. If it's
| not, let them use a pseudonym.
|
| What is the appetite for self-hosting streams? I've worked at a
| variety of ISP gigs and really don't think the bandwidth cost is
| that crazy of a blocker. But would any streamers ever WANT to
| self-host something? I feel like people would love to throw off
| the shackles of YouTube and Twitch, but are probably less
| enthused about not having their channel advertised to the
| platform's users. Things like maintaining your own Stripe account
| also sucks.
|
| (My angle is charging for software to do this, not making another
| hosted service. Just don't think there is actually a market.
| Complaining on Reddit when the bureaucracy of Twitch/YouTube
| stymies you seems to be 100% effective. But will it always be?)
| plagiarist wrote:
| For paying out money it is likely a legal requirement, it
| sounds like it is advertising revenue this person is cut off
| from. Google's methods are idiotic here, especially since they
| seem perfectly willing to share other proof of identity.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| _This really sucks. Why is it so important to know someone 's
| legal name, anyway?_
|
| They have to know his legal name, because they are paying him.
| His core issue is around monetization, caused by the personal
| info screw up. The "Know Your Customer" laws are a nightmare
| and are the root of a lot of this kind of horrible bureaucracy.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Do know your customer laws apply to Alphabet? I thought that
| was for banks. I assume Alphabet needs the info for tax
| purposes though due to needing to report payments and issue
| 1099s.
| lmz wrote:
| Well you wouldn't want Youtube to pay e.g. terrorists (or
| other sanctioned entities) for their videos, so wouldn't it
| make sense for them to try and get a name then run a
| sanctions check on the name?
| lmm wrote:
| Any sufficiently large company ends up being pretty much
| everything. Google is almost certainly a money transmission
| service (among other things) given that Google Pay exists,
| and they probably run YouTube payouts through the same
| legal infrastructure.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| The PSP doing the transaction will require Google to
| guarantee the transaction is not fraudulent and they can
| legally justify who is paid for what.
|
| Anonymousity of the end recipient can't work in the
| traditional money transfer model
| inetknght wrote:
| It sounds like they don't actually know their customer
| though... ;)
| pjc50 wrote:
| > I feel like people would love to throw off the shackles of
| YouTube and Twitch, but are probably less enthused about not
| having their channel advertised to the platform's users. Things
| like maintaining your own Stripe account also sucks.
|
| I get the impression that's basically it. You've got to go
| where the audience is. Even Hololive who are big enough to have
| their own platform haven't attempted to do this. Bureaucracy
| aside, youtube is also pretty reliable at global scale.
| dathinab wrote:
| because if their content isn't just problematic but criminal
| "just" deleting it isn't enough
|
| if you "just delete" it and don't allow any effective way for
| suing the people which uploaded it then it's just a matter of
| time until you will get sued and held responsible for it
| dathinab wrote:
| > What is the appetite for self-hosting streams?
|
| Problems are:
|
| - discoverability is non existing, e.g. being somtimes on the
| frontpage of twitch does make a difference in how much you earn
| (through highly varying depending on how niche your content
| is), similar raids or even the neglected "viewers which watch
| this stream also watch" corner do help.
|
| - Platform switching cost, a lot of users don't want to use
| other platforms then what they are already using. Most
| streamers have discovered that switching platforms will not
| carry over most users.
|
| - Cross Platform cost, toady a ton of people want things in a
| app.
|
| - payment systems, paying on twitch for a sub is one thing, but
| one some random website .. eh. Same but worst for bits, supper
| chats. With YT/Twitch people have their payment system
| potentially already setup. So it's just one click. On your
| website they don't and and might not want to.
|
| - net neutrality not being a thing everywhere cost, i.e. you
| don't have to pay for bandwidth only once, but many times,
| including in places you don't even know you have to with
| consequences being subtle like some viewers streams always
| struggling etc. Which effectively will cost you viewers and
| with that money.
|
| - live cross encoding cost, is also easy to underestimate
|
| - software maintenance cost, especially if you aren't a system
| admin/software engineer this is huge
|
| - reliability cost, if your stream is down to often it will
| make people leave
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Today I learned: if someone has your phone number, they can make
| a simple API call to get your full name.
| rixed wrote:
| Or that of your mum.
| skylurk wrote:
| Possibly her maiden name.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| When I was young that API was delivered to your door on paper.
| floydnoel wrote:
| you had a book that listed every phone number in numerical
| order? because a phone book is the exact opposite of that
| kstrauser wrote:
| Yes. It was called a city directory and salespeople would
| frequently own them. My dad's also had listings of every
| street, showing the people living at each address.
| TheCapeGreek wrote:
| I had something a little similar happen when I listed my Airbnb
| apartment on Google Maps.
|
| In their infinite wisdom, Maps decided it'd be best to merge my
| listing with the listing for the building it's in - but also gave
| me admin rights over the entire building's listing.
|
| Support refused to fathom that I don't want to have any degree of
| Maps authority over something that does not belong to me (though
| I could have definitely used this to my advantage for increasing
| bookings), and their instructions to unsplit/remove myself never
| worked.
| ochre-ogre wrote:
| I had a similar experience but I wanted it that way. The
| listing for my residential society (comprising of 30+
| buildings) was being hijacked by Real Estate brokers and
| internet service providers. I went on a discord server where
| Google employees were known to hang out and informally help
| people - they gave me ownership of the listing. This has
| allowed me to reject updates various businesses in the area try
| to push every few months.
|
| Google maps hijacking has become a huge issue in my country
| where scammers update the contact details of local businesses
| without their knowledge and then scam unsuspecting people
| calling to place orders or book a stay. The vast majority of
| business owners don't even know they can / should take
| ownership of their maps listing.
| Balgair wrote:
| > I went on a discord server where Google employees were
| known to hang out and informally help people
|
| Ummm, got any more details on where I can find that server?
| nikanj wrote:
| Fortunately they were able to reach the only reliable Google
| support desk: The HN front page. Getting this resolved via
| Google's official channels is about very unlikely, but now their
| issue has reached the eyes of people who actually can help
| RataNova wrote:
| I just cannot believe sometimes how broken YouTube's support
| system is. And the irony of YouTube treating their automated
| mistake as irreversible while expecting creators to just deal
| with it is maddening
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| This is long since solved, but due to a Gmail error, I managed to
| be the recipient for every email sent to google@gmail.com.
|
| I only managed to get it fixed because I happened to know someone
| who worked at Google.
|
| I would never trust Google with anything even vaguely important.
| If something goes wrong, it will be wrong forever.
| rkuodys wrote:
| As a person, not from UK can someone explain how could Google /
| YT obtain information about name/surname based solely on phone
| number. Isn't that GDPR infringement right there ? If my son were
| to use my phone anywhere, there is no consent on my part to share
| _my personal information_ with the service provider.
| tokamak wrote:
| How else to block sanctioned country individuals? This is a
| problem on YouTube where American company is basically supporting
| regimes indirectly.
| nullc wrote:
| Another reason to _never_ give companies your phone number is
| because as soon as you do simswappers will be able to take over
| your account-- seems once a company knows a phone number they
| will simply be unable to resist "recovering" your account for
| someone who can receive SMSes at it.
| buyucu wrote:
| Google does this all the time. It's a very bad idea to put
| everything you have to Google.
| PeterStuer wrote:
| Over here in Belgium telcos will reuse mobile telephone numbers
| if the client leaves without transfering the number to a new
| service.
|
| This results in people getting a new mobile subscription with a
| number that can not be used to create a new Google account (this
| number has been used too many times), or e.g. get the Whatsapp
| account from the previous owner (as you recover the account by a
| text to the number)
| bsimpson wrote:
| This is a standard feature in the US too.
|
| Since the advent of cell phones and free long distance, people
| tend to keep a single number for longer, but there used to be a
| trope about getting wrong number calls for someone who had died
| and had his number recycled.
| radicality wrote:
| I vaguely remember once browsing the depths of Verizon settings
| pages and found something under privacy section, and immediately
| switched it to 'Do not agree'.
|
| I don't think I had any issues because of it, but it's really
| infuriating that the default is of course "Agree to give my data
| to everyone for all purposes".
|
| Setting name was:
|
| > With your authorization, Verizon provides certain account,
| device, and profile data related to your Verizon account to third
| parties for the purpose of helping companies you do business with
| verify your identity and help protect you against identity theft
| and account takeover.
|
| If you use Verizon, setting is here:
|
| https://www.verizon.com/digital/nsa/secure/ui/acct/profile/p...
| globular-toast wrote:
| Whenever I see these threads pop up I feel sorry for all the
| people whose posts don't go to the front page of Reddit etc.
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