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Comment by throwaway66666 | Hacker News Reader

In 2013 a quora moderator contacted me and demanded that I provide my real name, and information that my name is real or they would ban my account. I tried reasoning with them, that I just wanted to view content and did not attend to write answers or interact etc, plus, they had a valid email address and facebook profile (also fake name on facebook). They fought back "we actually want proof of your real name like a scan of ID". I danced around and did not end up giving them a scan of my id, but I changed it to my real name.

Today my information is probably leaked. Information I didn't want to give and that they threatened me for it.

Where is the apology Quora? From all the recent leaks this is the one that pisses me off the most, because it's the one that was forced unto me.

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> I tried reasoning with them, that I just wanted to view content and did not attend to write answers or interact etc, plus, they had a valid email address and facebook profile (also fake name on facebook). They fought back "we actually want proof of your real name like a scan of ID". I danced around and did not end up giving them a scan of my id, but I changed it to my real name.

I don't understand why you bothered arguing with them instead, I dunno, creating a new fake account?

This is exactly what I did. I had even provided my real name already, it just didn't fit in the Western firstname-lastname format that they assumed everyone had, and so they disabled my account. I tried showing them that this was the cultural norm here, but they wanted a govt ID scan to "prove" it - all for a glorified social network.

Instead, I created a new email ID, gave a fake name, and registered with that. I gave up on the site soon anyway, but now I'm glad they forced me into registering with fake details.

Can I ask why you wanted to view Quora's content so much? They flood Google search results but I've never seen a single substantial answer on there - it's like an off-brand Stack Overflow with an even worse "I know programming so I'm smart about every subject" problem.

My experience with Quora answers has been that they are blatant ads from people working on different companies.

Just search for anything like "what is an open source alternative to X" and the results will be a lot of people trying to justify why their Y paid option is a good solution for your problem.

I quickly stopped using Quora after finding the answers consisted solely of scam software (just didn't work), adware or stolen & rebranded software.

It seems to be popular with scammers and they have taken over.

In other areas it seems like it's people working on their craft of writing fiction, notably erotic fiction. Questions like "What's the naughtiest thing you've done at work?" generate those kind of responses. Which is fine, just don't expect me to believe it really went down like that.

They have a lot of great anwesers, especially by experts in the field. In the early days around 2011, I would spend hours just reading everything I could on the site.

These days the growth has masked all the good stuff with a layer of spam and general crap that’s hard to get past. Inevitable consequence of growing users but it has been managed poorly.

How did they know? Was your name obviously fake? My favorite feature of DuckDuckGo is that if you search "random name", it will actually generate a random name (e.g. "Marlon Lonzo"). So I use these random unique names on all websites that require one.

I've been known as John Smith, born 1/1/1970 for decades now

Nice try, HAL9000 - you cant fool me

starts removing module cards

I'm starting to get lots of end of life planning service targeted ads as a result of using 01/23/45 as a birth date since forever ago.

1000x this. Nextdoor did this to my parents. It's fairly ridiculous.

The state of personal data regulation in the US is abysmal. Unfortunately, if Cambridge Analytica wasn't enough to spur new regulation, I fear nothing will.

I can understand NextDoor at least. It’s very neighborhood based, and they need some way to verify that you live where you say you live. If people keep seeing membership in their neighborhood has included those who don’t love in their area, the main attraction of NextDoor will disappear.

I think you're trying to start a different conversation than what I had intended to point out by adding another anecdote to the original comment I was responding to.

Right now there is relatively little liability in gathering personal data about customers but huge benefits to doing so. I believe that there should be regulation governing punishments and protections for consumers whose data may be compromised or mishandled by corporate entities.

As it stands right now a company can leak personal data from their customers and face very few consequences. Rather, the negative consequences of customer data leaks are felt by the customer rather than the corporation that mishandles their data. This is a similar externality-effect as pollution, where a bad actor's malfeasance generates a larger negative impact than what is directly born by the bad actor itself.

We could discuss whether or not NextDoor has a legitimate use for personal identification data, but that's a tangential discussion. My point was supposed to be that any firm that gathers personal data should be assuming a greater amount of liability than they currently are.

The sad things is that even if you received and apology, it would mean nothing, empty words repeated over and over and over.

Companies are not people and cannot have human attributes

Well, according to the US government, companies are in fact people for a wide variety of important purposes.

Repeating this is either willful misunderstanding of the law or parroting of outrage propaganda. We would all be much worse off if not for corporate personhood. There are aspects of it that are debatable (Citizens United ruling, which is the source of this tired meme), but without it you couldn't enforce contracts with a corporation after the employee who signed it left.

I got the same. And when I looked into it and found out the company was founded by former Facebook guys, I knew they couldn't be trusted and knew enough to jump ship.

It's so inconsistent. I was a Quora member for years and wrote a lot of answers as well as participating in a lot of discussions. Despite this I was never asked to confirm my identity!

I deleted my account last year (got cold feet as I was using my real name and picture and people I know IRL had started to stumble across some of my answers) but I'm sure my data is probably involved in this breach somewhow.

Well that is a bit of a disconnect then. My 'name' on Quora was 'Pappy Butthead'[0] since ~2015. In fact, until I got the email from them yesterday, I had no idea I was even a user still, I'd completely forgotten I had jokingly signed up. I'd never gotten any spam from their team that harassed me into providing anything.

[0]not my actual user name, but something similar.

This attitude of theirs is what made me stop using Quora. I deactivated the account almost one year ago.

Never went back to that site.

If you have all this documented you have a good standing in court! They failed to provide you reason why they want your ibfi and now its leaked and will cause you damage. File a small claim court this will add then some extra headache that they don’t need right now.

Haha I never give it to them as well. Never put your real name, no matter what. They are ridiculous with these requirements. I'm waiting until the day they'll make a credit check to open an account

Really? Are you sure this was actually Quora and not a scammer?

Edit: Sorry if stupid question, but that would be throwing major red flags if I got such an email.

Just don't read it.

Let me write an apology for them: "the security and privacy of your information is our utmost priority"

Feel better, don't you?

And it must end with "-The Quora Team"

Because we will leak your data, but we won't bother designating a responsible spokeperson be it security officer, cto, vp of engineering or principal architect. It will be the all nebulous quora team.

I feel like you're criticising just for the sake of it.

Firstly, this post is signed by Adam D'Angelo, the CEO and co-founder. If you had opened the link you wouldn't even have had to scroll down, it's literally on the second line, right after the headline. So clearly Quora doesn't do what you've accused them of doing.

Secondly, what good does crucifying one person do? I'm sure if they had written it such that one person was responsible for everything, a similar comment would have been written - "why make one person the scapegoat? The entire team should take responsibility!!"

I don't know anything about your experience working in software, but when there's a fuck up like this, it doesn't do any good to pin the blame on one person. You figure out where your systems failed, and fix the system after conducting a blame free review. If you start pointing fingers within the team, you'll never get anything fixed.

The email they sent out to actual users was signed "The Quora Team"

Per your second comment, that's fine as long as you have a flat responsibility structure (which usually means a flat pay structure too).

If you have a CEO they get paid more (supposedly) because they take on responsibilities. So, the buck should stop with the highest ranked officer who has responsibility (eg signs off payments/work) in that area.

If you don't assign blame, you can never improve your team, as there's no feedback. Assigning blame might mean retraining, it doesn't have to mean sacking (but could).

The email I received from about my real-name being leaked was signed with "The Quora Team". That's kinda ironic, don't you think?

But still, it is not about finger pointing and blaming one individual. It is about a spokeperson for the public.

The guarantee that things will improve. Someone who will handle announcements and communications with the public and will vouch using their real name and reputation that things will improve. Someone who will explain what went wrong and what actions are taken to ensure this does not happen again. Employee training in place? Tier'ed access of data and information to employees. Stricter policies, eg you can't take a database backup home? etc etc.

Again, no crucifixation required, but pinning an identity can be good, because you know that there is someone and who that someone is that puts all their energy into fixing this mess.

Think of someone like Stamos at facebook. I don't know if his contribution in the end was a net positive or not, but it is good to know that there is someone that is focused on the issue.

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