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Comment by remus | Hacker News Reader

> People, including myself, feel this should legally be the bank's problem. Someone pretended to be the account owner and the bank gave them money. That seems pretty clearly the bank at fault

I think it is a little more nuanced. While I think banks should shoulder more of the responsibility account owners also need to be invested in keeping their personal information secure. If I left my passport, driving license, pin, password, phone (unlocked of course) and 5 years of bank statements by the side of the road a stranger could pick those up and pretend to be me with very little effort, and the bank would be very hard pushed to distinguish the stranger from the real person. If it was purely the bank's problem what incentive would there be for people to secure their information? They'd just reclaim the loss back from the bank.

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But we didn't ask the bank for any of this. They can just check my fingerprint each time I go to an ATM and provide no card, and I'll survive. They built these systems, we can't do without them anymore, and on top of it I have to secure their identity checks?

Someone stole 2k$ from me by using my CC number recently. Well, awesome, why wasn't there even an OTP ? When I want to buy a 10$ crap on Amazon they send me 3 SMS... They leave these things a bit open to reduce friction, they have to pay for it. My bank paid me back the same day, and that was the least they could do.

You’d survive, but loose your fingers in the next robbery…

Plus, fingerprint is super unreliable. Every time I’m hand sanding a wood project, or go windsurfing or wingfoiling for a couple of hours, my fingerprints are unusable for some days.

> If I left my passport, driving license, pin, password, phone (unlocked of course) and 5 years of bank statements by the side of the road a stranger could pick those up and pretend to be me with very little effort, and the bank would be very hard pushed to distinguish the stranger from the real person.

Until you report those items as stolen, after which they should be not useful at all. Especially the 5 years of bank statements should have no power of authenticating you.

> Until you report those items as stolen, after which they should be not useful at all.

But if it's all on the bank (and to generalise, the other party trying to authenticate the request) why would you report the items stolen? You've got no incentive to do that.

Im exaggerating of course, but the point is that authentication is really difficult if the party you're trying to authenticate isn't motivated to work with you (and why would you be if there's no cost to you if a mistake is made?)

Yes, you are exaggerating. Your argument is that we should not make any improvements unless we can achieve utopia.

Imagine a world where bank fraud was only possible in that rare scenario you described, and then only for a limited amount of time since you can be required to report loss of identity documents, and then only for transactions that cannot be reverted in time, and even then financial liability might be pushed on to the bank(/'s insurance). That'd solve practically all of the current day bank fraud, without in any way solving your hypothetical.

> Your argument is that we should not make any improvements unless we can achieve utopia.

Not at all. As I said originally:

> I think it is a little more nuanced. While I think banks should shoulder more of the responsibility account owners also need to be invested in keeping their personal information secure.

Some of the comments on this article just strike me as quite idealistic about the ability of banks to bear full responsibility for authentication and authorisation. Practically, I think it works more smoothly when both parties are invested.

>Some of the comments on this article just strike me as quite idealistic about the ability of banks to bear full responsibility for authentication and authorisation. Practically, I think it works more smoothly when both parties are invested.

I agree, although I'd say it was the banks that need to be more invested, not their customers.

I take significant precautions to maintain the security of my account details and debit/credit cards. My bank is, to say the least, inconsistent about such things. If I travel more than 50 miles (~80km) from my home and attempt to use my debit card, my bank will sometimes (but not always) decline such transactions unless I call them and authenticate myself. Then again, I just had to cancel my debit card, as someone was using it in the Dominican Republic (I live in the US/Northeast) -- and my bank just approved the charges without question.

And so, because my bank doesn't enforce its anti-fraud rules consistently, I get the worst of both worlds -- declined valid charges when I travel, and approved fraudulent charges when fraud is definitely more likely. Sigh.

Edit: Clarified why the Dominican Republic wasn't likely as a valid place for my debit card to be used.

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