Fury at Facebook as login requests “Government ID”
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Everything from the idea of "legally changed his name" to "same-sex marriage" illustrates the problems of turning to city hall for approval or consent of individuals' and families' deeply personal and private matters.
I wish the US had two more constitutional amendments: our bodies are property belonging to us individually and we are free to do with them as we please (solves abortion debate, war on drugs, assisted suicide, et c) and that government has no authority to regulate private familial matters such as what terms we use to call ourselves, what terms we use to call our loved ones, or who is within or without our families and the terms we use to refer to them (solves the current state of marriage inequality for homosexual relationships and also the discrimination against families that practice nonmonogamy, as well as any other oppressive status-quo reinforcement these assholes may come up with in the future).
It takes a very special kind of oppressor to tell you what words you are allowed to use to call yourself, what things you are allowed to do to your own body, and who you are allowed to love and allow into your family.
> special kind of oppressor to tell you ... who you are allowed to love and allow into your family.
They don't. You can have a polygamous marriage all you want, you can have an open marriage, you can be as gay as you want.
However, husband, wife, father, mother, son, daughter and what not also have legal ramifications, and that is where the law has domain. It has nothing to do with any morality associated with the relationships.
The gay marriage issues stem from a misunderstanding, willful or otherwise, of that. The marriage the state cares about is the contract between two adults, it doesn't give a damn about your morals or god.
No, you can't. It's illegal in most states (see how the "Big Love" family had to move due to pending prosecution in Utah).
> you can be as gay as you want.
Not if you're male - sodomy is illegal in many states (despite a Supreme Court ruling that pretty much shuts them down) in the US, and many other countries entirely [1].
> [The law] has nothing to do with any morality associated with the relationships.
Laws are derived from the morality of their times. The laws against murder, and exceptions thereof, are based on what society believes is wrong and right.
Even if the law is on the books in some states, it cannot be enforced due to the ruling in Lawrence v. Texas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas). Also, sodomy is not limited to gay men (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy).
> Laws are derived from the morality of their times. The laws against murder, and exceptions thereof, are based on what society believes is wrong and right.
Certainly there are laws based on morality, but it's absurd to claim that all laws are. Laws regarding the legal status of married people also help standardize common relationships. Can you imagine having to precisely define your non-married long-term relationship every time you fill out a form at the doctor's office or bank? The legal concept of marriage exists largely to codify the shared responsibility of each spouse when it comes to contracts, financial obligations, child care, etc.
>No, you can't. It's illegal in most states (see how the "Big Love" family had to move due to pending prosecution in Utah).
Yes you can, you can not however have more than one legal wife. You can marry wife #1 (marriage certificate) and this person will be the only wife the law cares about. You can then have any religious or whatever ceremony to marry any number of other women and you can all live together any way you wish. You can do this because the state doesn't care about the religious ceremony. You can not legally marry more than one woman, the women must know they are taking part in a polyamorous relationship and they can not be coerced into it. Again, the legal definition of marriage and what you call being married do not have to match.
As a side not, it is basically impossible to find what you are referring to with 'the "Big Love" family' since it appears to be a TV show as well. So I can't say anything about it.
> Not if you're male - sodomy is illegal in many states (despite a Supreme Court ruling that pretty much shuts them down) in the US, and many other countries entirely.
This is the best example of how the law and individuals differ. Legally (in the US), sodomy is defined as any sexual contact other than vaginal intercourse. Ever had a blow job? Congratulations, you could be charged. It has noting to do with being male, lesbianism would be charged with sodomy as well.
In the US, you can be as gay as you want.
> > No, you can't. It's illegal in most states (see how the "Big Love" family had to move due to pending prosecution in Utah).
> Yes you can, you can not however have more than one legal wife. You can marry wife #1 (marriage certificate) and this person will be the only wife the law cares about.
Whether this is true or not depends on the details of the state law, but its certainly not true in, e.g., Utah, where the relevant statute [1] looks at cohabitation as well:
(1) A person is guilty of bigamy when, knowing he has a husband or wife or knowing the other person has a husband or wife, the person purports to marry another person or cohabits with another person.
(2) Bigamy is a felony of the third degree.
(3) It shall be a defense to bigamy that the accused reasonably believed he and the other person were legally eligible to remarry.
[1] Utah Code, tit. 76, chap. 7, sec. 101; http://le.utah.gov/code/TITLE76/htm/76_07_010100.htm
Presumably -- and I am somewhat embarrassed to be able to catch this mistake -- you are referring to the actual family featured on the reality show "Sister Wives" [1], not the fictional family featured on the show "Big Love".
Yes and no. Some laws are universal wrong - like murder. However, government laws like banning drugs are based on the feelings and opinions of the people at the time.
Both of these are evident from the history of civilizations. Murder has always been wrong - drugs not so.
In some jurisdictions, the state can decide that you are formally and legally married even if you have never filed for a marriage license[1].
Like it or not, what the state thinks about your relationships can impact your life enormously.
You get a divorce from one wife. What does she get?
These are just two things off the top of my head that throw a monkey wrench in things making the 'just abolish it' not quite as simple.
As for 'state-sponsored discrimination and harassment' just no. That is people and their attitudes, legality has nothing to do with it. Blacks weren't seen as equals and without harassment just because slavery became illegal and they could vote. Homosexuality is legal, but again, individuals don't harass based on legal status.
You are conflating legal issues with personal views of morality, they are not the same thing and have very little to do with each other.
I do. In the contract.
You get a divorce from one wife. What does she get?
Whatever the contract says.
Any other questions?
Any number of unimaginable situations could come up, which wouldn't be covered by a contract, and which a human being has to make a decision that directly affects your life.
How do you handle loans? If I have 30k in debt, and I marry into a polygamous marriage, do the other spouses carry my debt? What if I die, then who owes the money? Not all tricky legal issues can be covered with a "well let's just make a contract."
> How do you handle loans? If I have 30k in debt, and I marry into a polygamous marriage, do the other spouses carry my debt?
I don't even know how this works with two people. I was under the impression that finances are separate unless you deliberately merge them, and that doing so is orthogonal to marriage.
Exactly. That's the problem I have with marriage. So much for the rule against perpetuities, among other things.
Not all tricky legal issues can be covered with a "well let's just make a contract."
Sure they can. If one Fortune 500 company merges with another, the resulting contracts are thick enough to fill multiple heavy leather-bound volumes the size of major metropolitan telephone books. The lawyers are paid to think of everything that could go wrong.
So it's not debatable that an adequate legal framework for simple domestic partnerships can exist, it's just that for some reason, people don't bother.
Since a marriage is always complete within the lifetime of a person living at the time it is formed, it has no problem with the rule against perpetuities.
To the best of my knowledge, only the institution of marriage and the Church of Scientology offer a deal like that.
A judge might blink at it, but not because of the Rule Against Perpetuities, which, generally, requires that a valid interest must vest within 21 years after the death of some person alive at the time the interest was formed.
A contract in which all obligations are complete at the end of any life in existence at the time the contract is formed may be invalid for any of a variety of reasons, but the Rule Against Perpetuities isn't one of them.
> To the best of my knowledge, only the institution of marriage and the Church of Scientology offer a deal like that.
Contracts granting life interests in real estate, which are also valid under the rule against perpetuities and were quite common when the rule first came into existence also involve commitments of similar duration. Commitments that last the length of a particular life (of a long fixed period of time, like 99 years) are not at all uncommon in contracts.
When blacks became legal equals it went a long way towards their being considered cultural equals throughout society. The underlying motives for harassment may not be due to someone's legal status, but the legally endowing someone with less rights because of their race/sex/orientation/etc gives a lot of ammo to people who want to harass them.
> "Your wife can mandate health care when you are otherwise incapable. You have 7 wives. Who has final say."
Unless otherwise specified, the first wife could have final say. Or the last. Any consistent system would work here. Important decisions about your health and property should really be decided and specified in advance by the individual.
> "You get a divorce from one wife. What does she get?"
<value of assets subject to forfeiture due to divorce>/<number of wives pre-divorce> seems reasonable. These are not hard problems. Courts exist to settle exactly these issues.
The parent comment expressed a moral principle that it is wrong for any government to usurp your authority to form relationships according to your own desires or to legally recognize or withhold legal recognition (where necessary) from relationships in which it has no business. You are looking at implementation details and saying that because a change of this magnitude causes some practical problems (which would not be surprising) the moral premise is flawed.
Establishing a rule for priority in this situation is fairly straightforward. The most obvious rule is to support a pre-need declaration of priority if one exists, and otherwise default to an oldest-marriage priority.
> You get a divorce from one wife. What does she get?
This is essentially an identical issue to dissolution of a partnership with more than two partners, and as such is pretty well already solved by the legal system.
Let's pick drugs. Half of the drugs regulations deal with keeping you from killing yourself, which your approach would simplify (although sounds like a variant of "let's solve stupidity by removing warning labels and let the problem sort itself"). The other half, however, is how this change would affect society as a whole, and drug addicts are a burden on society (see: homelessness, hospital costs, correlation with violent crimes, impaired drivers hurting others, etc).
Of course, we know you would never become a dangerous addict lying in the streets arguing with yourself, but you can be damn right that I almost certainly would. And that's why, as I see it, Society (represented by the Government) jumps in and says "no drugs for either of you".
The other points follow a similar line of thinking.
Indeed, we have attempted it. Remember prohibition? We still have myriad addicts, have wasted unconscionable amounts of money, and senselessly ruined staggering amounts of lives attempting to pretend that society has claims to or on the physical body of an individual.
If the "burden on society" argument was in any way real, cigarettes and alcohol would be outlawed. It's simply a red herring.
Those are consecuences of being outlawed, not of consuming substances. Blame the prohibition and not the substances. The proof of this is simple: just compare. Compare people drinking coffee today and in 19th century Russia (where it was prohibited). Compare people drinking alcohol today and in early 20th century USA. Compare people using opiates today and in the roman empire...
I'm not saying that position is right or wrong; I'm just saying that said position exists.
Not trying to start any debate (I promise), but I would say it does solve the issue with abortion, because there is a human body in the womb, and would therefore have rights protecting it from being killed.
I have a really hard time understanding how some can claim that a body in one location is human, but that body in another location is non-human. How should it be classified? Is it even homo sapien or a different species (or no species)? Is a baby half delivered half human?
The argument is really whether or not women have the right to kill that human body, or whether or not that human body in her womb has any rights on its own to live.
edit: spelling
IMO, both positions—the fetus is "my body" and I can do what I want with it—and—the fetus is a full human being, a person, like everyone else—are disingenuous. It's okay that a fetus be neither, and that we have special rules governing that situation. A fetus doesn't have to fit into pre-existing categories.
This is all word play. If you look up the etymology of the word, fetus at one time even referred to the newborn. The only thing distinguishing a fetus from a human these days is a fancy, made-up definition.
Last though, if we change the definition of fetus to mean "full human being in the womb," would it then make it morally right? It's interesting that the morality of this issue hangs on what Merriam-Webster has to say.
Actually, it is a physiological difference from other stages of development of the human organism: a fetus doesn't breath. It's also not a physically-independent organism, it's attached to another (adult, female) human. Those two characteristics alone are enough to distinguish a fetus from every other category of human (newborn to adult). Fetuses are also a specific age, specifically, the 9th week after fertilization extending until the time the fetus is born—whenever that is.
As I said, there's nothing wrong with placing a fetus into it's own category of what constitutes a human, just like we do already with newborns, infants, toddlers, children, pre-teens, teens, young adults, adults, middle-aged, and the elderly.
We also have different sets of laws for all of these categories. (For example, the elderly get free health care, teens can't have sex with young adults, adults, and older, and people under 21 can't drink alcohol outside the home, etc.)
There's no contradiction with deciding that a fetus is its own category, and still saying "you can't kill a fetus". But trying to win the argument by saying a fetus is a "full human being in the womb", and that's why you can't kill it, as you suggest, isn't going to fly: you can't win an argument simply by redefining the words that you use, by eliminating distinctions that do, in reality, exist, so that your own preferred morality becomes the only choice.
Actually, you seem to be endorsing "word play" by trying to deny that such a thing as a "fetus" even exists, even though literally every single person reading this comment knows what a fetus is, and knows that it's not a newborn, adult, elderly, or any other category of human you seem to want to combine it with.
That fact that everyone can distinguish a fetus from every other form of human is prima facie proof that "fetus" as a category of humanity is valid. What laws should apply to a fetus are secondary, and must be established independently, not by trying to merge it with some other category so that your preferred set of pre-existing laws apply.
-----
As an aside, efforts on the pro-life side to make human-ness the defining, end-all be-all attribute that gives an organism a "right to life" are misguided as well. We recognize numerous situations where humans do not have a "right to life". Here's a few:
- The human has committed first degree murder, and been sentenced to death in a jurisdiction that does capital punishment. That human no longer has a "right to life".
- A human is attacking another human, and is killed in self-defense. That human also does not have a "right to life".
- You're at war. Any human acting in a military fashion on the other side, who has not already surrendered, does not have a "right to life". You can (and are supposed to) kill them on sight.
(And there are more.)
So, merely being "human" does not grant an organism a right to life. It's always a contingent right, and obviously "up to the humans who create and enforce the laws", not on some universal law or morality or whatever. We take away the "right to life" of other humans whenever it seems right or necessary to do so.
Given all that, a fetus is clearly a human organism in a bit of a pickle: it can't breath, it's physically attached to the mother, for much of it's time as a fetus it's not even viable outside the womb, etc. There are clearly two humans involved whenever we are talking about a fetus, which if you'll notice in the examples earlier where a right to life does not exist, is a feature of all of them.
IMO, pro-lifers would get farther if they treated human fetuses as the separate category they actually are, and built up a case why we should curb some or all of the rights of the other human involved, in favor of the fetus. I believe such an argument can be made from first principles, not by appeal to a non-existent "right to life" that supposedly all human organisms have (even though they don't, as show above).
I did want to make one clarification while trying not to be "that guy" who's always trying to get the last word. In my comment, I wasn't trying to redefine what a fetus is, but rather trying point out that the fetus is in fact a human, and humans are endued certain rights that are naturally theirs (which are apart from government laws), one of which I believe is the right to life (especially innocent humans). If this right does not exist apart from governments, but rather exists because of governments, then we really don't have a common ground on which to argue.
I was also saying that the word fetus at one point could be referred to newborns, so the definition (like with many words) has changed down through the years. Words are words, and they are only helpful for us to get to the essence of something. My question I'm trying to get to is, when we talk of a fetus, to what are we referring?
I will concede any last words to you, sir, if you wish. Thank you again! And sorry for all the parenthesis.
That is the debate. Your statement is tautological.
So what about the rights of the mother to suicide? Don't those rights conflict?
Plus, we would want to be very careful with pregnant women wanting to commit suicide, because their body is going through so much stuff at the time. Those desires could very well be contrary to what the woman is really living for. A pregnant woman with suicidal desires (in OP's argument) should be seen as someone who needs assistance to live, not assistance to die.
Again, just stepping inside that thinking and not necessarily arguing for/against OP's argument.
Never has a legal name been an only name. Chinese names ,nicknames, Jewish names all exist.
You don't.
You have a contract with the person currently calling themselves John Doe. When they call themselves Jo Doe and then Jack Bob and then etc it's still the same person.
Currently in England you're allowed to call youself what you want, so long as you don't have the intention to deceive. In practice, 'deed poll' or marriage certificate are handy if you want people such as banks or doctors or airlines to actually use your new name.
You should try it.
It's not that simple for people that aren't in the same circles as HN readers. Younger generations utilize it as their primary means of keeping in touch with people. That's fine if you get along well without it. But take a step back and look at all the teenagers who grew up with never not having Facebook to keep in touch with their friends/setup events/etc. You remember how difficult the social aspect of your younger days were in school.
Facebook/Twitter/Instagram alleviate some of that for the younger generation. I've seen that in many youth that I've worked with over the years.
It seems you are talking about boils down to peer pressure ... how many after school specials about how not to give in do we need?
Facebook is a subset of Internet communication just as driving is a subset of texting scenarios.
The idea here is not simply about using an existing alternative network. The idea is that creating an alternative network is always a possibility, and that free will exists.
The "network effect", while a real observable phenomenon, is still a flawed rationalization for the existence of a network, and undermines that thing which actually propagates the network - the free will of the individual.
Now teaching kids how to properly use technology and social media is another aspect that many non-tech savy parents could use some coaching I think.
My friends never send SMS any more, they use Facebook messenger. Nobody asks you for your phone number, they ask to add you on Facebook. Nobody invites anyone to anything without creating a Facebook event.
If I suddenly leave Facebook I am certain I'll also lose out on a lot of social life.
What do you use for instant messages? Do you just use email a lot more?
I really wish some kind of distributed social network could take off the way Facebook has. I do not want anyone to keep my data as much as the next guy, but if you want to be a social person in 2013 (at least here), you kind of need to have a Facebook account.
A guy I met at the start of the semester is a german exchange student. He had to create a Facebook account when he got here because pretty much everything happens on Facebook. Some things do not even have their own website, just a Facebook page.
> If I suddenly leave Facebook I am certain I'll also lose out on a lot of social life.
This. You can't expect people to set up and populate their own mailing lists to notify everybody they want to invite to their birthday party or share news of their engagement.
I hate it too, but the reality is that being off facebook means losing touch with people that you don't have to lose touch with. Very, very few people will make an effort above and beyond the default choice these days (facebook events) to notify/invite you to stuff that involves more than a half-dozen people.
...am I the only one who remembers "The Telephone Game" from pre-school?
You wouldn't be contributing much to FB's market research efforts, but that's OK; you'll still be able to connect with schoolmates and cousins and get invited to parties.
I think this is the genesis of it all: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2184658/Is-joining-F...
The good news is "real life" still works perfectly fine for social interactions and a positive side effect is another source of distractions eliminated - I'm a fan of http://focusmanifesto.com/
You perhaps need to find smarter friends then.
All I can think of when I see this on other people's screens (though most of the app invite spam has been taken care of): "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." Eleanor Roosevelt
Edit: I guess there is a obvious solution, you and all your friends hosts personal mail-servers, correct?
Texting is expensive and regional, and nobody uses email, wants to remember email addresses or IM handles, or deal with spam. WhatsApp totally fucked themselves by not running on tablets.
For lots of people, the most effective way to reach them quickly is facebook messaging. That's fact, not opinion, and how intrusive or shitty facebook is totally irrelevant to that point.
Not having a facebook account means that you are sabotaging your own communications effectiveness.
This is an absurd statement - over 1 billion people use email, far more than actively use FB messages.
Many people use facebook messaging as their primary form of text communication these days.
Many people don't. I've never had an account and never had a problem in my professional or social life as a result. It's just never come up. If your friends all use Facebook, tell them it's a bad idea (for many, many reasons, including the one pointed out here) and to contact you with email/phone/text/twitter whatever other method they prefer. If they can't be bothered, they are not your friends.
Either they go to FB or DM over Twitter or some other "social thing", but they view email as far more cumbersome. This is especially true with family these days as the first question I get is, "are you on Facebook". It's an inescapable part of society nowadays in that they view the site as something-other-than-internet and more user-friendly, more quick and more "connected", if that's the operative word, than email.
Sending/receiving text is over FB chat is still viewed as preferable to the not so straightforward method of email. Even the venerable IRC is viewed as less acceptable; "wait, don't I need a client or something for that? Won't I get viruses and stuff?" Never mind the fact that they still need a mobile client to chat over FB or Twitter, but they view it as "it came with the phone".
Bottom line: FB and Twitter have taken over communication where email once ruled for the vast majority of people I interact with. They can't be bothered with email, but they still are my friends and family.
If someone can't be bothered to send you an e-mail or call, you might want to reconsider how close those people are to you.
Indeed, it would be very neat if the world worked that way. Unfortunately, I have, and they are, and they don't use email.
I was on facebook for ~2 years, was off for five, and have been back on for about a month. The frequency and quality of communication with almost everyone I care about and don't see often (I moved continents from where I grew up) has increased dramatically.
I'm in a similar boat, almost.
A few years ago I finally succumbed to getting on FB. But after a few months I got spooked again, because of this seemingly never-ending barrage of FB-related privacy scandals at the time (and due to my interests I got a lot of such news). So I deleted the whole thing--wait no I merely shut down the account, they'd never let me delete the whole thing hahahaha :)
But currently I'm really on the fence of going back again. Because so many people around me use it as their primary mode of communication. Privacy-wise not much has changed, and "thanks" to the NSA scandals, I now know it's a lost cause whether I'm on FB or not. Use has gone way up. My meditation group plans all their things on FB and I have to use email or text to get in the loop :) They don't mind, fortunately, but it is cumbersome.
I dunno why I'm telling you this, but your last line, tell me more :) I need some convincing I guess, before I bite the bullet and go there. How many accounts should I need, you think? :)
>If someone can't be bothered to send you an e-mail or call, you might want
to reconsider how close those people are to you.
If I send anything to it I need to tell her (in person, text, twitter, facebook messenger, skype - pretty much anything but email) to check it.
She has switched off notifications on her phone because all she gets are marketing messages, spam and stuff from old people (ie me and her mum).
E-mail clients need to be reinvented. There's no real reason for e-mail operation to be cumbersome. I mean, we have such a wonderful, decentralized, asynchronous messaging protocol based on pure text; why do most (if not virtually all) client applications suck so badly?
BBM would have been the ideal email replacement (it's also still extremely popular in Asia), but too bad it's proprietary and centralized.
- Spam is basically non-existent in FB messaging.
- Mobile e-mail clients are hard to set up and use (for average folk).
This is demonstrably false, and suggests that you don't like people very much.
And yet you have neglected to demonstrate it. No misanthropy here thanks, you should adjust your assumptions. Perhaps we just disagree on the meaning of the word friend - I'd take it to mean someone who you know outside of FB and via other means of communication, someone who is willing to put in the minimal effort of emailing/texting/calling to contact you individually? Someone who doesn't I would consider an acquaintance at best.
If you make a decision to remain on FB and find it valuable, that's totally fine, but don't try to extend your judgement of its utility and experience of communication to everyone.
The people who'd do this are exactly those people I don't feel any need to communicate with. Is it work-related? E-mail and sometimes phone are given. Is it not work-related, but urgent? I still have a phone. Is that costly? Perhaps, but if you have six urgent things to communicate every day, perhaps you have a much worse problem than having to pay a lot of money. Is it anything else? Well, what could it be? I have no idea.
Frankly, this whole "you have to live a hectic social life, everyone's doing it!" movement puzzles me.
Okay, so you're a snob. Doesn't change the fact that you're shooting yourself in the foot.
There's nothing about wanting to be able to effectively communicate with people who use facebook messaging as their primary form of textual comms that dictates or necessitates a hectic social life.
No, I'm just an introvert. I have a few people to who I feel deeply connected to, and our exchanges are rare yet substantial. But these don't require IM or anything like that. I don't know anything about "shooting myself in the foot". I just don't have the impulses that some other people do (frankly, for me as a schizoid, people are very puzzling entities).
Also, "effectively communicate" is such wonderfully non-specific expression that I don't know what that even means.
Maybe if your social group consists of teenage girls, but who uses Facebook for serious communication these days? What I see from my newsfeed is a mixture of a photo repository, a phone book, and a "I'm passing through town are you available" bit. I don't recall having ever been hindered seriously by having a deactivated account.
EDIT: I should also note that this wasn't true 4-6 years ago, but I was also still in school.
Sideloading never "easily fix[es]" anything that needs to happen on hundreds of millions of mobile devices owned largely by nontechnical users.
Network effect, remember?
I hate facebook's privacy implications, I sympathize with his views. But facebook, the platform, is actually useful to me so I continue to use until a better alternative comes out.
have a look at the freedom box instead: https://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/
Even if I don't trust facebook, I still trust them more than a random individual running a server.
Hopefully there are some solution for this? Perhaps server operators don't actually see any unencrypted data?
The benefit of using a diaspora server operated by someone you trust is the decentralization. Facebook gets EVERYTHING about EVERYBODY, diaspora server operators only get everything about the users on their particular server.
I believe the only way to properly implement a social network is not to trust anyone but your friends. I'm thinking something like a freenet-like apporach, everybody in the network holds a little bit of encypted data, but only the ones you have accepted as friends will be able to see your data unencrypted.
In a discussion we once had in class, I mentioned that an option that hadn't been listed besides Facebook, Google+, Diaspora, etc was "none of the above". I got bewildered stares of disbelief in return.
Maybe that'll change when they reach a University age, but it was striking how few of them used it.
Over the coming decade, Facebook will become an older person's social network (35+). They'll completely lose the youth demographic.
The least cool thing is to be where everybody else is, your parents and teachers included. This effect is already hitting Facebook.
To me it's either people who can't be bothered or people who actually care, are knowledgeable enough and value their time and privacy.
I "deleted" my account about 18 month ago to no ill effect, whatsoever (except having more time for more worthy ventures)
I really don't mean to take the piss on you, but I'm constantly surprised in how people perceive Facebook and other social networks as an absolutely essential utility. Like phone service, electricity, water, or even financial services.
I vehemently don't feel this to be the case.
There's so much trash, hostility and political arguing on Facebook these days, at least on my network. Some days it reminds me of a dramatically bigger version of MySpace.
So, Facebook asks for an ID to verify your identity because your account as behaving suspiciously. What's the downside of this? Are government agents going to burst into your home and arrest you?
2. You give Facebook your ID.
3. Facebook gets hacked.
4. Someone uses your identity to commit a crime.
5. Government agents burst into your home and arrest you.
Or they get credit cards in your name and run your credit score into the ground, which would likely take years to clear up (if ever).
Next up: Facebook isn't sure you're really the gender, height, and weight you say you are. Please provide full body nude photos for verification.
We started http://www.nymrights.org to combat issues like this. One of our long term goals is to get companies to adopt policies preventing data demands like this unless sufficient protections (read, laws) are in place. (if you're a company debating adopting such a policy, I'd love to chat!)
Second, if you're European, check out the European Court of Human Rights, which offers protection against privacy intrusions like this. It's worth noting that some countries get more specific: Germany has the Telemedia Act, which specifically protects against problems like this.
I can refuse to let you into my house if you won't show me your passport. If you don't have a passport, then I can just refuse to let you in no matter what. How does that change if I'm running a business? Or a web-site?
Surely it would be better to focus on supply rather than demand. If government ID is mandatory for everyone (e.g. Germany, Belgium), then it makes it easy for businesses to demand to see it. If government ID is entirely optional (e.g. UK) then insisting on seeing it will exclude too many potential customers.
If FB asks me for government-issued photo ID, then they will effectively be kicking me out - I'm not going to go through the rigmarole of applying for a passport just to get a FB log on.
The Telemedia Act specifically allows use of non-government-issued ID online. This has been the subject of a big lawsuit with Facebook: http://fusion.net/modern_life/story/german-state-fine-facebo...
Regarding the second set of questions, that's the big question right now. IANAL, but the "my house" is a domicile related context. While Facebook is not a domicile, they are a company, and a company can set their own policies. The challenge is that the people using Facebook aren't really employees, and they are using it like a public forum, which it isn't. There are a lot of social issues revolving around this. There's also the 3rd party doctrine to take into account (which incidentally is how NSA is justifying a lot of their monitoring).
In terms of government ID being mandatory, you have two issues: one, that while many countries do have a national ID, the US does not. Second, if you require an ID for a website, then you run into all kinds of issues: data retention, access privilege, fraud problems, etc. South Korea had a related law which they abandoned in 2012 after several years, and China just adopted one.
So the general answer is "it's complicated, it's a discussion much longer than a hnn thread offers, and nobody really knows yet." Hope that helped :)
I can refuse to let you into my house if you won't show me your passport. If you don't have a passport, then I can just refuse to let you in no matter what. How does that change if I'm running a business? Or a web-site?
Well they basically say "It's illegal to ask for and store personal information like that". "Fine", you say, "I'll just deny you access unless you do this and that". "Fine", they say, "We'll see you in court".
It's like anti-discrimination law. Sure you're free to run a business, but there are legal limits to what you can do.
Well, you would presumably be keeping some kind of record of my ID. Perhaps you write down my name, date of birth, and passport number. As a business, in the UK you would have to (amongst other obligations):
* Not keep the data any longer than is necessary * Update any inaccuracies in the data upon request * Tell me what data you are keeping upon request
It's not about asking for data, it's about what you do after I give it to you. (NB to those wanting to know more about this, these particular obligations are due to the Data Protection Act)
(Then again, I'm sure FB hold on to data like thieving magpies, so the idea that they would delete your passport number/image/whatever once they have it is, I agree, laughable.)
I would suggest looking at the Data Protection law, rather than ECHR, since that takes many years. Everyone not in the USA and Canada with a Facebook account is covered by Irish Data Protection Law. Contact the Irish Data Protection Commissioner (or check their website) to see what your rights are http://dataprotection.ie/
I'm pretty sure they can't. They want you to send a scan of some photo-id - that means that all the anti-tamper / anti-forgery tech that might be on the actual ID will be non-existent.
If you are lying about who you are, it will take about 10 minutes in photoshop to come up with something that will pass their test.
Are there any countries that even provide validation services that facebook could use? As I recall, South Korea used to require residents to provide their national ID numbers to access most (all?) in-country websites. That ended up producing a ton of identity theft so they repealed that law.
I'm guessing there are other countries that provides this?
Not everything is open to everyone though. My company had access to some of this, it was nice. (Edit: nice as in, it made our life easier.)
For most of these services, all you need to access results is a subset of the relevant information. There is no requirement to register or authenticate, but they do seem to have crude forms of rate limiting in place.
Probably the hardest thing to get is someone's ID number, but it doesn't sound like that is a secret. If you do have those three things, you can look them up in this system and then photoshop a fake-id that will pass anything facebook can verify via that system too.
An experienced lock smith could open an average house hold lock in probably minutes. (not to forget most people are neither skilled lock smiths nor photoshop editors)
That doesn't mean a locked home isn't secure. Most people would never think about breaching such a social contract and breaking in locks.
If one wants to break in or if one wants to lie, one can always do. Most people would never do; for the rest, it is a different problem really.
Doesn't mean you can't do it and maybe get away with it, but now if you are caught, the state can press charges and put you in jail. Which is quite probably good enough for facebook, they wouldn't neccesarily get any additional value from actually validating you with the government somehow.
I wonder if there even is a test. Do they have a file of samples of all possible government-accepted types of ID across the world ?
It'd take me 1 minute in MS Paint because that's what ID cards look like in Belgium. Honest.
Some of the accounts have been hacked.
You locked the accounts as a security measure.
Now you need to validate that some person is the actual owner of the account.
How would you solve this problem? (Sending a code via text message to the owners mobile device wont work in every case since old accounts didn't have to validate via phone number on registration)
You never had a government id to begin with. Maybe my government id doesn't match my account name (I know.. I violated the rules in that case.. Oh I am sooo bad). Maybe there are people with similar/the same name.
How would you make sure that 'government id' presenting person A is really the person that created any specific account?
If you cannot recover the account with the means you were provided during registration/normal usage, bad luck. Government ids won't help here. Ignoring the problems of 'faking' those (how can you judge that these documents are valid if you just get a crappy picture/a xerox or whatever, in lots of languages?) to do more harm than good.
Still, in some cases it could be a quick solution to unlock an account. (account name matches id, no telephone number available, email validation unsafe for some reason)
Before I get in to it, we need to correct a misconception on your part: using a government ID doesn't work in every case. It turns out hackers know how to forge government ID images, and some of FB's users don't have government IDs (for instance, before I turned 16 all I had was a private school id).
With that out of the way, I think they should do what you suggested: sms verification. Email verification also works. As does postal mail. As does credit card charge. As does ACH charge. As does paypal charge. As does "send in a photo of you with a shoe on your head". As does having a user's friends vouch for them (they call their friends and ask). As do a lot of things.
Facebook should look closely at whatever attacker they are trying to lock out, and make several methods of ownership verification available. Maybe require two?
Requiring IDs just isn't a particularly good way to do it, and has bad PR effects these days.
> Facebook should look closely at whatever attacker they are trying to lock out, and make several methods of ownership verification available. Maybe require two?
We might already see that, at least I have been prompted to validate once via email and once via text message before.
And then there are those questions Facebook asked me about some of my friends (do you know this person, is he/she real) which are obviously related to account verification in some way.
I also agree that it isn't smart to ask for IDs after all those NSA revelations.
This is probably the most "Facebook" of the options. They already do something similar for some account lockout situations ("identify 5 photos of your friends to gain access").
If they go further and use photos that people are tagged in, then it also has problems of people being tagged in photos they are not present in to get their attention.
For example, in my friends list only around 70% of people have photos of themselves as their profile picture. Boy/Girlfriends and babies are the next most common picture.
Even if you recognise the specific picture, it might not be helpful. For example, two of my friends are dating, and use the same picture with both of them in it for their Facebook profile pictures.
Really? I don't use FB so I can't verify, but that sounds like an epic security hole for prankers, stalkers, ex's, and abusive spouses.
Also I remember reading an article (from HN) where some guy hacked a facebook account (if I recall correctly) and that was one of the steps (he and the hacked one where friends and coworkers so they had lots of friends in commmon)
I'm no FB fan, but if they are using friends pictures as a CAPTCHA to verify the authenticator is a human not a automated computer, I grudgingly tip my hat in respect toward them. That would be much more elegant than the usual lame CAPTCHA.
This strikes me as it may become more of a problem as kids abandon FB and older people use it. The kid I sat next to in middle school lunchroom back when Reagan was president, and I clicked "yes" on his friend request out of guilt, well, I have no idea what the heck he looks like now. Ex-girlfriends? Well, I remember really well how she looked when she was 19, but that was a long time ago, and...
Of course FB wouldn't want that, but what they're doing doesn't seem to help user retention either.
I guess an excuse like "you got hacked" helps you get much more important information from your users.
No one is talking about how all of the sudden, a lot of accounts supposedly got "hacked".
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely believe that Facebook would like to link government IDs to each and every account if they could, but trying something like this would be the end of Facebook.
They can't be that stupid.
* A video call with a Facebook agent who verifies you.
* Uploading a picture of yourself holding a card that says 'Facebook', their city and the current date or similar. The city is something that FB can verify with IP address and account profile.
Yes, these aren't 'web scale' methods but I surely hope that they aren't just using OCR to validate Government IDs.
The text on the card could be read by OCR technology and Facebook already is capably of matching your face to your account.
Edit: After thinking some more about it I came to the conclusion that it would be too easy to fake such an image. Anyone with internet access and MS Paint could probably create a fake within 3 minutes.
Also - I'm not sure that it would be a good user experience.
Have a look at how websites which don't require real name and identities do it and there you have your answer. (Or just look at how facebook does it other than requiring ID).
The point is, they already have the means of verifying accounts without requiring mail in of government ID. If this was for a "business page" then uploading company documents etc to verify ownership, particularly in cases of dispute, makes sense but for personal accounts there really is no benefit (except to Facebook for some bizarre reason)
- What's wrong with secret questions?
Of course.
> Why should HN community bother with their problems?
No one has to, I just like to learn something by solving problems, even when those problems are not mine.
> - What's wrong with secret questions?
Probably nothing, I just know that I have always entered garbage into secret question fields, because I knew that I'd never be able to remember the correct answer to the secret question once I needed it.
I liked your answer, but its not a "facebook problem" its a problem for anyone on the internet who has users log into accounts. Probably a large fraction of HN is directly or tangentially involved with that problem.
I'm not saying lock them out for all eternity or whatever, just set up new accounts.
Its not that big of a deal, and seems fairly obvious?
First off, it is important to know that all IT systems have a scale from "weak" to "strong" in security terms. There is no 100% hacker IT proof system. Generally the more secure a system is the more of a hassle it is to use. Seeing as FB has just been accused by Snowden of handing over mass data it has on various users to the NSA, it would be very foolish for them to ask for this sort of very private data especially at this time (when a lot of people don't trust FB)
As for your question, here are some of the security workarounds FB could do instead of asking for a freaking ID (which by the way can easily be forged)
- Don't lock the account, rather suspend it for just a few days telling the user that he should reset his password
- Get a friend (that has been a friend on Facebook for ages, not just a few days) to authenticate the real user (for this to happen it is assumed he must actually contact his friend without using FB as his account is blocked.)
- A simple unique "reset your account password" URL sent to your e-mail address.
- OTP sent to your phone
Those are just some ideas I thought of in a few minutes. I'm sure there are a whole host more.
It's a common escalation in scams and emotional abuse.
I suspect this was related to the earlier news where Obama's facebook was hacked [1]. Some junior dev at FB forgot a WHERE clause at a sql query or did something equally dumb to mitigate this.
[1] http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/10/28/uk-usa-obama-twitte...
I find it hard to justify a use for this type of info online? You can get money-related businesses because of the need to comply legally but why facebook?
Off topic: Does anyone think Google's floating barge is a way to evade compliance when it comes to data monitoring? Theoretically they could go further offshore
the compliance is mainly enforced through the company execs being onshore, not the data/servers. The barges will be waiving 2 Irish flags with 1 Dutch flag in-between at the same time.
https://www.facebook.com/help/385569904840341
Facebook accepts any government-issued ID that contains name and date of birth. Examples include:
Birth certificate, Driver’s license, Passport, Marriage certificate, Official name change paperwork, Personal or vehicle insurance card, Non-driver's government ID (ex. disability, SNAP or national ID card), Green card, residence permit or immigration papers, Social Security card, Voter ID card
If you don't have a government-issued ID, Facebook will also accept two of the following items that combined must show name and date of birth. Examples include:
Bank statement, Bus card, Check, Credit card, Employment verification, Library card, Mail, Magazine subscription stub, Medical record, Membership ID (ex. pension card, union membership, working or professional ID), Paycheck stub, Permit, School card, School record, Utility bill, Yearbook photo (actual scan or photograph of the page in your yearbook), Please cover up any personal information we don't need to verify your identity (ex: credit card number, social security number).
Back before facebook went gigantic people used social networks with avatar like display pics & put up loads of fake data.
It's also much less likely that someone will do it due to the hassle and lack of automation. Though no doubt some hot startup idea is about to be born...
Obviously hijacking an account is illegal, but the means to do it probably aren't: A good number of these 'proves' aren't special, aren't protected documents as far as I can tell. There's nothing illegal about 'forging' a yearbook page.
I'd say these measures are providing nothing but decent ways to hijack an account and have zero legitimate uses as means to identify myself to a random web application.
The same question somewhat applies to government-issued IDs depending on state/country, since many laws regarding falsified IDs only apply to purchasing tobacco/alcohol.
I seriously doubt that the US is going have to have less strict laws regarding forged documents. Just because you think it isn't illegal doesn't mean it actually is.
On the downside it does incur a social cost to do this.
Facebook's brand is more and more thought of negatively and associated more with a bad reputation with how they use their data. At its core the usage is optional and they're testing the waters further and further offshore.
There could come a time user's just don't want to use it anymore or more readily move to an alternative that pops up some day.
The social experience comes from viewing our friends picture's and knowing what they're up to, this is at the core of why we like facebook. Getting our government ID's doesn't help enhance this experience and the social cost of it is way more than the benefits in my opinion.
It's really disgusting to see people willfully submitting to this.
Reducing false accounts and such increases valuation of the data they sit on. When you buy a database of people on the black market it either comes in cheap truckloads of unverified data or expensive chest of verified detailed accounts.
I was able to log in using my credentials (which I store in a keepass database), but since the account had been inactive for so long (I guess?) this was insufficient. After successfully providing my username and passphrase, I was prompted with a security question, the answer to which I did not recall (I had created the account many years ago).
The only remedy, according to Facebook support, was to provide a scan of a government ID (via email, of course). Nevermind that I knew the password. Nevermind that I had access to the email address associated with the account.
I told them I was unwilling to provide this, and they told me I was out of luck. I decided that leaving a phantom, inactive FB account in the wild was better than providing these people with what they wanted, and got on with my life.
After several weeks, I for some reason decided to try again - and at that time all I needed was my passphrase. Why? Who knows. Maybe it was my lucky day.
I don't really know what the takeaway should be, but my personal lesson is that I should probably also store secret questions and answers in a password database, since apparently some services deem them to be required even when I have the passphrase.
Facebook has no such excuse.
I use my card online (because i have to) and I'm constantly checking my accounts for shady transactions but there's no way in hell I share my id on the internet.
Every bit-coin website that asked for this lost my business and if Facebook does the same will happen to them.
In the UK, things like your passport are copyright to The Crown and there's official guidance[1] on how to go about getting permission to make copies of them.
I'd imagine other countries are the same. So Facebook is asking it's users to infringe government copyright.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...
I still haven't entered the ID but I manage one of the pages for a business (I also manage their website, twitter etc.) and I'm either going to have to enter the ID or give up the job.
I can't see any reason Facebook require this. It seems like real scummy practice.
Is there a difference here? I mean, can they still skip the step? The article does not say much. Anyway the design was made such that it was hard to know you could skip the step.
This is a glimpse of the future, if we let it slide. The Internet giants can amend their ToS as they see fit and you will have to comply or get out. And for many people getting out is not an option when all of their immediate circle is already on it. So they endure humiliation in order to stay in, as well.
There must be legal restrictions on this type of behavior.
It is possible for something to be "not legally required" but still have a very high degree of adoption due to the inconvenience caused by not having it.
[1] i.e. Facebook believe they are real people who could verify your identity.
[2] It could be a form of n of m authentication so you wouldn't need to get all of them.
1. If you want to use Facebook, then you must follow the rules they set forth.
2. If you dont like #1. Just dont use it.
As consumers we all make choices that we need to make to benefit ourselves. If I dont like a grocery store, I dont shop there. If I get treated rude someplace. I find a new place that treats me better.
I really don't care at this point. I'm too deeply connected now to retract any of it.
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You don't have to provide a government ID to login back into Facebook. Alternatively, I was able to give them my bank passwords, private emails and a list of deep dark childhood secrets.