TE
TechEcho
Home24h TopNewestBestAskShowJobs
GitHubTwitter
Home

TechEcho

A tech news platform built with Next.js, providing global tech news and discussions.

GitHubTwitter

Home

HomeNewestBestAskShowJobs

Resources

HackerNews APIOriginal HackerNewsNext.js

© 2025 TechEcho. All rights reserved.

Bank's antifraud tactics stun security expert: How much do they know?

6 pointsby iamelgringoover 15 years ago

1 comment

joezydecoover 15 years ago
He's confused about how a credit bureau might know about his daughter in law?<p>Perhaps he co-signed on a card with his son. Now his SSN is linked to his son's. Maybe the son filed a change of address card when he moved out. Now the son gets married. Now his daughter-in-law is linked to him.<p>All of the major credit bureaus in the US have some kind of identity-verification spinoff that mines all the credit/mortgage/marriage/divorce/postal-address-change data out there, makes connections, and uses it for these kinds of questions. This is how you get those "Which one of these streets did you live on?" questions when resetting your password with a bank. I doubt they're mining Facebook for this kind of info.<p>I've found that the US Postal Service "Change of Address" card is the source of more privacy problems than any other source. They'll pimp that data out to anyone and everyone.