Thanks For Nothing, Equifax
Remember the idea of your “permanent record” in elementary school? Of course, we laughed as we got older and realized there was no such thing.
Except there is, and Equifax just screwed ALL of us.
The thing I hate so much about the Equifax hack is that I have NEVER wanted Equifax to have my information in the first place. It’s a necessary and stupid evil to live in the US and have a credit line. I NEVER ASKED for Equifax to be part of my life. They’ve always been a necessary evil in my opinion. Of course, their data is the holy grail of PII. And, as others have noted, it’s all unlocked with that magical number — the last 4 digits of your social security number. Nothing more, nothing less.
Problem is that there is SO MUCH money to be made by everyone*, Equifax included, to be a clearinghouse for our information. And there is so LITTLE money to be made from doing it in a cryptographically bulletproof manner. And there’s nearly NO money to be made for giving ME control of all that information as well.
What’s the point of super-collecting all this data on consumers if you have to ASK every single time you access it? What kind of terrible revenue hit would Equifax take if we had to cryptographically authorize EVERY credit hit that came in to “unlock” our information?
And who knows what other back-room deals have been made in the name of “Consumer Protection” that ultimately has probably handed over our digital keys to our financial kingdoms time and time again to not only banks and lenders but government agencies as well.
*(P.S. There’s also a lot of money to be made by dumping your stocks just before it’s announced to the world your company just did the one thing it should never do)
