Apache Struts Statement on Equifax Security Breach

Posted Sep 14, 2017 18:03 UTC (Thu) by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
In reply to: Apache Struts Statement on Equifax Security Breach by nybble41
Parent article: Apache Struts Statement on Equifax Security Breach

Note that a lack of history in your system is not distinguishable from bad history - it could be that I have no history, or it could be that I've run away from debts and created a new key. There's no way to distinguish the two situations.

And if rent counts, then what stops me lying and reporting that my kids pay me $10,000 per month in rent reliably? In general, if arbitrary private actors can report, what stops me falsely claiming "good" behaviour for friends - bearing in mind that I can establish new identities as quickly as you can blacklist them? If you whitelist, how do I as head tenant on a flatshare get on the whitelist?

And no, an unknown borrower is not maximum risk - there are legal penalties for trying to disguise your identity to get money, which mean that unknown is lower risk than known bad, since known bad puts you at risk of having to sue, while unknown but with history of not paying lets you get the police forces involved. This is, however, only possible because you are only permitted to have a single identity - as soon as you're allowed to create multiple identities, the system breaks down.