Most Americans have very little choice but to provide their personal information to credit bureaus. Hackers have found a way into that data supply chain, and are advertising access in group chats used by violent criminals who rob, assault, and shoot targets.
    • Ilandar@aussie.zoneOP
      452·
      1 year ago

      To be clear for people who haven’t read the article: the credit bureaus themselves are not selling information directly to criminal organisations. They are selling to other companies, who in turn may provide that information to even more third parties, who then sell it to data brokers. An example given in the article of what this data journey may look like was:

      Immigration and Customs Enforcement has used similar data that flowed from utility companies to Equifax, which then was sold to data brokers.

      The tools and databases owned by these data brokers are then used by criminals to sell information to anyone.

      • Bleeping Lobster@lemmy.worldEnglish
        12·
        1 year ago

        I wonder, could this problem be solved by adding some ‘junk’ data to each access request? With that junk data being a unique identifier, so the authorities can setup a sting to catch whoever is selling access

        • NounsAndWords@lemmy.world
          15·
          1 year ago

          Without legislation forcing it, why would they bother? They already have enough separation from the crimes to avoid legal repercussions, and they get to sell data with the “this will be used for profitable criminal activity” premium baked into the original sale price.

          It’s like expecting Nestle to take any steroids to prevent child slavery. Why are they going to stir the pot and screw up the nice thing they have going?

  • satanmat@lemmy.world
    25·
    1 year ago

    I’d like to crowdsource the collection of all the data of the USA congress, and then send a complete copy to them, and any remaining newspapers.