Comment by GuB-42

Comment by GuB-42 4 days ago

> I would literally write my social security number on a sticky note and stick it to Xi Jinping's forehead

Somewhat paradoxically, I am actually more comfortable giving out private data to foreign countries than my own. I mean, what is Xi Jinping going to do with a US social security number? If I am in the US, it will be hard for bad people in China to reach me, because there is a border between the two countries, in every sense of the word. There is no such protection if me and my data are both in the same country.

Xi Jinping can have my social security number, in fact, he can have my whole life, it is not like he is going to do anything to an random guy who lives in a foreign country. I will definitely won't give these data to a neighbor I barely know because my neighbor can do something I don't want him to do with it and may find some motivation to do so.

munificent 4 days ago

Are you aware that almost all of the scam calls, phishing emails, and other attempts to separate you from the currency in your bank account arise from outside of the US?

Economic globalization means there are no borders and it's up to corporations to protect the sovereignty of their users. You can imagine how well they are up to that task.

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culi 3 days ago

it's still much harder for overseas scams to succeed against someone who's tech savvy vs domestic identity fraud. There's simply a lot more barriers to moving money outside of the country
> Economic globalization means there are no borders and it's up to corporations to protect the sovereignty of their users
Historically speaking this is actually the opposite. Many critics of globalization have pointed out that you can directly track trade deals to massive spikes in border funding, much stronger enforcement of intellectual property laws, etc. Research actually shows a huge decrease in the dissemination of ideas, language, etc across borders where trade deals have been enacted. Paradoxically, globalization has made us more siloed off from each other

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pixl97 3 days ago

This is a rather poor take. Individually it's "probably" not much, but when you start putting the data together in bulk you have a social network graph of huge parts of an entire country. That and everything they like and probably work on. If you can get things like location data, then you can figure out what entire companies are doing. You can get insight into secret projects. You can figure out what small companies/contractors to install moles in.

It is literally the biggest spy data gold mine on earth.

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neither_color 3 days ago

It's infinitely worse for someone abroad to have your SS because it is worth it for them to try for several days to scam you for just a few dozen dollars. There's an entire industry of scam farms run in Cambodia by CH gangs.

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pjc50 3 days ago

Exactly. There are people deleting menstrual tracker apps in the US because the information might be used against them by law enforcement. But what's the risk to them of the Chinese government having that? Other than turning it over to the US authorities, of course.

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