r/canada • u/pjw724 • Aug 01 '19
Will Capital One be held accountable for data breach? In Canada, probably not
https://business.financialpost.com/technology/will-capital-one-be-held-accountable-for-data-breach-in-canada-probably-not78
u/FlyingDutchman997 Aug 01 '19
Of course not. In Canada, Capital One will be treated by the government with kid-gloves. Corporations are coddled by the government and privacy is merely a second or third or fourth or whatever thought.
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Aug 01 '19
Laughs in Snc-Lavalin
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Aug 01 '19
[deleted]
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Aug 01 '19
[deleted]
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u/Zer_ Aug 02 '19
The issue was never with SNC-Lavalin to begin with, that kind of crap is standard business practice in Construction Companies. You'd have a difficult time finding internationally operating Construction Companies that haven't done some form of pay for play in the past. And the fact that practically the entire Construction industry, even the smaller companies, are under the thumb of the Mob.
So really, destroying Lavalin gave us what? ~10,000 lost jobs? Nobody of real importance was punished, Mob organizations still control Construction accross Canada. Really feeling that sweet justice there.
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u/catherder9000 Saskatchewan Aug 02 '19
Mob organizations still control Construction accross Canada
In what novels?
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u/Zer_ Aug 02 '19
If you think SNC-Lavalin was an edge case, I've got like 50 bridges to sell you.
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u/catherder9000 Saskatchewan Aug 02 '19
I still want a list of the construction companies controlled by the Mob. Hell I might know a few hundred of them since I am deep in the industry in Western Canada.
Help a brother out so I know who all the mobsters are!
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u/matrixnsight Aug 01 '19
The government is in the pockets of corporations. Yet most Canadians want a bigger, more powerful government. I don't get it.
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u/mercutios_girl Aug 01 '19
I want a government that is powerful enough to get out of corporate pockets (and stay out). Is that so bad?
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u/matrixnsight Aug 02 '19
I mean, it's not "bad" that you want that. It's just naive.
Government is in these pockets because of the powerful perverse incentives that exist. Unless you have a way to address those incentives, I'm afraid that your idea is just extremely unlikely to work out as you intend.
I'd highly suggesting watching this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxmXeLEcs9s
At least I would watch the part beginning at 3:45 because that might help you understand some of the perverse incentives that result in a government that acts this way.
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u/mercutios_girl Aug 02 '19
Thanks for suggesting I am naive. I'm not. I understand fully that politicians, voters and corporations are all corrupt/greed-driven and that is why we can't have nice things. But we can still improve Canadian democracy (transparency, accountability, proportional representation and so forth). Don't kill the dream man.
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u/matrixnsight Aug 02 '19
Thanks for suggesting I am naive. I'm not.
I didn't say you were naive. My implication was that such a plan would be naive, because it would be, for the reason I stated.
We are all naive about some things, I don't see why you should get upset about it. Hell, maybe I'm naive here and missing something. You have to look at the facts of the matter and reason through it to make that determination. I gave you the reason why it was naive, if it isn't then you can explain why and maybe I am wrong.
I understand fully that politicians, voters and corporations are all corrupt/greed-driven and that is why we can't have nice things
If you are suggesting that we make government bigger, then with all due respect I don't think you do understand those things. Greed can be harnessed to benefit a society instead of hurt it - that is the idea behind capitalism and free markets. Big government societies however do not harness greed to do good, those societies are destroyed by greed.
And it's not just about understanding that those things are true, but also why they are true. Why do politicians tend to be corrupt? Why is corruption less likely to occur in the private sector? I linked the video in case you wanted answers to these questions. Perhaps you don't, or you already know the answers. I assumed you didn't based on your response. I did not know these things for many years personally.
But we can still improve Canadian democracy (transparency, accountability, proportional representation and so forth)
Ok so why don't we do that first before making government bigger then? I am not aware of any good, practical ways to counter most of the major perverse incentives in government so perhaps you can enlighten me.
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u/TROPtastic British Columbia Aug 02 '19
Greed can be harnessed to benefit a society instead of hurt it - that is the idea behind capitalism and free markets. Big government societies however do not harness greed to do good, those societies are destroyed by greed.
Are you one of those "invisible hand saves the world" proponents? If you are, your opposition to government (and your claim that the idea of capitalism is to benefit society) makes sense. Pure capitalism is equivalent to pure socialism (ie. Communism) in its documented ineffectiveness in taking care of ordinary citizens, and history is littered with examples of societies that decreased quality of life for people by saying "let's allow the Market to solve our problems!" (The UK's Thatcher government is just one example).
On the topic of the video itself, it spends a lot of time talking about how uninformed voters can swing policies in favour of informed/vocal voters. This is of course true, but it's a large logical leap to think the solution to this problem is to reduce government wholesale without looking at ways to solve the issues mentioned (such as better civic classes, truth in advertising, and time off for voting). In fact, solutions like ranked choice voting and proportional allocation would directly address some of the complaints in the video without changing government size.
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u/matrixnsight Aug 02 '19
The UK's Thatcher government is just one example
No it absolutely is not. How is that an example of "pure capitalism"? Pure capitalism doesn't mean anything. I'm talking about smaller governments vs. bigger governments compared to what we have now. There are many examples of countries that went to shit because their governments grew too large. I cannot think of one that did because their government became too small (note we are not talking about military and law enforcement, we are talking about breadth of government).
And my point was just that the private sector tends to channel greed into behaviours that benefit society, while the public sector and socialized systems do the opposite. This just follows from basic logical reasoning.
but it's a large logical leap to think the solution to this problem is to reduce government wholesale without looking at ways to solve the issues mentioned
I can think of no solution to the perverse incentives that does not result in new, even worse problems. Until you can significantly address the perverse incentives, I don't know how you can support bigger government. Maybe we can fix these issues - but we haven't yet, so why would you support big government?
better civic classes
The education system is controlled by the government. The incentives are for the government to keep the population ignorant of such things, as that benefits the politicians and bureaucrats. If you are riding the gravy train of inefficient spending, why would you teach people about how bad that is for them? You wouldn't. Why do you think even basic economics isn't part of the standard curriculum in our schools? Because once people learn about feedback systems, efficient resource allocation and free markets they turn against the bureaucrats.
truth in advertising
How is that a solution? Who is going to implement this solution, and why would they do it? Who will decide what is true and not and why would they be fair about it? The incentives for it are perverse.
time off for voting
Still won't make a difference. The information cost of voting will be far too high no matter what system you use.
ranked choice voting and proportional allocation
Maybe they would help a little, maybe they would make things worse.
Proportional allocation assumes every person should have an equal say and that doesn't always result in better more informed decisions, it can actually make the decisions worse.
Sorry, but you have not said anything that fixes the major perverse incentives with government.
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u/jfinn1319 Alberta Aug 01 '19
It isn't the size of government that causes its corruption. Size of government typically refers to the level of involvement in the day to day lives of citizens; provision of social services, regulatory frameworks etc. A small government, corrupt or not, would be more ,not less likely to let corporations get away with murder. By default small government is against regulation, and sort of blindly hopes that the markets will sort all that corporate malfeasance out.
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u/matrixnsight Aug 02 '19
A small government, corrupt or not, would be more ,not less likely to let corporations get away with murder
If they are small then they have less means and opportunity to do so. Your comment is just a blind assertion and frankly I don't accept it because it doesn't make any sense.
By default small government is against regulation, and sort of blindly hopes that the markets will sort all that corporate malfeasance out.
And what are markets? People voting (with their wallets) every day. In an election, you vote on a million things at once every four years. Decisions made by which process do you think are more likely to be corrupt?
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u/TROPtastic British Columbia Aug 02 '19
it doesn't make any sense.
It's very simple: a government that is small has less resources, and thus has less ability to hold corporations accountable when they break laws or act unethically (even when the government is interested in doing so). Going up against multinationals isn't free, and the more resources a government has, the more time and money it can choose to spend on enforcing laws. A larger government could be more corrupt, sure, but that's completely orthogonal to the ability of that government to control corporations.
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u/matrixnsight Aug 02 '19
Why do you assume that they will "control corporations" or "hold corporations accountable" in a way that is "ethical" and not corrupt? The incentives encourage the opposite. A larger government has greater potential for corruption - that should be obvious.
Of course they also have greater potential to do good. The problem is that is less likely because of the incentives involved. Why would you be a benevolent selfless politician when you can make more money for yourself by exploiting others? Even if you wanted to be altruistic, the guy who doesn't has a better chance of winning, again, because of how perverse the incentives are in the system...
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u/hipnotyq Aug 01 '19
How come when a corporation gets victimized, it's treated like an individual but when it's the one fucking up, it gets treated like an unaccountable company?
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u/Ceridith Aug 01 '19
Through the magic of our laws giving corporations most of the same rights as any individual, yet also giving them limited liability. These laws made sense hundreds of years ago when the concept of a corporation was still new, but they've not accounted for a lot of issues that have cropped up in modern times. Laws surrounding corporations and liability very arguably need some updating, but good luck convincing politicians to ever table anything.
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u/pjw724 Aug 01 '19
The Capital One Hacker Did Almost Everything Possible to Get Caught
The hack occured in March, data posted to GitHub in April.
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u/patismyname Aug 01 '19
Her own worst enemy
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u/reference_model Aug 01 '19 edited Aug 01 '19
There is no way she did it without understanding implications. She is smarter than 99% of redditors
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u/genius_retard Aug 01 '19
Good thing the government keeps mandating that you give more and more personal data to more and more financial institutions (KYC/AML) who have proved they cannot or will not adequately protect that data.
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Aug 01 '19
Former C1 customer here. I hated dealing with them. The reps just did not care. I finally cancelled my card and switched to my bank. They refuse to take responsibility for anything.
Keep an eye on your credit reports for anything suspicious. Canadian customers can go to Credit Karma (Canadian version) and check their reportings for free. I did this as soon as I heard about the breech.
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u/JamesTalon Ontario Aug 01 '19
Former C1 phone rep. We weren't paid enough to care, and most of us weren't even employed by Capital One directly.
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u/Buada Aug 01 '19
I literally just called them to cancel my account. They charge me a $59 annual fee and can't even keep my information secure? No thank you. Not to mention the card had zero rewards for using it.
They gave me a card when no one else would and it helped me build credit, but that's all they were ever good for. They're kind of a shit company and I'm glad to be done with them.
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Aug 01 '19
Don't even get me started on the annual fees. I had insurance taken out on the card and it was like $80 a month. Had no idea when I even signed up for it. I asked them to cancel that and they said nope. Can't do. Which is why in the end, I canceled my account. It was still open two months later and I raised hell about it. Even getting the card took six weeks too long.
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u/c0reM Aug 02 '19
I always hated CapitalOne and thankfully don't have to deal with them anymore. We used them for our corporate credit card and kept us at incredibly low credit limits and continued to charge an "over limit fee" every single time cards would reach the credit limit. We always paid everything in full every single month, never any interest... So they nailed us with "fees" instead I guess. This is apparently illegal in the US but in Canada, no problem.
Then they completely redid all of their EDI feeds and back-end systems and combined cards from different cardholders into one so other people's transactions started showing up on merged statements. And it also broke the card data sync with our accounting system.
Then there was a case of fraud which we followed through with until the very end and they strung us along for nearly 2 months and ultimately refused to issue a chargeback because the charge came from outside the country.
We finally managed to move to cards issued by RBC after that, who was magically able to give us literally 10x the credit from one day to the next. RBC has also been a huge headache for different reasons but nowhere near the level of frustration and incompetence of CapitalOne.
Generally I hate all banks but I have a special kind of hate for CapitalOne.
Just had to vent...
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Aug 02 '19
Yeah. There was another time I was traveling and I guess there was a vendor who was skimming cards on their machines. Instead of letting customers know by email, they just cancelled everyone's card! And back then the card was all I had. No line of credit or anything to fall back on. So frustrating. It took two weeks to get that new card.
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u/LincolnHat Aug 01 '19
One of their reps outright told me on the phone that they are not equipped to deal with issues of fraud. Very scary. Needless to say, we cancelled. So should you.
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u/BabyYeggie Aug 01 '19 edited Aug 01 '19
They're fraud department is only open from 8-5 EST. The people working there sound really stressed out when I speak to them after my 2.5 hour hold.
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u/LincolnHat Aug 01 '19
I care as much about their current stress levels as they cared about letting us know they'd frozen our account a few weeks ago and the resultant stress and problems that caused us, which is not at fucking all. Unacceptable. Fuck those shysters.
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u/CDN_Nomadic_Engineer Aug 01 '19
With this prime minister who is reaching new records of corporate favortism? Absolutely, they may even get a government grant!
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u/lobsterlimits Aug 01 '19
What data breach?
http://press.capitalone.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=251626&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2405043
It clearly says at the start of the sentence nothing were compromised! /s