I didn’t know that, I think you have he stronger of our two “we aren’t experts” arguments. I’ll go back to “yeah, if I had to bet I would bet guilty, but I’m sure if picked to serve on the jury I’m sure I could listen to the explanations and the law on the matter and not just doze through and yell guilty when we get to the sentencing part”.
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No, I think the corporate death penalty is a perfectly valid outcome here. Equifax had literally one job: to control and broker the sale and secure transmission of sensitive personal identifying information and financial records for basically every adult in the United States. They failed at adequately performing that job, with the result that now millions of Americans are subject to an elevated risk of identity theft, and every other company on Earth that offers them credit is subject to an increased risk of fraud.
This isn’t like Target or Home Depot, whose breaches were terrible but not directly centered around the core operational purpose of their business, and whose data leaks contained far less personally identifying information. Equifax has wielded tremendous power over the financial lives and futures of virtually all Americans, and was obviously always going to be a massive target because of the fact that they centralize and collate detailed identity and financial records for millions of people by design. The fact that they were breached, that the breach occurred through such a pedestrian means of attack (an improperly-configured web server connected directly to their data back-end? c’mon…), that they failed to inform anyone of the breach for over a month, that their executive board members appear to have engaged in illegal insider trading during the period between discovery and disclosure, and that the company’s response post-disclosure has been atrociously managed and executed is more than enough proof to me that they are too incompetent and corrupt to continue existing.
Shit like this has to start having real, serious consequences. This:
is simply no longer an acceptable response to this sort of incompetence. Even if the government doesn’t outright rescind their business license, they should be subject to so much civil liability that it puts them out of business permanently.
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I suspect that America’s fearless and intrepid leadership will determine that the person responsible was a liberal arts music major hired as head of security to fill a gender diversity quota, and that therefore the whole situation is entirely caused by mandated affirmative action, which must therefore be banned at the Federal level.
I wish I was kidding. Really I do.
I don’t disagree in general; I was just referring to the fact that this thread was about some individual officers and their strongly suspected insider trading; which is a non-corporate death penalty context.
Aside from slavish adoration of the status quo, I can’t think of any reason for Equifax to live; but one should neither spare the officers because the corporation takes the hit; nor the reverse. Plenty to go around.
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Wasn’t that pretty much the “Actually, the housing crisis was caused by Bill Clinton’s affirmative action loan welfare queens buying houses above their station in what used to be respectable white flight zones!!!” theory that was peddled with surprising effectiveness to explain the mortgage crisis, even in the face of the mortgage and financial services industries attempts to be as unbelievably shady as one could reasonably imagine?
Indeed. I think thinly veiled racism and thinly veiled misogyny are basically interchangeable for the purpose of attacking affirmative action.
Plus the hackers, I guess.
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Oh, I absolutely agree with you. Killing the corporation is just step one.
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I ran out of gas! I got a flat tire! I didn’t have change for cab fare! I lost my tux at the cleaners! I locked my keys in the car! An old friend came in from out of town! Someone stole my car! There was an earthquake! A terrible flood! Locusts! Open Source! IT WASN’T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD!
I really hope that if they stick with the “they didn’t know” defense, that they are hit with a massive shareholder lawsuit for gross negligence. If your CFO isn’t being informed of an internal investigation about losing the data of a solid chunk of the US adult population, then you are clearly not exercising due care.
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The suits in question do seem to be in a sort of Nixonian dilemma: if they knew what was going on, they are guilty as sin; if they didn’t, they have truly mastered incompetence and negligence.
I can only assume that they are currently going with the story they think most likely to end in civil penalties(ideally against the company rather than them personally) rather than a trip to Club Fed.
Especially in a situation so dire that getting sued by basically everyone is more or less inevitable; a little more potential civil liability probably feels like a small price to pay; while a criminal conviction could really spoil your lifestyle.
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