Forum Feedback How do you want to login into Xello?

[Party Monger]

This used to be my signature but if we dont stay up with the times and technology, we run a risk of being wiped away.
Its already happening so change is welcome

If a scammer wants to scam, a phone number is not going to change that. Scams happen everywhere including OLX where they have all details. Its a trust based community, people have to take their own precautions. Giving people a false sense of security is not going to help. Anything short of an escrow is just going to restrict people from coming to TE and not help with increasing reliability. Buyers be aware is the only thing you can rely on.

 

[Renegade]

In that case, I guess email, phone, google ID and apple ID should be enough options for users to login. I am guessing this covers 100% of the users.

With phone mandatory for market section.

^ Have already mentioned this ^. Mobile number will be optional for discussions but mandatory for market deals.

We are ok to give out our numbers to Whatsapp and Telegram kind of apps. All kinds of propaganda, misinformation, criminal activities get facilitated through these applications at the speed of light. The numbers are visible in plain sight there for everyone to see. Won't the IT cell reach out to anyone from there?

Tracing the number back to the user is the last resort in case of an FIR. I am sure members are responsible enough to not land up in that situation. It is a deterrent from fraud because members would be careful not get their profile banned on Xello. If you are banned with your mobile number on record then you need to buy a new number to enter the market again. This in itself is a deterrent for many. If you keep buying new numbers to carry out illegal activities then you are digging a deeper hole for yourself each time.

So I don't understand the reluctance to validate your mobile number privately in your own profile on Xello for market deals. Anyway, nothing is final yet and we are all discussing the best course of action.

What will you do for people having businesses and wanting to sell on TE? Business account with TIN or GST number or something else mandatory?

The more we think, the more complicated this will become.

Yes absolutely. When we had dealers on TE, we used to take all kinds of document from them before allowing them to trade. So when we reach that point, we will have some approval flow built in to handle TIN/GST or whatever is deemed necessary to make the deals safer.

 

[puns]

I know this is OT to this thread, but I think I have said this before... rather than dealers, we should have manufacturer company people part of forums. If they want to post deals, its great. They can direct to their online / offline dealers for their products and special offers. A little something extra for forum users then

 

[singenaadam]

If a scammer wants to scam, a phone number is not going to change that. Scams happen everywhere including OLX where they have all details. Its a trust based community, people have to take their own precautions. Giving people a false sense of security is not going to help. Anything short of an escrow is just going to restrict people from coming to TE and not help with increasing reliability. Buyers be aware is the only thing you can rely on.

Escrow can drag the Mods into a mess as they become partly reponsible for ensuring the deal goes thru. Even one bad apple can cause lots of social media damage to credibility of the site.

 

[NotMyRealName]

I have a suggestion/request, and maybe this could be done right away, not wait for xello.

I usually check the 'new posts ' link. Now it would be great if market (wtb/FS) threads could be shown in a different section, maybe a right window pane on the new posts thread and other posts in the left pane. I do check out market threads now and then, but everything together is just too much clutter, even with the green highlight.

Also, maybe give a highlight to ALL general talk threads to differentiate them from the rest of the forum, just like market threads are green.

Thanks

@Renegade

 

[Renegade]

Any customisations on TE are not easily possible. At least not by me. General talk threads can be given a prefix but I doubt it would be useful for most.

 

[puns]

Have you thought about how this, if it does, solve the issue of spammers registering on platform @Renegade
Its a constant problem you must be aware of. I guess its all entries which anyone can fill up but something on these lines which can solve this will be something

 

[mk76]

I give out my mobile number only if it is very essential. Since my mobile number is tied to so many important details, I'm sceptic about giving it out to every site. I prefer to register on sites where I can use email and password. I avoid even Facebook login or Google logins.

While an individual can control their actions, one cannot stop others.
Our friends , relatives, peers whoever uses truecaller, already have exposed a lot of details .. specially when they save a detailed contact info ( phone + email + photo .. etc ). IMO, in current times, privacy is a futile effort unless one is living alone on an island.

 

[Renegade]

Anyone who thinks that their privacy is secured by using one form of authentication over the other has not seen how marketing platforms work. Each interaction you do online is tagged to an entity and each entity is ultimately tagged to an identity based on the relationships between entities.

You can of course not make it easy for them by sharing all your data like location and voice recordings. But that's it. Nobody is tracking you as an individual but if someone wants to, they can. There are policies that have to be followed for not storing PII (personally identifiable information) data but we don't know how much of it is being followed behind the scenes.

For example, Netflix doesn't use social login but google still knows what you are watching on Netflix. You start seeing articles about that show and characters on Google news feed. Your google search auto complete starts giving you suggestions about a product you searched on Amazon mobile app.

Based on everything you do, they know your interests, based on your interests they know your age group, sexual inclinations, your family and friends, your psychological profile etc. So far it's mostly being used to tailor products and services that you are most likely to pay for and use.

What @mk76 said is absolutely true. Not sharing your mobile number does not in anyway mean that your privacy is secured. You can judge that from the number of spam SMS you receive despite there being strict regulations by TRAI on spam.

If you think you will get away by not sharing your mobile number, you must see some episodes on Crime Patrol and the likes. The telecom companies are required to store all your records for at least 11 years. Which includes all details like your location, who you called, for how long, from which device etc. They even know and record which websites you visit on their network. With deep packet inspection, they can track which mobile apps you are using. The top website that people open on their phones (till it was banned) is xvideos. If the telecom companies want to know (its not legal until the government wants to know) who is watching say child pornography, they can identify the phone number.

Coming to the point by @puns, it will greatly alleviate the problem of spam by discouraging rampant account creation. It's like putting up a lock. The ones who want to steal will still break it. But people like you or me who might be tempted to peek through an otherwise open door will desist from breaking the lock.

 

[mk76]

Anyone who thinks that their privacy is secured by using one form of authentication over the other has not seen how marketing platforms work. Each interaction you do online is tagged to an entity and each entity is ultimately tagged to an identity based on the relationships between entities.

You can of course not make it easy for them by sharing all your data like location and voice recordings. But that's it. Nobody is tracking you as an individual but if someone wants to, they can. There are policies that have to be followed for not storing PII (personally identifiable information) data but we don't know how much of it is being followed behind the scenes.

For example, Netflix doesn't use social login but google still knows what you are watching on Netflix. You start seeing articles about that show and characters on Google news feed. Your google search auto complete starts giving you suggestions about a product you searched on Amazon mobile app.

Based on everything you do, they know your interests, based on your interests they know your age group, sexual inclinations, your family and friends, your psychological profile etc. So far it's mostly being used to tailor products and services that you are most likely to pay for and use.

What @mk76 said is absolutely true. Not sharing your mobile number does not in anyway mean that your privacy is secured. You can judge that from the number of spam SMS you receive despite there being strict regulations by TRAI on spam.

If you think you will get away by not sharing your mobile number, you must see some episodes on Crime Patrol and the likes. The telecom companies are required to store all your records for at least 11 years. Which includes all details like your location, who you called, for how long, from which device etc. They even know and record which websites you visit on their network. With deep packet inspection, they can track which mobile apps you are using. The top website that people open on their phones (till it was banned) is xvideos. If the telecom companies want to know (its not legal until the government wants to know) who is watching say child pornography, they can identify the phone number.

Coming to the point by @puns, it will greatly alleviate the problem of spam by discouraging rampant account creation. It's like putting up a lock. The ones who want to steal will still break it. But people like you or me who might be tempted to peek through an otherwise open door will desist from breaking the lock.

... and all of this is now so much easy thanks to machine learning and neural nets.

The question to ask ourselves is what we want TE to be - a platform of trust or just another marketplace ?? I'm in for having a limited group and keeping the trash out than every olx tom-dick-harry joining and applying deceptive tactics to sell their junk at exorbitant prices.

Having said that what @Julian pointed out is also valid. But if we weigh the probability of having our mobile numbers getting leaked to marketeers via other means as compared to be done on TE .... we may get our answer

 

[logistopath]

While an individual can control their actions, one cannot stop others.
Our friends , relatives, peers whoever uses truecaller, already have exposed a lot of details .. specially when they save a detailed contact info ( phone + email + photo .. etc ). IMO, in current times, privacy is a futile effort unless one is living alone on an island.

Yeah.. I realize that. At least I try to minimize giving it out on my own.

 

[Sumi]

While no security is 100% safe, if the login system with mobile numbers could generate a higher confidence of trust with safeguarding the information, I'm okay with it. Honestly, there is no other login system other than emails/social media that would be realistically acceptable as a login for a forum. I mean there are more secure and safer ways but it's in the cost of information provided by the people registering for it. As others have discussed, there is no definitive conclusion to the discussion of login systems using mobile numbers but if there are other alternatives for a more secure system that respects privacy that I'm not aware of, do share it here.

For the Market - Mini KYC option for a verified symbol on sellers with the help of admins. They'll need to show a legitimate government ID and make a video while saying their name and ID number (PAN card would be the best but Aadhar could also work, Voter ID and Driving License is useless), now I can understand a larger group including me that wouldn't want to do this but how about an option being available for people who would want to go through with the process. This however should in no means come to a conclusion for an admin to take a blame when a deal goes bad with a verified seller, it should just work as a confidence boosting property for both parties involved. A simpler Mini KYC would be a short live video call and asking them a few questions to improve their legitimacy. If working in tandem with the other option, a silver verification and gold verification as per the KYC option selected.

 

[ninjenstein]

We are a blend of anonymous discussion forums and community/social network.
The marketplace needs to have something that inspires trust and brings out the community element of this place. I like the idea of making mobile number compulsory for marketplace.