3 ms·

Another concept that I don't understand is that USA's social security number has to be kept secret or otherwise your identity can be stolen. How that is even po

Another concept that I don't understand is that USA's social security number has to be kept secret or otherwise your identity can be stolen. How that is even possible? Doesn't your employer needs it? Yes, as well as utilities, banks, insurers, hospitals, etc, etc. Treating the SSN as a password is idiotic, to the point where I almost wish Anonymous or someone would publish every American's number so that we'd be forced to stop doing it.

halviti 10y ago
If you were born before 1989, your SSN can be guessed with 44% accuracy by an algorithm. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2009/07/social-security-numbers-are-easy-guess http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2009/07/social-security-numbe...
- sokoloff 10y ago
  > If you were born before 1989, your SSN can be guessed with 44% accuracy by an algorithm. The actual situation is quite a bit less dire than your quote. What that linked article says is that for people born AFTER 1989, the first five digits could be guessed with 44% accuracy. (There's a very real sense that the "last 4 of your social" are less guessable than the first five, so it's no surprise that the last 4 is what is often used/misused.)
  - deftnerd 10y ago
    I've seen multiple databases that have the results of asking the user to enter the "last 4 of your SSN" If you have those last 4 digits, and you can guess the first 5 digits with nearly 50% accuracy, then you have a very good chance on getting legitimate SSN's for mass numbers of people with a DB dump.
initram 10y ago
No your utilities do not need it. I never give my SSN to companies. Not the phone company, not the utility company, nobody I don't actually need to if I can help it. They will often waive such a requirement if you pay a small fee (usually around $5-50), which usually gets paid towards a bill after something like 6 months of paying everything in full on time.
ceejayoz 10y ago
> I almost wish Anonymous or someone would publish every American's number so that we'd be forced to stop doing it. for($i = 0; $i < 1000000000; $i++) { print str_pad($i, 9, '0', STR_PAD_LEFT) . "\n"; } There you go! Guaranteed to contain every American's SSN.

halviti 10y ago

If you were born before 1989, your SSN can be guessed with 44% accuracy by an algorithm. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2009/07/social-security-numbers-are-easy-guess http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2009/07/social-security-numbe...

sokoloff 10y ago
> If you were born before 1989, your SSN can be guessed with 44% accuracy by an algorithm. The actual situation is quite a bit less dire than your quote. What that linked article says is that for people born AFTER 1989, the first five digits could be guessed with 44% accuracy. (There's a very real sense that the "last 4 of your social" are less guessable than the first five, so it's no surprise that the last 4 is what is often used/misused.)
- deftnerd 10y ago
  I've seen multiple databases that have the results of asking the user to enter the "last 4 of your SSN" If you have those last 4 digits, and you can guess the first 5 digits with nearly 50% accuracy, then you have a very good chance on getting legitimate SSN's for mass numbers of people with a DB dump.

initram 10y ago

No your utilities do not need it. I never give my SSN to companies. Not the phone company, not the utility company, nobody I don't actually need to if I can help it. They will often waive such a requirement if you pay a small fee (usually around $5-50), which usually gets paid towards a bill after something like 6 months of paying everything in full on time.

ceejayoz 10y ago

> I almost wish Anonymous or someone would publish every American's number so that we'd be forced to stop doing it. for($i = 0; $i < 1000000000; $i++) { print str_pad($i, 9, '0', STR_PAD_LEFT) . "\n"; } There you go! Guaranteed to contain every American's SSN.