5 ms·

Poll: What is your social security number?

8 points by j_baker 16y ago

Since we're having polls on every other piece of personal information...

jacques_chester 16y ago
You need an entry for "Not a US citizen".
nostrademons 16y ago
Eh, still not as invasive as FaceBook.
- coderdude 16y ago
  Still just as opt-in as Facebook. Go baseless Facebook bashing!
  - nostrademons 16y ago
    That was my point. People will voluntarily give up far more information to FaceBook, so why should one be surprised that they'd answer a poll about the first 3 digits of their SSN? (Which are based on their state of birth anyway, which is usually public information.)
    - coderdude 16y ago
      How was that your point? You called Facebook invasive and made no mention of users opting to give out information. Invasive suggests that Facebook is "intrusive without right or permission." (Yeah, I Googled for backup.)
callahad 16y ago
Fun Fact: The first three numbers are actually assigned based on your state of birth, as per this chart: http://www.socialsecurity.gov/employer/stateweb.htm http://www.socialsecurity.gov/employer/stateweb.htm
- atgm 16y ago
  I wanted to see if the numbers still applied for people who are naturalized US citizens, but I couldn't actually connect to the site.
  - callahad 16y ago
    According to http://www.socialsecurity.gov/employer/randomization.html http://www.socialsecurity.gov/employer/randomization.html the Social Security Administration has been centrally issuing all new SSNs since the 1970's, and has been basing the prefix on the postal code from which the application was mailed. In June, they plan to ditch the semantic groupings and start assigning numbers arbitrarily from the pool of unused numbers, so it will lose significance then. Also, you can apparently request a new SSN if you object to the digits contained in yours: http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/292 http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/292
  - jusob 16y ago
    I got my SSN number while I was a foreign student in Chicago. My first 3 digits correspond to Illinois.
gsivil 16y ago
Polls are becoming the new "Offer HN"! Hopefully this trend will not last too long EDIT: I am not talking about this one of course
- coderdude 16y ago
  IMO the trend is users with <100 karma posting Ask HNs. If you watch the newest page, nearly every single Ask HN (or other text submissions) are all by brand new users or people with otherwise a very low amount of karma. It's like they've all been introduced to something new and want to try it out. Some new users only post Ask HNs. At least with polls it's either not obvious how you create them or the karma threshold required to pass is incredibly high.
  - gsivil 16y ago
    I do not want to make it personal but I like ASK HN and I post ASK HN quite often. Ask HN is something that I guess was here long before I joined HN and it will be here for long time. Polls rarely initiate interesting discussion. This is the nature of a Poll unfortunately. Asking questions or advice is in the core of HN IMO.
    - coderdude 16y ago
      Yes, I see now that you do post a lot of them. Text posts are not bad. I like that we have this feature. I use them on the rare occasion myself, but everything is good in moderation (so they say). A constant flood of Ask HNs has brought cause to make the threshold of up-votes required to front-page an Ask HN higher than a normal post. This means that people with worthy questions or review my startup type posts have a higher chance of getting washed aside when the people who do care about those posts aren't all surfing HN during that short window of opportunity. So basically it's a feature that I think gets used too often for too trivial of things. I don't want to risk getting too personal here, but most of your Ask HNs are too trivial of things. Questions that are just as easily satisfied by Google. Edit: To be clear though, when I made that original comment to you I hadn't looked at your account, so the comment wasn't actually directed at you.
qas1981 16y ago
When I looked at this poll I was really curious as to who would post their social! I'm sure tons of others did too!
gsivil 16y ago
I am not a citizen but I have SSN. This things are not mutually exclusive. Every US citizen has to have one but even non permanent aliens can have one.
- olalonde 16y ago
  Polls on HN never assume/enforce mutual exclusion.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
gcb 16y ago
missing option: I can't remember :) most places i simply state that i don't have one/still waiting for it. exceptions being government buildings and tax forms at work

8 points by j_baker 16y ago

Since we're having polls on every other piece of personal information...

jacques_chester 16y ago

You need an entry for "Not a US citizen".

nostrademons 16y ago

Eh, still not as invasive as FaceBook.

coderdude 16y ago
Still just as opt-in as Facebook. Go baseless Facebook bashing!
- nostrademons 16y ago
  That was my point. People will voluntarily give up far more information to FaceBook, so why should one be surprised that they'd answer a poll about the first 3 digits of their SSN? (Which are based on their state of birth anyway, which is usually public information.)
  - coderdude 16y ago
    How was that your point? You called Facebook invasive and made no mention of users opting to give out information. Invasive suggests that Facebook is "intrusive without right or permission." (Yeah, I Googled for backup.)

callahad 16y ago

Fun Fact: The first three numbers are actually assigned based on your state of birth, as per this chart: http://www.socialsecurity.gov/employer/stateweb.htm http://www.socialsecurity.gov/employer/stateweb.htm

atgm 16y ago
I wanted to see if the numbers still applied for people who are naturalized US citizens, but I couldn't actually connect to the site.
- callahad 16y ago
  According to http://www.socialsecurity.gov/employer/randomization.html http://www.socialsecurity.gov/employer/randomization.html the Social Security Administration has been centrally issuing all new SSNs since the 1970's, and has been basing the prefix on the postal code from which the application was mailed. In June, they plan to ditch the semantic groupings and start assigning numbers arbitrarily from the pool of unused numbers, so it will lose significance then. Also, you can apparently request a new SSN if you object to the digits contained in yours: http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/292 http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/292
- jusob 16y ago
  I got my SSN number while I was a foreign student in Chicago. My first 3 digits correspond to Illinois.

gsivil 16y ago

Polls are becoming the new "Offer HN"! Hopefully this trend will not last too long EDIT: I am not talking about this one of course

coderdude 16y ago
IMO the trend is users with <100 karma posting Ask HNs. If you watch the newest page, nearly every single Ask HN (or other text submissions) are all by brand new users or people with otherwise a very low amount of karma. It's like they've all been introduced to something new and want to try it out. Some new users only post Ask HNs. At least with polls it's either not obvious how you create them or the karma threshold required to pass is incredibly high.
- gsivil 16y ago
  I do not want to make it personal but I like ASK HN and I post ASK HN quite often. Ask HN is something that I guess was here long before I joined HN and it will be here for long time. Polls rarely initiate interesting discussion. This is the nature of a Poll unfortunately. Asking questions or advice is in the core of HN IMO.
  - coderdude 16y ago
    Yes, I see now that you do post a lot of them. Text posts are not bad. I like that we have this feature. I use them on the rare occasion myself, but everything is good in moderation (so they say). A constant flood of Ask HNs has brought cause to make the threshold of up-votes required to front-page an Ask HN higher than a normal post. This means that people with worthy questions or review my startup type posts have a higher chance of getting washed aside when the people who do care about those posts aren't all surfing HN during that short window of opportunity. So basically it's a feature that I think gets used too often for too trivial of things. I don't want to risk getting too personal here, but most of your Ask HNs are too trivial of things. Questions that are just as easily satisfied by Google. Edit: To be clear though, when I made that original comment to you I hadn't looked at your account, so the comment wasn't actually directed at you.

qas1981 16y ago

When I looked at this poll I was really curious as to who would post their social! I'm sure tons of others did too!

gsivil 16y ago

I am not a citizen but I have SSN. This things are not mutually exclusive. Every US citizen has to have one but even non permanent aliens can have one.

olalonde 16y ago
Polls on HN never assume/enforce mutual exclusion.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

gcb 16y ago

missing option: I can't remember :) most places i simply state that i don't have one/still waiting for it. exceptions being government buildings and tax forms at work