6 ms·
It always amazes me that in the US there is such a weak identification system, relying on a single number. Then it is apparently to the owner of said number to
by BrandoElFollito 6y ago
It always amazes me that in the US there is such a weak identification system, relying on a single number.
Then it is apparently to the owner of said number to worry if it leaked.
- WarOnPrivacy 6y ago> It always amazes me that in the US there is such a weak identification system, relying on a single number. Offer Govs/LEO/Biz an alternative that will allow them stronger & less visible influence over the public and it will be adopted yesterday.
- quercusa 6y agoUS Social Security cards used to say "NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION" but I guess it's just too hard to pass up a good primary key.
- dhosek 6y agoWhen I was first enrolled at University of Illinois of Chicago in 1985, your SSN was your student ID. You could log in to the mainframe using your SSN in the username field (although thankfully, the actual user ID was a sequentially assigned five-digit number and not the SSN. I was U10754). I think around 1986 or 1987, universities were instructed to stop using SSNs as student ID numbers.
- toast0 6y ago> I think around 1986 or 1987, universities were instructed to stop using SSNs as student ID numbers. And around 2005 they actually mostly stopped.
- macintux 6y agoIn the early 90s I had a professor who passed around a sheet of paper for us the first day of class to write down our names and our SSN. I had to point out to him after class that was a rather boneheaded idea (I'm sure I was a bit more polite than that).
- Spooky23 6y agoLol. My SUNY school addressed this by suppressing the first three numbers. Considering that about 30% of the student body seemed to be from Islip, it was pretty trivial to guess the first three.
- quesera 6y agoThe State (Commonwealth!) of Massachusetts used your SSN for your Driver License number, as recently as the mid-1990s. Every time you had to show ID anywhere, you were giving your SSN away.
- michaelmrose 6y agoWhen looking up the details of the incarceration of a POS we had locked up in the state of Washington we discovered his electronically available prior warrants show his entire SSN NOW.
- sgerenser 6y agoMy university (back in the early 2000s) used your initials and last 4 of SSN as your student ID number. I think they finally stopped a year or two after I graduated.
- marcosdumay 6y agoHum... When normal people say "identification" the almost always mean what we understand by "authentication"¹. They main intended use of a social security number is as a key, that's the intended use 99.(some more 9s)% of the times a government gives a number to somebody. 1 - And when they say "authentication", they almost always mean what we understand by "non-repudiation".
- bonzini 6y agoThe problem is that it's a username that is used as a password. In Europe you'd use some kind of tax identification number plus a physical copy of an ID card or driving license. My identification number is algorithmically derived from place and date of birth, first and last name and gender. Anybody who knows my address and has heard someone greeting me happy birthday can guess mine with two-three trials corresponding to the closest hospitals. But that doesn't worry me, because I don't fear identity theft, it just doesn't exist in Italy. Instead, as a result of America's allergy to ID, they are essentially the only country where identity theft is a thing.
- path411 6y ago5 out of the 9 numbers for an American social security number is also derived from location and date of birth.
- mdturnerphys 6y agoThis was finally done away with in 2011. I only found out because I was surprised that our second child's SSN (issued in 2012) had a different prefix than that of our first child (2009).
- liversage 6y agoI live in Denmark so also Europe. Our social security number (which can be guessed with enough information and a few tries) has been incorrectly used as a password instead of a key just like you describe. You make a call, provide this number and the clerk on the phone believes that you are who you claim to be. Nowadays things are better because computers are used everywhere We have a national ID system using 2FA which is pretty safe. Unfortunately, identify theft is still a thing. Recently someone installed keyloggers on public computers. The second factor in the 2FA is a cardboard card with a list of one time password codes. You use a code on each sign in. The criminals were able to determine when there were only a few codes left on the card. You then get a new cardboard card sent to your home address. They would stalk their victim's mail box and steal the new card as soon as it arrived. With user name (your social security number) and password from the key logger together with the 2FA codes they were able to perform identity theft. It's not easy to guard against attacks like this.
- bryanrasmussen 6y agoBasically the same in Denmark, I believe many other European nations have a similar situation.
- anitil 6y agoThe story of how this happened is quite interesting. CGP Grey did a video about how it evolved [0]. I'm not American so I can't judge how likely it is to ever change because it seems to be politically radioactive to propose a government mandated ID. We had a similar issue in Australia, but our workaround is that your drivers license (or ID card from the equivalent of the DMV) typically acts as your ID. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Erp8IAUouus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Erp8IAUouus
- aidenn0 6y agoMy first driver's license number was my SSN
- BrandoElFollito 6y agoWe have in France ID Cards that are not compulsory. It is just such a hassle to use something else that everyone has one. Alternatively, for minor things, you can make a declaration on your honor. This is super useful in, say, a library where you need to enroll.
- imglorp 6y agoAnd possession of the original paper SSN card is sometimes required as a form of identity. Not the hardest thing to print.