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> That's ridiculous. Storing social security numbers is necessary for lots of businesses. They should absolutely not be stored in a GSuite document. SSNs shoul

> That's ridiculous. Storing social security numbers is necessary for lots of businesses. They should absolutely not be stored in a GSuite document. SSNs should be treated more securely than credit card numbers.

bonzini 5y ago
Which is a problem of its own, since they're effectively usernames. Secure usernames that have no corresponding password is already an oxymoron; that's what credit card numbers used to be, hence the introduction of the CVV, 3DSecure and so on; but at least a credit card can be blocked with relative ease. But SSNs are secure unchangeable usernames, which makes even less sense. Do any countries other than the US have such an abomination, where you can figure out the SSN of someone and ruin their life?
- spicybright 5y ago
  Not that I know of. It really is a horrible system. But it's not one I want Google trying to solve.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  You can actually change your social security number in the circumstance of "victim of identity theft continues to be disadvantaged by using the original number": https://faq.ssa.gov/en-us/Topic/article/KA-02220 https://faq.ssa.gov/en-us/Topic/article/KA-02220 It's a huge pain, obviously. Especially when you get to all the systems which blindly assume it isn't possible. But you can do it. They ought to just open it up and let anyone who requests to change it once a year no questions asked.
  - tempestn 5y ago
    Which would have the benefit of forcing those systems to be updated. Agreed.
  - bonzini 5y ago
    Doesn't it reset your credit history? (Which you reluctantly want if you were the victim of identity theft, but not yearly)
- C19is20 5y ago
  Italy: https://ilmiocf.it https://ilmiocf.it lets you generate your equivalent of an ssn (fiscal code). And, yes...if you know someone's very basic details you have the number. For US viewers, enter 'stati uniti' as 'comune di nascita'. Use deepl.com for the bit at the bottom.
  - azernik 5y ago
    Whereas in Israel, a national ID number is treated as just that - an ID number. You put it on every single contract you sign, on most bureaucratic forms, &c, and it's used to match up individual identity rather than names. On many online services, your ID number is your username, and your password is chosen per-service.
    - bonzini 5y ago
      It's the same in Italy, actually. The poster above is incorrect.
  - bonzini 5y ago
    Why is it always Italians shitting on the country without knowing what they're talking about? This is absolutely not comparable. You can't ruin someone's life if you have their codice fiscale (source: am Italian). Most countries do have some kind of id number like that, but they always have a "password" too. In Italy authentication is done by the SPID providers[1] or with an electronic id card (or physically with an id card, driving license or passport). You can't get a credit card and spend as much as you want in their name. You need at least a stolen or counterfeit physical document to open a bank account, or a stolen password and a SPID second factor to file a fraudulent tax return. In the US the SSN is often enough unless you opt into freezing credit. [1] for non Italians, that's the acronym for public digital identity system; it's a SAML-based authentication mechanism used by most public websites including tax returns, pension/welfare, and healthcare
    - C19is20 5y ago
      Read again "Italy: https://ilmiocf.it https://ilmiocf.it lets you generate your equivalent of an ssn (fiscal code). And, yes...if you know someone's very basic details you have the number." I did not say you can "ruin someone's life" with it. I very clearly wrote "if you know someone's very basic details you have the number". No more, no less. If I knew the details of Milano Bonzini, born in Milano on 10/10/2010 then this is (probably) their codice: BNZMLN10R10F205U. I thought the site would be __fun__ for foreigners (US, but not only) on HN, maybe if they have Italian heritage, they can work out nonna's number. The "stampa codice a barre", is equally fun and I know several visitors that have printed it out to go with their holiday memories.
spicybright 5y ago
Should, yes, but in practice not really. I'm talking more about employee information. You need it for tax forms, background checks, citizenship queries, sometimes bank information, etc. So your options are: 1. Store them locally on a computer. Typically on some old windows 7 machine in the corner that hasn't been updated in some time. 2. Store documents physically. Which will either be scanned onto random computers belonging to whoever needs them to be sent through probably insecure mail servers. Or worse, your boss taking a picture of your form and sending it to people that way, leaving the form on their phone. 3. Some other online storage like whatever M$ is offering 4. Use google and somehow store SS#'s somewhere less secure, or obfuscate them in a way no one but a few people will understand and hope they don't block any other files you upload. Businesses have been deciding how to manage these things since the start that work best for them. Having google force you into procedures that might not work for your use case is annoying at best. And they obviously don't know best if they have issues like in OP's post. It's like they take away your gun so you can't shoot yourself in the foot, then fires it at things it thinks are problems hoping not to hit your feet. And what's a few toes to a company the size of google?
- IYasha 5y ago
  If using public storage is absolutely unavoidable, I train people to use password-protected archives like rar or 7z. This way the content won't be indexed and less likely to be used by attackers.
jsymolon 5y ago
> SSNs should be treated ... As someone who dealt with identity theft, SSN should only be collected if contact with the SSA is needed. I.E. payment of social security benefits. Any and ALL other "ID", nope. Use some other number.
- spicybright 5y ago
  I definitely agree, but in america it's impossible to be legally employed without your employer having your SS# on record.
  - inetknght 5y ago
    Well, yes. Employers need to talk to the Social Security Administration regarding your social security withholdings...
    - nybble41 5y ago
      It's also your tax ID, unless you've filed for a separate one. While the original intent may have been that the SSN would only be used for Social Security, by now various places are required by law to collect your SSN even if they have nothing to do with the Social Security Administration. But that isn't even the real problem here. SSNs are an identifier (username). Merely knowing someone's SSN shouldn't grant you any extra privileges. It's not a secret—lots of people know it, and it isn't even hard to guess from age and birthplace—and yet people treat it as if it were something akin to a password, as if knowledge of a person's SSN were enough to establish identity. By this point in time we should very well know to use only zero-knowledge proofs for authentication and not even share the secret with the entity one is authenticating to, so they can't turn around and impersonate you to someone else. The same goes for credit card and bank account numbers. As anyone you've ever paid with your card or by check has access to these they can't be considered particularly secret. The problem is that the system barely has any authentication built in. 4-digit PINs and hastily handwritten signatures only an expert can verify do not offer reasonable security. Chip cards are a bit better (non-clonable, require physical possession) but only work for in-person transactions.
- 5y ago
nathanaldensr 5y ago
Thanks to Equifax, SSNs are effectively public anyway.
madaxe_again 5y ago
Why? You can figure out someone’s SSN if you know where they’re from and what their birthday is. They’re highly predictable - particularly given that you’ll often see the last four digits as the “obfuscated” version in lists etc, and the first three are state, and the next two are based on when they were born. Put the two together, and job done. They’re effectively public data. The fact that they’re used as a magic security number/identifier is frankly mind-boggling. Citation: https://www.pnas.org/content/106/27/10975 https://www.pnas.org/content/106/27/10975
- spicybright 5y ago
  Uhg, I wish I didn't know this lol
bob1029 5y ago
> SSNs should be treated more securely than credit card numbers. I disagree. Both SSNs and credit card numbers should be treated with equal consideration. Establishing arbitrary classes of PII protection based upon perceived severity of compromise is a bad strategy. In the market we work in, you either get this 100% right or you don't get it right at all. There is no happy middle-ground when you are selling software to banks or other such organizations. No one is interested in "mostly" correct when it comes to PII they are responsible for protecting.

bonzini 5y ago

Which is a problem of its own, since they're effectively usernames. Secure usernames that have no corresponding password is already an oxymoron; that's what credit card numbers used to be, hence the introduction of the CVV, 3DSecure and so on; but at least a credit card can be blocked with relative ease. But SSNs are secure unchangeable usernames, which makes even less sense. Do any countries other than the US have such an abomination, where you can figure out the SSN of someone and ruin their life?

spicybright 5y ago
Not that I know of. It really is a horrible system. But it's not one I want Google trying to solve.
AnthonyMouse 5y ago
You can actually change your social security number in the circumstance of "victim of identity theft continues to be disadvantaged by using the original number": https://faq.ssa.gov/en-us/Topic/article/KA-02220 https://faq.ssa.gov/en-us/Topic/article/KA-02220 It's a huge pain, obviously. Especially when you get to all the systems which blindly assume it isn't possible. But you can do it. They ought to just open it up and let anyone who requests to change it once a year no questions asked.
- tempestn 5y ago
  Which would have the benefit of forcing those systems to be updated. Agreed.
- bonzini 5y ago
  Doesn't it reset your credit history? (Which you reluctantly want if you were the victim of identity theft, but not yearly)
C19is20 5y ago
Italy: https://ilmiocf.it https://ilmiocf.it lets you generate your equivalent of an ssn (fiscal code). And, yes...if you know someone's very basic details you have the number. For US viewers, enter 'stati uniti' as 'comune di nascita'. Use deepl.com for the bit at the bottom.
- azernik 5y ago
  Whereas in Israel, a national ID number is treated as just that - an ID number. You put it on every single contract you sign, on most bureaucratic forms, &c, and it's used to match up individual identity rather than names. On many online services, your ID number is your username, and your password is chosen per-service.
  - bonzini 5y ago
    It's the same in Italy, actually. The poster above is incorrect.
- bonzini 5y ago
  Why is it always Italians shitting on the country without knowing what they're talking about? This is absolutely not comparable. You can't ruin someone's life if you have their codice fiscale (source: am Italian). Most countries do have some kind of id number like that, but they always have a "password" too. In Italy authentication is done by the SPID providers[1] or with an electronic id card (or physically with an id card, driving license or passport). You can't get a credit card and spend as much as you want in their name. You need at least a stolen or counterfeit physical document to open a bank account, or a stolen password and a SPID second factor to file a fraudulent tax return. In the US the SSN is often enough unless you opt into freezing credit. [1] for non Italians, that's the acronym for public digital identity system; it's a SAML-based authentication mechanism used by most public websites including tax returns, pension/welfare, and healthcare
  - C19is20 5y ago
    Read again "Italy: https://ilmiocf.it https://ilmiocf.it lets you generate your equivalent of an ssn (fiscal code). And, yes...if you know someone's very basic details you have the number." I did not say you can "ruin someone's life" with it. I very clearly wrote "if you know someone's very basic details you have the number". No more, no less. If I knew the details of Milano Bonzini, born in Milano on 10/10/2010 then this is (probably) their codice: BNZMLN10R10F205U. I thought the site would be __fun__ for foreigners (US, but not only) on HN, maybe if they have Italian heritage, they can work out nonna's number. The "stampa codice a barre", is equally fun and I know several visitors that have printed it out to go with their holiday memories.

spicybright 5y ago

Should, yes, but in practice not really. I'm talking more about employee information. You need it for tax forms, background checks, citizenship queries, sometimes bank information, etc. So your options are: 1. Store them locally on a computer. Typically on some old windows 7 machine in the corner that hasn't been updated in some time. 2. Store documents physically. Which will either be scanned onto random computers belonging to whoever needs them to be sent through probably insecure mail servers. Or worse, your boss taking a picture of your form and sending it to people that way, leaving the form on their phone. 3. Some other online storage like whatever M$ is offering 4. Use google and somehow store SS#'s somewhere less secure, or obfuscate them in a way no one but a few people will understand and hope they don't block any other files you upload. Businesses have been deciding how to manage these things since the start that work best for them. Having google force you into procedures that might not work for your use case is annoying at best. And they obviously don't know best if they have issues like in OP's post. It's like they take away your gun so you can't shoot yourself in the foot, then fires it at things it thinks are problems hoping not to hit your feet. And what's a few toes to a company the size of google?

IYasha 5y ago
If using public storage is absolutely unavoidable, I train people to use password-protected archives like rar or 7z. This way the content won't be indexed and less likely to be used by attackers.

jsymolon 5y ago

> SSNs should be treated ... As someone who dealt with identity theft, SSN should only be collected if contact with the SSA is needed. I.E. payment of social security benefits. Any and ALL other "ID", nope. Use some other number.

spicybright 5y ago
I definitely agree, but in america it's impossible to be legally employed without your employer having your SS# on record.
- inetknght 5y ago
  Well, yes. Employers need to talk to the Social Security Administration regarding your social security withholdings...
  - nybble41 5y ago
    It's also your tax ID, unless you've filed for a separate one. While the original intent may have been that the SSN would only be used for Social Security, by now various places are required by law to collect your SSN even if they have nothing to do with the Social Security Administration. But that isn't even the real problem here. SSNs are an identifier (username). Merely knowing someone's SSN shouldn't grant you any extra privileges. It's not a secret—lots of people know it, and it isn't even hard to guess from age and birthplace—and yet people treat it as if it were something akin to a password, as if knowledge of a person's SSN were enough to establish identity. By this point in time we should very well know to use only zero-knowledge proofs for authentication and not even share the secret with the entity one is authenticating to, so they can't turn around and impersonate you to someone else. The same goes for credit card and bank account numbers. As anyone you've ever paid with your card or by check has access to these they can't be considered particularly secret. The problem is that the system barely has any authentication built in. 4-digit PINs and hastily handwritten signatures only an expert can verify do not offer reasonable security. Chip cards are a bit better (non-clonable, require physical possession) but only work for in-person transactions.
5y ago

nathanaldensr 5y ago

Thanks to Equifax, SSNs are effectively public anyway.

madaxe_again 5y ago

Why? You can figure out someone’s SSN if you know where they’re from and what their birthday is. They’re highly predictable - particularly given that you’ll often see the last four digits as the “obfuscated” version in lists etc, and the first three are state, and the next two are based on when they were born. Put the two together, and job done. They’re effectively public data. The fact that they’re used as a magic security number/identifier is frankly mind-boggling. Citation: https://www.pnas.org/content/106/27/10975 https://www.pnas.org/content/106/27/10975

spicybright 5y ago
Uhg, I wish I didn't know this lol

bob1029 5y ago

> SSNs should be treated more securely than credit card numbers. I disagree. Both SSNs and credit card numbers should be treated with equal consideration. Establishing arbitrary classes of PII protection based upon perceived severity of compromise is a bad strategy. In the market we work in, you either get this 100% right or you don't get it right at all. There is no happy middle-ground when you are selling software to banks or other such organizations. No one is interested in "mostly" correct when it comes to PII they are responsible for protecting.