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This keeps me awake at night. Where I live, Uber is the only ride service, but my account is in a sketchy limbo that is still working for now. Years ago I wante

This keeps me awake at night. Where I live, Uber is the only ride service, but my account is in a sketchy limbo that is still working for now. Years ago I wanted to drive for one night to try it out, so now my account is stuck as a “partner.” I can’t change my phone number or anything in the app because it tells me to go to the partner site. I can’t log into that for some reason, and I can’t reset my password because it claims my personal info (SSN) is already in use by another account. Of course support is robots that tell me to do the obvious. One day I’m sure my account is going to get roboflagged as an anomaly and I’ll be screwed on the side of the road.

hedora 4y ago
Public service announcement: SSN's are not unique, and were never intended to be. They are assigned using an allocation scheme that ensures people of similar age will not have the same SSN, and that allows localities to independently allocate them at birth without creating collisions.
- PopAlongKid 4y ago
  I don't think any of your claims are true. https://www.ssa.gov/employer/randomization.html https://www.ssa.gov/employer/randomization.html
  - rosnd 4y ago
    SSNs are not unique for a whole lot of reasons. https://www.nbcnews.com/technolog/odds-someone-else-has-your-ssn-one-7-6c10406347 https://www.nbcnews.com/technolog/odds-someone-else-has-your...
    - PopAlongKid 4y ago
      OK, so the one claim about not being unique has some truth to it. Yes, they are mis-used (either mistakenly or maliciously) to some extent by people they were not assigned to, but they were never intended to be non-unique, which was the primary claim I was responding to, along with the other ones. [edit] There is a related claim (not made above) that is correct, which is SSNs were never intended to be a secret.
      - hedora 4y ago
        The link you provided explains the algorithm they used to use to assign SSNs, and gives enough information to let you reason that SSNs were not unique prior to the change. In the past, it was actually illegal to demand someone's SSN for non-official use. The social security administration seems to encourage SSN harvesting now. I'm not sure what changed. Probably scope creep / financial incentives leading to increasing privacy violations.
ridgered4 4y ago
I've barely used any ride sharing apps but I definitely did not cough up my SSN. Can you just start over with a new account and no SSN, maybe a new CC?
- eloisius 4y ago
  I had to fill out a W-9 (I think) when I signed up to drive. Since my account is stuck as a “partner” it wants me to submit information to recover access to it, even though my “rider” access via my phone number works.

hedora 4y ago

Public service announcement: SSN's are not unique, and were never intended to be. They are assigned using an allocation scheme that ensures people of similar age will not have the same SSN, and that allows localities to independently allocate them at birth without creating collisions.

PopAlongKid 4y ago
I don't think any of your claims are true. https://www.ssa.gov/employer/randomization.html https://www.ssa.gov/employer/randomization.html
- rosnd 4y ago
  SSNs are not unique for a whole lot of reasons. https://www.nbcnews.com/technolog/odds-someone-else-has-your-ssn-one-7-6c10406347 https://www.nbcnews.com/technolog/odds-someone-else-has-your...
  - PopAlongKid 4y ago
    OK, so the one claim about not being unique has some truth to it. Yes, they are mis-used (either mistakenly or maliciously) to some extent by people they were not assigned to, but they were never intended to be non-unique, which was the primary claim I was responding to, along with the other ones. [edit] There is a related claim (not made above) that is correct, which is SSNs were never intended to be a secret.
    - hedora 4y ago
      The link you provided explains the algorithm they used to use to assign SSNs, and gives enough information to let you reason that SSNs were not unique prior to the change. In the past, it was actually illegal to demand someone's SSN for non-official use. The social security administration seems to encourage SSN harvesting now. I'm not sure what changed. Probably scope creep / financial incentives leading to increasing privacy violations.

ridgered4 4y ago

I've barely used any ride sharing apps but I definitely did not cough up my SSN. Can you just start over with a new account and no SSN, maybe a new CC?

eloisius 4y ago
I had to fill out a W-9 (I think) when I signed up to drive. Since my account is stuck as a “partner” it wants me to submit information to recover access to it, even though my “rider” access via my phone number works.