3 ms·

> A customer asked for a screen to be able to see CC numbers for their own customers I'd be curious what reason they had.

bee_rider 3y ago
In 2002? Probably something now-crazy like “how else will I process returns?” It is not directly related, but as a hopefully funny semi-related anecdote, the federal government stopped states from putting social security numbers on drivers licenses in 2004. Renewals frequency depends on the state, but it is typically in the 4-8 year range, so plausibly until 2012 people were going around showing their SSN to anybody that needed to see ID. I specifically remember this caused stressful situations as a teenager working retail, people justifiably didn’t want to show an ID when doing returns because it had their SSN. A credit card number is hardly anything comparably! This all seems absurd nowadays, but the past is not really that long ago.
- wombatpm 3y ago
  At one time it was routine to have your SSN and Drivers License # printed on your checks. And in 1988 my student ID number as university was my SSN.
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    But 1988 is officially The Past, ask any millennial, my self image can’t deal with the fact that our anecdotes objectively belong side-by-side.
    - pavel_lishin 3y ago
      At the risk of instantly drying into dust by suggesting that 2002 is also The Past, but my SSN was also my student ID then.
      - QuercusMax 3y ago
        In 2002 my school (Kent State) was in the process of phasing out SSNs as student numbers. I was working as a student IT employee in one of the departments and spent quite a bit of time updating systems to remove the use of SSNs.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- zeven7 3y ago
  SSNs shouldn’t have to be kept any more secret than your name. The fact that somehow they started being used as passwords is the insane thing.
- ahi 3y ago
  Well into the 2000s it was routine to find unredacted SSNs in public Federal bankruptcy filings. Likewise, the old Congressional Records contain thousands of SSNs of newly promoted military officers. Librarians have spent a lot of time tracking these down in their archives to redact them.
jstarfish 3y ago
A fly-by-night IT training/certification/voucher reseller I worked for around that time saved customer billing information as a convenience. No joke-- credit card numbers, billing addresses, CVV codes, all stored in plaintext in an Access database. Tiny shop though; I don't know if they were big enough for PCI to even apply.

bee_rider 3y ago

In 2002? Probably something now-crazy like “how else will I process returns?” It is not directly related, but as a hopefully funny semi-related anecdote, the federal government stopped states from putting social security numbers on drivers licenses in 2004. Renewals frequency depends on the state, but it is typically in the 4-8 year range, so plausibly until 2012 people were going around showing their SSN to anybody that needed to see ID. I specifically remember this caused stressful situations as a teenager working retail, people justifiably didn’t want to show an ID when doing returns because it had their SSN. A credit card number is hardly anything comparably! This all seems absurd nowadays, but the past is not really that long ago.

wombatpm 3y ago
At one time it was routine to have your SSN and Drivers License # printed on your checks. And in 1988 my student ID number as university was my SSN.
- bee_rider 3y ago
  But 1988 is officially The Past, ask any millennial, my self image can’t deal with the fact that our anecdotes objectively belong side-by-side.
  - pavel_lishin 3y ago
    At the risk of instantly drying into dust by suggesting that 2002 is also The Past, but my SSN was also my student ID then.
    - QuercusMax 3y ago
      In 2002 my school (Kent State) was in the process of phasing out SSNs as student numbers. I was working as a student IT employee in one of the departments and spent quite a bit of time updating systems to remove the use of SSNs.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
zeven7 3y ago
SSNs shouldn’t have to be kept any more secret than your name. The fact that somehow they started being used as passwords is the insane thing.
ahi 3y ago
Well into the 2000s it was routine to find unredacted SSNs in public Federal bankruptcy filings. Likewise, the old Congressional Records contain thousands of SSNs of newly promoted military officers. Librarians have spent a lot of time tracking these down in their archives to redact them.

jstarfish 3y ago

A fly-by-night IT training/certification/voucher reseller I worked for around that time saved customer billing information as a convenience. No joke-- credit card numbers, billing addresses, CVV codes, all stored in plaintext in an Access database. Tiny shop though; I don't know if they were big enough for PCI to even apply.