5 ms·

lol, if it's downvoted that's how you know americans did it, because people from other countries have no idea why SS number is important or what it is

yreg 11mo ago
Oh, we know what it is and we also know that it is terrible for identification. Just hand out IDs with an actual unique id number with a check digit to _all_ citizens.
- cinntaile 11mo ago
  A social security number is unique. I do agree it's better to use a different unique number.
- spacechild1 11mo ago
  At least in my country, the SSN is unique and everyone has one.
- TheOtherHobbes 11mo ago
  A mix of six upper and lower case gets you nearly 20 billion unique IDs, which should be enough for a while. If we colonise the galaxy we could increase that to seven letters.
- walletdrainer 11mo ago
  How is it terrible? SSNs rather reliably identify individual people, actual non-fraudulent collisions are very rare. The fraud is a separate issue and SSNs are obviously misused, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not a reasonable system to uniquely identify multiple people with the same name and DOB.
  - rvnx 11mo ago
    The fact it is tied to social security and is not called “national ID” shows already it is a legacy system, + the fact there is no authentication in place
    - walletdrainer 11mo ago
      Authentication is completely separate from identification, you shouldn’t be using any kind of ID number to authenticate anyone. That does not suggest that ID numbers are not good for identification.
Fnoord 11mo ago
Why, we got something similar in other countries. Here in NL it is called BSN; Burger Service Number (burger means civilian). I believe the civilian should be able to create identities based on their private key (which only the government knows) and these should have different details. Like for example, a nickname, a realname, a telephone number, and address, or multiple of these. But then, also the civilian should be able to revoke the licenses. Or, rather: they should be valid for a short amount of time.
- close04 11mo ago
  > burger means civilian Nice try, so you tell me that the burger hospital I passed by is not in fact a place where they patch up burgers until they’re back on their feet? A lot of countries have a unique ID for their citizens which is used for routine identification. On websites, at the bank, etc. nothing special about SSNs in this regard, except that they were leaked more times than you can count.
  - toast0 11mo ago
    > On websites, at the bank, etc. nothing special about SSNs in this regard, except that they were leaked more times than you can count. That's not that special either. Plenty of countries make their numbers de jure public information. The most special thing about the SSN is that the cards say (or said) not for identification, and then they're used for exactly that.
    - close04 11mo ago
      > Plenty of countries make their numbers de jure public information. That's the difference. A lot of people and processes in the US make the assumption that the SSN is a well kept secret despite them being publicly leaked so many times. This assumption is a weakness for any process that relies on "secret" SSNs.
- mFixman 11mo ago
  > burger means civilian I just realised this is probably the German etymological branch of "burgoise".

yreg 11mo ago

Oh, we know what it is and we also know that it is terrible for identification. Just hand out IDs with an actual unique id number with a check digit to _all_ citizens.

cinntaile 11mo ago
A social security number is unique. I do agree it's better to use a different unique number.
spacechild1 11mo ago
At least in my country, the SSN is unique and everyone has one.
TheOtherHobbes 11mo ago
A mix of six upper and lower case gets you nearly 20 billion unique IDs, which should be enough for a while. If we colonise the galaxy we could increase that to seven letters.
walletdrainer 11mo ago
How is it terrible? SSNs rather reliably identify individual people, actual non-fraudulent collisions are very rare. The fraud is a separate issue and SSNs are obviously misused, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not a reasonable system to uniquely identify multiple people with the same name and DOB.
- rvnx 11mo ago
  The fact it is tied to social security and is not called “national ID” shows already it is a legacy system, + the fact there is no authentication in place
  - walletdrainer 11mo ago
    Authentication is completely separate from identification, you shouldn’t be using any kind of ID number to authenticate anyone. That does not suggest that ID numbers are not good for identification.

Fnoord 11mo ago

Why, we got something similar in other countries. Here in NL it is called BSN; Burger Service Number (burger means civilian). I believe the civilian should be able to create identities based on their private key (which only the government knows) and these should have different details. Like for example, a nickname, a realname, a telephone number, and address, or multiple of these. But then, also the civilian should be able to revoke the licenses. Or, rather: they should be valid for a short amount of time.

close04 11mo ago
> burger means civilian Nice try, so you tell me that the burger hospital I passed by is not in fact a place where they patch up burgers until they’re back on their feet? A lot of countries have a unique ID for their citizens which is used for routine identification. On websites, at the bank, etc. nothing special about SSNs in this regard, except that they were leaked more times than you can count.
- toast0 11mo ago
  > On websites, at the bank, etc. nothing special about SSNs in this regard, except that they were leaked more times than you can count. That's not that special either. Plenty of countries make their numbers de jure public information. The most special thing about the SSN is that the cards say (or said) not for identification, and then they're used for exactly that.
  - close04 11mo ago
    > Plenty of countries make their numbers de jure public information. That's the difference. A lot of people and processes in the US make the assumption that the SSN is a well kept secret despite them being publicly leaked so many times. This assumption is a weakness for any process that relies on "secret" SSNs.
mFixman 11mo ago
> burger means civilian I just realised this is probably the German etymological branch of "burgoise".