Thursday, July 09, 2009
"News" on cracking social sec numbers....
Today's news is full of a "study" showing how you can decode location and time of birth from the first five digits of the SSN.
This isn't news, though the detailed computerization of the process may be new.
Anyone who has worked with SSN's has observed this correlation. Back in the '70s when I was an office manager dealing with job applications and W2 forms, I "cracked" this "code" with no trouble at all, and enjoyed testing my knowledge by guessing the year and place of birth before peeking at the rest of the application.
It didn't matter much then, because online shopping and immigration fraud were only a sci-fi fantasy, and most transactions were done by name and face instead of by number.
The obvious solution to most of these problems is to make SSN's fully public. If anyone can verify instantly that 123-45-6789 belongs to Jonathan Q. Doe, born in 1957 in Pittsburgh, then most attempted misuses of Jonathan's number can be instantly spotted. When you're dealing with a 20-year-old Mexican using 123-45-6789, you'll know he's fake. Fraudsters will understand this, and they will stop. ¶ 1:44 PM
This isn't news, though the detailed computerization of the process may be new.
Anyone who has worked with SSN's has observed this correlation. Back in the '70s when I was an office manager dealing with job applications and W2 forms, I "cracked" this "code" with no trouble at all, and enjoyed testing my knowledge by guessing the year and place of birth before peeking at the rest of the application.
It didn't matter much then, because online shopping and immigration fraud were only a sci-fi fantasy, and most transactions were done by name and face instead of by number.
The obvious solution to most of these problems is to make SSN's fully public. If anyone can verify instantly that 123-45-6789 belongs to Jonathan Q. Doe, born in 1957 in Pittsburgh, then most attempted misuses of Jonathan's number can be instantly spotted. When you're dealing with a 20-year-old Mexican using 123-45-6789, you'll know he's fake. Fraudsters will understand this, and they will stop. ¶ 1:44 PM
