Weakness in socal security numbers found.

[SixNein]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/us/07numbers.html?_r=1

Ouch?!

[Wellesley]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/us/07numbers.html?_r=1

Ouch?!

That link seems to lead to a log-in page, but I found the article off Google. For some reason, I can't get the link to work again though :grumpy:.

...the researchers were able to identify statistical patterns that then permitted extrapolating to the country’s living population, making it possible — in principle — to identify millions of Social Security numbers for individuals whose birth date and location were publicly available....

This part is really scary. If they can do that, then the identity thieves have probably been doing that for a while. That's why when someone wants my S.S. or birthdate, I'm pretty careful to who I give it out to.

[Mensanator]

Interesting. I have lived my entire life in Illinois. Except for a two year stint when my father worked in Missouri. During that time, I had to apply for a SS number to enter high school. A year later, we moved back to Illinois. As a result, my SS number does not statistically match those of Illinois residents even though I was born there.

In the early Apple ][ days, someone at my computer club worked up a similar algorithm to guess driver's liscense numbers. His program utterly failed with me due to my quirky Social Security number.