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I recently read that they hand out SSN's in advance based on projected birth
rates to hospitals, and the SSN line up with zip codes.
The first five digits of my Social Security Number are also the zip code for a
very small town about two hours north of the small city where I got my K-12
education (I don't remember exactly what year I got my SSN).
Then here's a slashdot story where only people in New England are affected by a
mistake that hurts folks with a leading "0" in their SSN.
http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/08/19/2220209/SSN-Overlap-With-Micronesia-Causes-Trouble-For-Woman?from=rss
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On Wed, 19 Aug 2009 22:01:20 -0400, gregjohn wrote:
> The first five digits of my Social Security Number are also the zip code
> for a very small town about two hours north of the small city where I
> got my K-12 education (I don't remember exactly what year I got my SSN).
Not the case here, the zip that would be represented by the first 5
digits of my SSN is about 600 miles from where I grew up.
Jim
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> Not the case here, the zip that would be represented by the first 5
> digits of my SSN is about 600 miles from where I grew up.
SSNs when I was growing up had certain codes, but they hadn't anything to do
with zipcodes as such. Initial digits had something to do with where you
were, but not postal codes.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
back to version 1.0."
"We've done that already. We call it 2.0."
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On Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:31:49 -0700, Darren New wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Not the case here, the zip that would be represented by the first 5
>> digits of my SSN is about 600 miles from where I grew up.
>
> SSNs when I was growing up had certain codes, but they hadn't anything
> to do with zipcodes as such. Initial digits had something to do with
> where you were, but not postal codes.
Yeah, I read the story Greg referred to on /. as well, that SSNs might be
"predictable" if you know certain pieces of information about a person -
where they were born, when they were born, etc.
Jim
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> "predictable" if you know certain pieces of information about a person -
> where they were born, when they were born, etc.
http://privacy.cs.cmu.edu/dataprivacy/projects/ssnwatch/faq.html
For example, no SSN has 00 as the middle two digits, and ones starting with
"222" are reserved for immigrants.
Now, again, this is how it worked 40 years ago. How it works now, with even
newborns getting SSNs and another several decades of people using up SSNs
that are supposedly never reissued is hard to say.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
back to version 1.0."
"We've done that already. We call it 2.0."
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gregjohn wrote:
> The first five digits of my Social Security Number are also the zip code for a
> very small town about two hours north of the small city where I got my K-12
> education (I don't remember exactly what year I got my SSN).
That's a coincidence (albeit a rather cool one). SSNs are apportioned
to states, so everyone who gets one in the same state during the same
year will have similar starting digits. However the digits are not
actually based on location.
...Chambers
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> Yeah, I read the story Greg referred to on /. as well, that SSNs might be
> "predictable" if you know certain pieces of information about a person -
> where they were born, when they were born, etc.
That's like predicting who's going to get a winning lottery ticket based
on knowing when & where they buy tickets, isn't it?
(At least, the kind of lottery where they hand out tickets, and a
certain ticket wins; not the kind where you pick numbers).
...Chambers
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Darren New wrote:
> Now, again, this is how it worked 40 years ago. How it works now, with
> even newborns getting SSNs and another several decades of people using up
> SSNs that are supposedly never reissued is hard to say.
We have it easier. Newborns get an ID number, but they are simply
incremental.
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On Wed, 19 Aug 2009 23:03:34 -0700, Chambers wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Yeah, I read the story Greg referred to on /. as well, that SSNs might
>> be "predictable" if you know certain pieces of information about a
>> person - where they were born, when they were born, etc.
>
> That's like predicting who's going to get a winning lottery ticket based
> on knowing when & where they buy tickets, isn't it?
It seems like it to me, but I think it depends on some other knowledge as
well.
> (At least, the kind of lottery where they hand out tickets, and a
> certain ticket wins; not the kind where you pick numbers).
Jim
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Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> Now, again, this is how it worked 40 years ago. How it works now, with
>> even newborns getting SSNs and another several decades of people using up
>> SSNs that are supposedly never reissued is hard to say.
>
> We have it easier. Newborns get an ID number, but they are simply
> incremental.
Right. But nobody expects *yours* to be an identification all in itself.
<grumble>
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
back to version 1.0."
"We've done that already. We call it 2.0."
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