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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?
Why? SSNs were started before computers were invented, so each office got a
batch of prefixes and an algorithm for using them. You couldn't do the
"allocate sequentially" algorithm when Social Security was invented.
--
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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Darren New wrote:
> Chambers wrote:
>> That's like predicting who's going to get a winning lottery ticket
>> based on knowing when & where they buy tickets, isn't it?
>
> Why? SSNs were started before computers were invented, so each office
> got a batch of prefixes and an algorithm for using them. You couldn't do
> the "allocate sequentially" algorithm when Social Security was invented.
Why can't you allocate sequentially by hand? It's not like counting is
hard.
"OK, Washington State is going to get the batch 542-XX-XXXX."
"Alright, now the Olympia SSA Office gets numbers 542-00-XXXX through
542-29-XXXX, Seattle gets 542-30-XXXX through 542-49-XXXX, Spokane gets
542-50-XXXX through 542-69-XXXX, ..."
...Chambers
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Chambers wrote:
> Why can't you allocate sequentially by hand? It's not like counting is
> hard.
You can't allocate sequentially by hand if you have multiple hands.
> "OK, Washington State is going to get the batch 542-XX-XXXX."
That's not very sequential if New York is allocating from batch 123-XX-XXXX
by hand at the same time, yes?
Yes, that's exactly how it worked, and yes, that's exactly why they weren't
issued sequentially. :-)
--
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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Chambers <Ben### [at] gmail com> wrote:
>
> Why can't you allocate sequentially by hand? It's not like counting is
> hard.
>
> "OK, Washington State is going to get the batch 542-XX-XXXX."
>
I think the by-hand- sequentially would have been the doctor saying, "Hold on,
Mrs. Baker, I'm trying to get through on the phone to Washington to get a SSN
for your baby. Seems like a whole lot of babies were born across the country
in the last hour."
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In article <4a8e31f1@news.povray.org>,
Darren New wrote:
> That's not very sequential if New York is allocating from batch 123-XX-XXXX
> by hand at the same time, yes?
Being a national number, could it be centralized?
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Daniel Bastos wrote:
> In article <4a8e31f1@news.povray.org>,
> Darren New wrote:
>
>> That's not very sequential if New York is allocating from batch 123-XX-XXXX
>> by hand at the same time, yes?
>
> Being a national number, could it be centralized?
Now, yes. Back in the 1920's when it was invented? Probably not. It wouldn't
have even been efficient to centralize it if everyone was sitting in the
same room processing the paperwork. Since that was unnecessary, why would you?
That's what I'm trying to express.
--
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:
> Mrs. Baker, I'm trying to get through on the phone to Washington to get a SSN
> for your baby.
More like "I'm waiting for the long-distance operator to call me back when
there's a free line all the way to Washington."
Since SSNs were originally for Social Security and not as a national ID to
start with (and indeed the original legislation prohibited its use as an ID
number even in *other* parts of the Internal Revenue Service), most people
only got them when they started working. I got mine in high school, and
that only because I was offered to have the school handle delivering the
paperwork. Otherwise, I probably would have waited until I was out of
college or otherwise needed the number.
--
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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In article <4a8ec0ab@news.povray.org>,
Darren New wrote:
> Now, yes. Back in the 1920's when it was invented? Probably not. It wouldn't
> have even been efficient to centralize it if everyone was sitting in the
> same room processing the paperwork. Since that was unnecessary, why would you?
>
> That's what I'm trying to express.
Sorry. I got on the train in motion.
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On Fri, 21 Aug 2009 12:10:25 -0400, Daniel Bastos wrote:
> In article <4a8ec0ab@news.povray.org>, Darren New wrote:
>
>> Now, yes. Back in the 1920's when it was invented? Probably not. It
>> wouldn't have even been efficient to centralize it if everyone was
>> sitting in the same room processing the paperwork. Since that was
>> unnecessary, why would you?
>>
>> That's what I'm trying to express.
>
> Sorry. I got on the train in motion.
You gotta run fast to do that.
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Darren New wrote:
> Yes, that's exactly how it worked, and yes, that's exactly why they
> weren't issued sequentially. :-)
Just a quirk of terminology, then, because I consider "sequentially
within batches" to be mostly equivalent to "sequentially" ;)
...Chambers
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