Social Security Numbers Can Be Guessed 268
BotScout writes "The nation's Social Security numbering scheme has left millions of citizens vulnerable to privacy breaches, according to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, who for the first time have used statistical techniques to predict Social Security numbers solely from an individual's date and location of birth. The researchers used the information they gleaned to predict, in one try, the first five digits of a person's Social Security number 44 percent of the time for 160,000 people born between 1989 and 2003. A Social Security Administration spokesman said the government has long cautioned the private sector against using a social security number as a personal identifier, even as it insists 'there is no fool-proof method for predicting a person's Social Security Number.'" Update: 07/07 00:01 GMT by T : Reader angrytuna links to Wired's coverage of the SSN deduction system, and links to the researchers' FAQ at Carnegie Mellon, which says that the research paper will be presented at BlackHat Las Vegas later this month.
good thing (Score:5, Funny)
Naught (Score:5, Funny)
Naught Naught Naught Naught Naught Naught Naught Naught Two.
Damn Roosevelt!
Time to start using UUID/GUIDs (Score:5, Funny)
I think 8e019226-9a00-41f4-b094-6f1545fd84a9 should be fairly easy to remember.
Re:Time to start using UUID/GUIDs (Score:1, Funny)
That's the same as the combination to my luggage.
Re:Duh (Score:2, Funny)
The Republicans knew they couldn't win, so they got together with "them" to put "him" in office.
The understanding is, that if anything really objectionable gets signed into law, it can later be nullified on the grounds that Obama wasn't really qualified to start with.
Come on, we all know this is leading up to an Illuminati like climax in a few decades, where someone, with the proper papers and legal claim, becomes the "legitimate" ruler of All Man Kind.
The joke is on them, however, because, with luck, there will be genetically modified "people" who no longer feel unity with "Man Kind".
(Well, I made a stab at it... I don't know how real conspiracy theorists can persist, they might be genuinely mentally ill. It's exhausting!