Comments: 268 +- Your Rights Online: Social Security Numbers Can Be Guessed on Monday July 06, @06:14PM
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.
Related Stories
Submission: Social Security Numbers Can Be Guessed by Anonymous Coward
The shortest distance between two points is under construction.
-- Noelie Alito
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.
good thing (Score:5, Funny)
Re:good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:good thing (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:good thing (Score:4, Interesting)
The combination of name and number is supposed to be unique(by being so incredibly unlikely), but the generating process makes no attempt to see if a number is already in use by anyone else.
Mycroft
Parent
Re:good thing (Score:4, Interesting)
Incredibly unlikely?? It's one in freaking three. 999999999 means only 1,000 million possible numbers, if the geographic coding didn't exist and the group coding didn't remove many numbers from the available number space, making things much, much worse. For a population of 300 million...
By my count, if there is no checking, the probability of collisions is incredibly high.
Parent
Re:good thing (Score:4, Informative)
There are (roughly) 3x as many SSNs as living US citizens. Add in some dead folks, account for holes in the numbering system, and let's call it 2x.
If the numbers were assigned at random, I think there would be roughly a 60% (intuition, pardon my laziness) chance that someone else shared your SSN. The claim is that it is "incredibly unlikely" that that person (or one of those people, in the increasingly unlikely situations of multiple collisions) who shares your SSN *ALSO* shares your name.
For a randomly selected person, I agree. However, I expect there are specific counterexamples (remember, 1-in-a-billion things happen to 6 people on Earth every day). There are 50k John Smith in the USA, out of 300M people. 30k of them have SSN collisions with a random other person. There is a ~1/1000 chance that two of them collide with each other. I don't think that 1/1000 is "incredibly unlikely"... I also think you probably aren't named John Smith :)
Parent
Re:good thing (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The problem is that it is illegal/unlawful to use the SSN for anything but Social Security. It is NOT supposed to be used as an identity source for everything else. This is just one of those citizen protection laws that have been casually ignored by everyone. I always get strange looks and confusion when I cite the law and even show it to people.
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/privacy/ssn-faq/ [faqs.org] http://www.glr.com/govt/privacy/ssnuse2.html -- this exposes some of the problems in that many common uses are not requ
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I should have been more clear. It is unlawful in the sense that the intent of the social security act of 1975 was to work against or otherwise discourage the use (mostly by government) of the SSN for purposes other than Social Security. Commercial activities are getting a big exemption on this because it is considered voluntary. (It's not really voluntary any longer as to lead a "normal" life, one needs to maintain that damned number and so there have been recent attempts to reign in the use of the SSN t
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Well the thing is the article itself is a bit misleading. It didn't take a study to find that you can predict the first 5 digits with 44% accuracy -- it was already a known factor. In fact, the less populous a state, the more likely they are to get it right. In smaller states (population-wise) such as the Dakotas, there may only be one prefix assigned to the state and with the second set of numbers being sequential, that 44% accuracy goes up very close to 100%. This is why the government has always told
Re:good thing (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Duh (Score:3, Insightful)
It was pretty obvious when my sister and I received sequential numbers.
Re:Duh (Score:5, Interesting)
If they were filed sequentially, and no other filing happened between your two records, they should.
Read up on SSN's.
The first 3 digits is the area (state) which it was issued, which does not necessarily match the state where the person was born.
The second 2 are a group number. These groups are given out in an odd order. Check the SSA site or wikipedia for the details on that.
The last 4 digits are a serial number.
If you know the state where it was issued (either their birth or residence state), and the group number assigned in the likely period when they received a number, then you pretty much have the first two parts of the SSN. I'm curious to how they calculated the last 4 digits.
I would suspect in 1989, they started automatically issuing SSN's at birth, which made the target much easier, if they had the birth month and year available. And yes, this does bring the number pool way down to 9,999 potential SSNs.
Someone like me, I was born in one state, but I was not issued a card until I lived in another state, and was a few years older. You can't base it on my birth date nor location. The best guess would be where I lived, but you can't narrow it down to month or year, because you don't know when it happened. Was I 2 months old, or 5 years old? Maybe I simply never got one until I was 16 and wanted a job. I knew people in school who didn't have one, which threw off some of the school's paperwork. :) Someone I knew didn't have one until he was 21, because he didn't have a birth certificate (born at home, no surviving witnesses other than his parents). He finally did get one, and then got his drivers license. :) They wouldn't issue his drivers license until he has a SSN.
They really should have never gone with SSN's as an identification. It's bad to have a serial number issued by the government. Really, any American isn't an American, we are our SSN, and the name associated with it is an arbitrary value.
Parent
Re:Duh (Score:5, Interesting)
The cards have changed over the years, but mine specifically states:
"For social security and tax purposes -- not for identification"
What were the steps that led down the slippery slope of using them for identification?
Parent
Re:Duh (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes... in fact, when they were first suggest, people had many objections (including religious reasons) to not want to be "numbered."
The federal government swore that the only use would be for social security, and nothing else.
So, anything else they promise, GET IT WRITING. When they pass a law, and you say "yeah, but it's so loosely worded that you can use it for [i]this other thing[/i]," and they say "but we won't," get it in writing.
For example, when they say they want to use GPS only to track your miles, get it in writing.
Parent
Re:Duh (Score:4, Interesting)
For example, when they say they want to use GPS only to track your miles, get it in writing.
Screw that. Get SOMETHING BETTER.
I'm all for automatic tracking of speeding -- IF we get 100% enforcement, no exceptions. If you're not an emergency vehicle WITH LIGHTS ON, you (personally) get a fine.
I'm all for the Feds having a national ID -- so long as I can query a list of everyone who looks up my info. Forever.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It was in writing; that's why "NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION" was on the cards. As with other well-known governmental entitites, they chose to change the agreement and inform complainers that they should be hopeful there would be no further changes. Whenever a law has potential for abuse, even if langua
Re:Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Social Security "chose" nothing, its an elected congress that passes these rules.
That isn't entirely true. The Social Security Administration (as political appointees on the top tier, but this includes career civil employees as well) often does involve itself in legislative matters that involve that agency. This is true of all governmental bodies... just watch how crowded city hall gets when pay schedules for police or fire fighters is being discussed.
The point is that many of the changes to expand the scope and range of SSNs happened with not just the consultation of SSA employees, b
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"What were the steps that led down the slippery slope of using them for identification?"
The problem is not that the SSN is used for identification, with very few corner cases is guaranteed to be unique, so it's a good candidate. The problem is when it's used for *qualified* identification, and not the number but just knowing it. That's the mad part. Proper nouns have been used for ages as an identificative token: "Hi, Joe, this is my friend Mike" and there's no problem with that (given a much limited sco
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
* To allow use by the States of the SSN in the administration of any tax, general public assistance, driver's license or motor vehicle registration law within their jurisdiction and to authorize the States to require individuals affected by such laws to furnish their SSNs to the States;
* To make misuse of the SSN for any purpose a violation of the Social Security Act;
* To make, under federal la
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
IIRC, around then the IRS started requiring you to submit the SSN's of minor dependents you were claiming as exemptions.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Does New York City have a unique political status of which I am unaware? I imagine that if the state of New York does something, it's reasonable to expect the city does, too. Except, perhaps, vote for republicans.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I was loosely in favor of RealID until states began to protest and revolt. At that point, I became an opponent of it purely for the purpose of seeing the states get some sense of federalism back into the system. I value that far more than I value any of the suggested benefits of RealID.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In order to obtain a Drivers license you must provide a Individual Tax Identification Number. Non-Resident aliens obtain an ITIN from the IRS, Resident aliens and citizens ITIN is the SSN.
No, you are not required to provide your SSN to obtain a non-commercial drivers license. You did not need to provide an ITIN either. My drivers license contains neither of these numbers and, IIRC, I never provided it to the DMV. I took a look at the Social Security Administration website and it states that one is not required to provide a SSN for a non-commercial driver license. To obtain a commercial driver license one is required to provide their SSN, but not non-commercial.
Naught (Score:5, Funny)
Naught Naught Naught Naught Naught Naught Naught Naught Two.
Damn Roosevelt!
Why guess? (Score:5, Insightful)
I could also see this technique being combined for some nasty phishing methods. Set up a fake credit check website, ask for their date of birth, the security question is their place of birth, and the last four digits of their social security number is their pin number. Using the technique of these researchers, you can guess a significant portion of people's SS numbers. 40% is probably a huge number for phishing, where most people avoid them, but by shear volume enough get caught to make money off it.
Re:Why guess? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Pretty much every application I've ever filled out has asked for a social security number.
This is why I've adopted the practice of simply writing "N/A", "-----", or just nothing when asked for a SSN. It's incredibly uncommon that they actually need that information
Ahem...your employer definitely has a legitimate need for that information since they're taking money out of your paycheck to pay your Social Security. You won't get a job without an SSN, so write "N/A" all you like - makes the job market larger for the rest of us.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ahem...your employer definitely has a legitimate need for that information since they're taking money out of your paycheck to pay your Social Security. You won't get a job without an SSN, so write "N/A" all you like - makes the job market larger for the rest of us.
The SSN should not be on the employment application.... which was the point. Once you have been hired and are filling things out like I-9 documention and the W-4 forms that are explicitly for taxation purposes would the information have to actually be disclosed to an employer. Until then, the only legitimate purpose of asking for the SSN would be to use it for identification purposes... or to do things like performing a credit check on a future employee without their consent.
Still, it is something that wou
Social Security Numbers As Identifiers (Score:5, Interesting)
When I was young, the back of my social security card has a notice: "Not to be used for identification purposes" (or something similar). When I lost my original card and had to get a replacement, the notice was missing. Our government is solely to blame for allowing the private sector to use social security numbers as identifiers. Congress has had an overabundance of time to pass laws criminalizing the use of social security numbers by the private sector. In my opinion, Congress has been criminally negligent in allowing this to continue for this long.
Social security numbers should be used for one, and only one, purpose: to link an individual to social security benefits. Any other use should be a criminal offense.
Re:Social Security Numbers As Identifiers (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Because Congress must pass laws to protect us from ourselves?
You can hardly call this protecting us from ourselves when everything from employment to apartment rental to cell phone plans to education require SSNs.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You can hardly call this protecting us from ourselves when everything from employment to apartment rental to cell phone plans to education require SSNs.
Actually you are welcome to refuse to give out your SSN for any of those purposes. Of course the person on the other end of the business arrangement is also welcome to refuse to do business with you.....
Damned if you do, damned if you don't (Score:5, Interesting)
If we all have unique id numbers to identify us, then someone can impersonate us by knowing that number.
But of course, if we did not have unique id numbers to identify us it would be even easier for someone to impersonate us.
And however many digits the number is, and even if it is randomly-generated (as the article proposes) your id number is only as strong as the weakest link among those who have stored your id, meaning the used car dealer, the credit card company, the student loan office, etc.
It is guaranteed to fail since they all involve transmitting and storing the secret.
What we need is a national public key infrastructure, with keys stored on smart cards, or similar, along the lines of what they have in Belgium. Of course, even PKI fails in the face of social engineering, so we need citizens to be more aware of the risks as well.
Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't (Score:5, Insightful)
Identification != authentication. Failure to understand that is the problem.
Take your e-mail account. Your username identifies you. Your password authenticates you. Your provider (and everyone else in the world) use your username or e-mail address to identify you or to identify who they're sending their mail to. But when you go to log on to read your mail your provider doesn't just assume that if you know who you are that you're authorized to read your e-mail. They ask for your password (which you don't give out to anybody else) to authenticate that you're really who you're claiming to be.
The basic problem is that a lot of businesses want to verify your identity, but they want to do it fast and not waste time or resources actually authenticating you. So they've taken shortcuts. And now it's biting them, and they want someone to make the problem go away. Note: they do not want to fix the problem. To quote someone, "When the users say "When I drop this bowling ball on my foot it hurts. Make it stop hurting.", they mean just that. They don't want to stop dropping the bowling ball on their foot. They want you to make it not hurt when they do.".
Parent
Time to start using UUID/GUIDs (Score:5, Funny)
I think 8e019226-9a00-41f4-b094-6f1545fd84a9 should be fairly easy to remember.
The problem is not that SSNs are easy to guess (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The problem is not that SSNs are easy to guess (Score:5, Informative)
You're spot on about SSN being an identifier only, and was not intended to be a secret.
However, SSNs were never designed to be unique; they are not!
SSNs can be recycled. And it's also possible, though difficult, for one to obtain a new SSN.
In addition, many SSNs are assigned to more than one person - so common that the IRS, as well as many other government agencies, as well as the major credit bureaus, utilize software that allows for SSN duplicates and doesn't rely on SSNs alone to separate people.
Ron
Parent
That is the problem when using SSN as ID (Score:3, Insightful)
If you use just a number for identification, it will be grossly misused. It is crazy to oppose a real ID card but use a much weaker (in terms of security) SSN as identification means and suddenly a baseless fear of certain forms of identification opens the way to very bad forms of identity theft.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not if the number of the real ID would be just its serial number and meaningless otherwise. Since the ID card itself is a proof of your identity, the number of it wouldn't be saved anywhere.
fool-proof method -- who cares? (Score:3, Interesting)
Who cares that there is no fool-proof method? All that matters is that there is a significant probablilty of success.
Probably the only people who are safe from this are immigrants!
I always use my State Driver License ID number (Score:3, Interesting)
which I selected to not be my social security number.
The State ID number is a random series of letters and numbers and it is harder to guess.
The usual jokes like Ronald Reagan's social security number was 000-00-0002 because he was the second person to file behind FDR, are funny but historically inaccurate.
Illegal Immigrants or Undocumented Workers or whatever you want to call them easily generate fake SSNs, and a bulk of them use the same SSN for the same employer and it is usually a SSN of someone who died, and they got it off a death certificate. The current system of checking SSNs is broken.
What we need is a different system that is harder to guess, one that uses letters and numbers like license plates or software serial numbers. One that Social Security keeps on a secure system that can verify the numbers and tell if the new SSN is stolen or the owner of the SSN is dead and someone else may be using it for fraud.
I just hope the new system isn't abused to take away rights and freedoms, that would be bad.
I remember the colleges I went to use to use our SSN as our student number and it was on grade lists. I requested that I be issued a student number not based on my SSN for privacy reasons and they did issue me a student number different from my SSN. The grade lists would be student name, student number, and then grade issued in class and everyone could see them. The professors listed them by the door for the classroom after finals and midterm grades were calculated. Many other systems used to base employee number etc on SSNs.
SSN's have no error control (Score:5, Interesting)
Change a digit or transpose digits in an SSN and you most likely will transform it into another valid SSN.
The SSN numbering system was developed in the mid 1930's. The modern mathematics of error control were published by Shannon after World War II. (His work or error control was related to work on cryptography.) By "modern" mathematics, I refer to the fact that there was some understanding of error control in old telegraph systems, but it wasn't developed systematically.
Credit cards have check digits that will catch some common errors in data entry. Computer and communications technology use error control in many ways. SSN's are still back in the 1930's.
Perhaps it is time to modernize them by at least adding check digits. Also, the prohibition against using them as personal identifiers should be strengthened and enforced.
funded by the National Science Foundation (Score:5, Interesting)
Here [nsf.gov] is their grant and proposal abstract from the NSF. It sounds like they did exactly what they'd proposed to do- not every grant meets that metric! Theirs is a 3-year grant for a total of $386927.
There was a cute line in their FAQs:
SSN is an IDENTIFIER, not AUTHENTICATOR (Score:3, Interesting)
Anybody or organization using an SSN as both an identifier and a form of authentication is stupid, irresponsible and should be held accountable 100% for breach of whatever resource they control. The problem is in the "shared secret" type use of a damn 9-digit number, with a few of the digits already known based on state of birth.
Want a list of ssn's for every state? Here's all of them. [aggiegeeks.com] Have fun.
-Michael
The problem isn't that you can't keep SSNs secret. (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that you're trying.
To extend, the problem the SSA mentions: using them as identifiers?
That's not what's causing all the trouble. You can do that all you like, and the only people you'll piss off are privacy advocates, worried about unwanted cross-correlation.
The *real* problem, as I note in a piece I wrote for RISKS DIgest last month [ncl.ac.uk], is people using knowledge of an SSN (or a mother's maiden name, or any other answer not *made up by the customer*) as an authenticator.
If it is discoverable, and you force a customer to use it, *you* ought to be responsible when someone does, and defrauds the customer, cause you were an accessory before, and now you're on notice; it's been posted here.
Have fun, retail authentication system designers. ;-)
Re:In other words (Score:4, Interesting)
It's even better than that. Consider that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure call for the redaction of all but the last four digits of an individual's social security number if it must be part of a court record (for example a discovery response).
Much of the discovery I have seen asks for the party's date of birth, place of birth, and social security number. While the rule "protects" the SSN from release by redacting the first five numbers, with a typical set of interrogatory responses, and the techniques pioneered by these researchers, I can get the holy trinity of identity theft information: SSN, DOB, and location of birth.
Even worse, most of the country now uses PACER for electronic filing in Federal Courts. For $.08/page, anyone can access filings in a Federal case. This seems ripe for abuse.
--AC
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Even worse, most of the country now uses PACER for electronic filing in Federal Courts. For $.08/page, anyone can access filings in a Federal case. This seems ripe for abuse.
Actually the majority of modern PACER filings redact the SSN. I looked up my bankruptcy case once upon a time and it was redacted in full on the various documents that were available. Some of the older filings leave them exposed though. Remember Mike Tyson? Looked up his Chapter 11 case awhile ago. His SSN is 089-56-9372. Thank you public record!
Re:Hardly news (Score:4, Interesting)
Not news to anyone who knows how SSN assignment works.
Yes it is. Knowing it's theoretically possible to figure it out is one thing. Someone actually demonstrating it can be done with high success rate is another. And it's news that matters because maybe this will force some change on the issue, dispels the illusion that it's a super secret identifying code that only you and X large organization knows. ...and maybe there will be a pony waiting for me at home...
Parent