Researchers have found that it is possible to guess many -- if not all -- of the nine digits in an individual's Social Security number using publicly available information, a finding they say compromises the security of one of the most widely used consumer identifiers in the United States.
Many numbers could be guessed at by simply knowing a person's birth data, the
researchers from Carnegie Mellon University said.
Manuscript (PDF)
Study FAQs
posted by educatedslacker
on Jul 6, 2009 -
61 comments
Docusearch settles claim for 75K with family whose daughter was
killed by
a stalker who
purchased her personal information from them -- a killer whose intentions were described on a Googleable website. The
NH Supreme Court determined
last year that
Docusearch, the company who sold
Amy Boyer's work address and SSN to her killer could be held
liable for her death, even though some of that information was publicly available. An "Amy Boyer's Law" intended to increase privacy by restricting the display, sale or use of SSNs received
negative reviews by privacy organizations and ultimately was
removed from an appropriations bill. In a statement, Amy's parents encourage others to use the Internet to keep track of who may be keeping track of their kids. "
If only we had typed our daughter's name into any search engine, the Amy Boyer Web site that was posted by her killer would have come up, and we could have called the police...This may never have happened."
posted by jessamyn
on Mar 11, 2004 -
6 comments
Social Security Numbers and privacy. I refuse to give my number out whenever possible, but it is getting worse all the time. Thankfully I can still buy batteries and refuse to give Rat Shack my telephone number, and tell Toy R Us where to go when they ask for my zip, but this is frustrating. Wasn't this what people feared about having identification numbers in the first place?
posted by thirteen
on May 14, 2001 -
41 comments
