Social Security Number Code Cracked, Study Claims

[steven johnson]

Our cyber security is slowly being eroded, even with advances in security programs. Here's another breach in the wall.

ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 6, 2009
6:38 p.m. ET

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- For all the concern about identity theft, researchers say there's a surprisingly easy way for the technology-savvy to figure out the precious nine digits of Americans' Social Security numbers.

''It's good that we found it before the bad guys,'' Alessandro Acquisti of Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh said of the method for predicting the numbers.

Acquisti and Ralph Gross report in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that they were able to make the predictions using data available in public records as well as information such as birthdates cheerfully provided on social networks such as Facebook.

For people born after 1988 -- when the government began issuing numbers at birth -- the researchers were able to identify, in a single attempt, the first five Social Security digits for 44 percent of individuals. And they got all nine digits for 8.5 percent of those people in fewer than 1,000 attempts.

Social Security Number Code Cracked, Study Claims

[Donnachaidh]

1. uhh, this is NOT new, there are genealogists who use the info to find records

Google *social security numbers search* and you'll pull up info on all the different numbers, and how they are picked. I doubt if anyone can pick out a person and tell them what their numbers are. :eyes:

[On the Road]

2. No, But the Danger May be

from using the algorithm to arrive at the first five digits and combining them with the last 4 digits, which are often used to prevent asking for the entire SSN. I can see organized criminal enterprises using that method to steal identities.

[vorlund]

3. This has been known for a long time

The only part of a social security number that even comes close to approximating randomness is the last four digits. If you know those, you can get the entire number if you know when and where the person was born. There are few exceptions, even before 1988, since so few people moved between the time they were born and the time they were given social security numbers.

[SharonAnn]

5. Not where born, it's where they lived when they first got the number.

My number is a typical Iowa number because I lived in Iowa when I obtained it. I was born in South Dakota.

My husband's is a typical Ohio number, because he lived in Ohio when he obtained it. He was born in Santiago, Chile.

[bemildred]

4. "Security through obscurity" is a weak securithy strategy anyway.