The two tested their hunch... and found that on the first try they could correctly guess the first five digits of the SSN for 44 percent of deceased people who were born after 1988, and for 7 percent of those born between 1973 and 1988.It doesn't work as well for people born before 1988 because the tendency to get a SSN at the time of a child's birth is a recent phenomenon. Those of us who are older - who received a SSN at the time of our first job in our teen years, living in a place other than when we were born - are at no particular risk (at least from this hack).
07 July 2009
Social (in)Security Numbers
Many different news venues are carrying the story today of how SSNs can be guessed by knowing some demographic data about the subject. This is based on the fact that the first 5 digits (123-45-XXXX) are related to the place from which one applies and change only slowly over time. If one knows a person's date and place of birth, and the SSNs of others with similar date and place, those first five numbers can be reasonably guessed.
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I would have to say that those of us born in the 1970s are also at risk.
ReplyDeleteI remember back in the mid 1990s, when colleges still used SSNs as the student ID number, getting into registration lines based on SSN. My SSN was based on Virginia, where I was born, so my line was pretty short for the NJ state college. On the other hand, those students born in NJ (the vast majority attending) had to wait in a really long line.
I was assigned a SS# at the age of 14 - not in the same place that I was born, but in the area where my father grew up. Our ssn's are almost identical - just transpose 2 digits and they are the same.
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