• CodexArcanum@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    1991·
    11 days ago

    I’m sure folks on here know this, but you know, there’s also that 10K a day that don’t so…

    What makes this especially funny, to me, is that SSN is the literal text book example (when I was in school anyway) of a “natural” key that you absolutely should never use as a primary key. It is often the representative example of the kinds of data that seems like it’d make a good key but will absolutely fuck you over if you do.

    SSN is not unique to a person. They get reused after death, and a person can have more than one in their lifetime (if your id is stolen and you arduously go about getting a new one). Edit: (See responses) It seems I’m misinformed about SSNs, apologies. I have heard from numerous sources that they are not unique to a person, but the specifics of how it happens are unknown to me.

    And they’re protected information due to all the financials that rely on them, so you don’t really want to store them at all (unless you’re the SSA, who would have guessed that’d ever come up though!?)

    It’s so stupid that it would be hilarious if people weren’t dying.

    • senkora@lemmy.zip
      46·
      11 days ago

      Small correction to an otherwise great explanation: SSNs are not recycled after death.

      **Q20:  *Are Social Security numbers reused after a person dies?*****A:  No. We do not reassign a Social Security number (SSN) after the number holder’s death. Even though we have issued over 453 million SSNs so far, and we assign about 5 and one-half million new numbers a year, the current numbering system will provide us with enough new numbers for several generations into the future with no changes in the numbering system.

      https://www.ssa.gov/history/hfaq.html

        • KamikazeRusher@lemm.ee
          35·
          11 days ago

          Nah. It’s worked for 50 years and if we get another 30 then it’s done its job well. Government is supposed to review and adjust things as time goes on and Social Security Numbers weren’t intended to uniquely identify citizens. They probably expected an overhaul to be done by 2020.

          They fact that we haven’t reworked portions of it and rely on SSNs to identify citizens shows that we haven’t had a forward-thinking Congress in the last 20 years at minimum.

          • Evotech@lemmy.world
            11·
            11 days ago

            Well, it’s an identifier, your problem if that you have been using it as some kind of access key

          • Croquette@sh.itjust.works
            42·
            11 days ago

            You can guess a phone number as well by changing the last number, but that information has 0 value unless it is coupled with other informations.

            • CarbonBasedNPU@lemm.eeEnglish
              7·
              11 days ago

              You can reverse engineer a good bit of an SSN if you just have someone’s birth date and where they were born.

              • Croquette@sh.itjust.works
                3·
                10 days ago

                I am not sure if you are agreeing with me or not, but DOB and location where you were born are additional informations as I mentioned in my replie before.

                • CarbonBasedNPU@lemm.eeEnglish
                  3·
                  10 days ago

                  Oh yeah I agree that just getting a SSN is not a big issue itself but the fact that you can reverse engineer it from known information makes it not a very good security measure to prove identity.

                  • Croquette@sh.itjust.works
                    1·
                    10 days ago

                    Oh I totally agree with that. It’s dumb that there is so many systems that use SSNs as an identification.

                    My identity infos have been leaked with the Desjardins leaks, so my SSN is forever known and all the critical services that uses SSNs are now more vulnerable.

      • invertedspear@lemm.ee
        2·
        11 days ago

        So they’ve issued almost half the possible numbers, current US population is actively using 1/3rd of them. I think unless there is a major drop in birth rates “several generations” is two. Either my great grandkids will be reusing dead people SSNs or there will be 10 digit numbers which is going to be a problem for any systems that coded it as char(9).

        • Trainguyrom@reddthat.comEnglish
          1·
          10 days ago

          Ongoing trends would indicate a significant drop in birth rate is extremely likely. Major cities will most likely be facing population shrinkage by the end of the century

    • vormadikter@startrek.website
      32·
      11 days ago

      Thanks for (starting to) explain this concept to people not accustomed to how the US does their shit.

      See, where i live, we used to have for example a Tax-Number. That was a thing the taxdepartment used to identify a person. But if you move from city a to city b, that numbers changes. So if you move a lot, you will have numerous of these.
      Now, some 15 years back, the Tax-ID was introduced (fellow residents at this point will lnow it might be Germany) and this number is a one-in-a-kind ID that will only be assigned to you. They create it shortly after birth. My sons first registraion ID was this, before anyrhing else. You will also get a uniqie healthcare-ID that also works like that.

      So…how does that work in the US and why is habing a changing number that is not unique helpful? Or what is Elon not getting? I dont get it either because I dont know how this works for you.

      Thanks in advance to shed light on this.

    • Maeve@kbin.earth
      9·
      11 days ago

      I don’t know all the ways but my identity was stolen and I never knew until my attorney was looking at something else for me in conjunction with the social security commission where I lived, and it popped up under a different name. They then accessed my records using other information, and it was the same number. It took a long time to get it sorted. A few years.

    • Zannsolo@lemmy.world
      7·
      11 days ago

      It’s supposed to be unique and might actually be now, but there are def duplicate ssns out there. Craziest identity situation I was told by a project manager of government system that is all about identities. Same First, Same last,same Date of Birth, same SSN; different people.

      • bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        3·
        11 days ago

        Weird story, and I have to assume this is data entry error, identity theft, or something else: I couldn’t sign up for a hospital billing platform because my name and full birthdate (including year) conflicted with someone else in the system. I called the hospital billing department and they were very confused about the whole situation. It didn’t really get resolved, and I basically had to let it go to collections so that I could pay because of the shitty system. I don’t have a very common name, and never have had this problem before.

    • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      21·
      11 days ago

      (if your id is stolen and you arduously go about getting a new one)

      I thought I had lost mine once and got a new SSN card, they don’t give you a new number, it’s the same number