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.

[–] Alwaysnownevernotme@lemmy.world 24 points 1 month ago (2 children)

The entire number is garbage. Change the last digit and you have randomly guessed a perfectly valid SSN.

Less secure than a gift card

[–] Evotech@lemmy.world 15 points 1 month 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 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

well tbf, the standard coming from computing is doubling the bits until it stops being a problem, or with ipv6 practically having more IPs than there are atoms in the entire planet of earth (i think i did the calculation a while ago, and it was like, most of the atoms in earth, so like, not quite, but for all intents and purposes, might as well be)

[–] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

According to XKCD about 40% of the earth

https://xkcd.com/865/

[–] KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago

yeah that sounds about right, someone should make an XKCD search engine i think.