Study claims the Social Security numbers code has been cracked

[Horse with no Name]

It was only a matter of time.

But rest easy, the SS numbers that are released starting next year will be more random.

http://www.tdtnews.com/story/2009/07/07/59102

>>>>snip
“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 today’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.

For smaller states their accuracy was considerably higher than in larger ones.

[imdjh]

1. I didn't know there was a code.

I thought they were issued in sequence, maybe with some numbers representing your state.

[Horse with no Name]

2. It's been a long-held secret

of the formula that they developed the numbers from.
I had a former patient many many many years ago that worked for the Social Security Administration and she said that even as high up as she was, they weren't told what the formula is.
I think some of the numbers are the state, one links back to the city, and one links to your parents. At least, that is what I have noticed on mine and my kids.

[monmouth]

5. The first three #s as I understand is the State, the second two #s are

the county. The last four is a mystery to me.

[Cid_B]

6. Hope theres not more than 10000 people in a county...

nt

[ThomWV]

7. The last 4 are in sequential order

Depends on where you were in line.

I got mine in the early 1960's and the guy behind me in line was my best friend, he got a number who's last 4 digits were mine+1. He's dead now but I could easily tell you what his SSN was.

[Frank Cannon]

8. There isn't a code. The numbers were assigned sequentially...

with, as you say, some other numbers representing one's locality.

What happened is that someone learned how to use the SSNs in the Death Database (which we can all access, in a fashion, via many genealogy sites on the Internet) to create a profile of which numbers were likely generated when and where throughout the history of the program. With this information, and with the knowledge of a person's birthdate and birthplace, one can then guess the person's SSN with something like 44% certainty.

[ccharles000]

3. interesting

[liberal N proud]

4. Interesting

[melm00se]

9. the 1st 3 digits are

your state/location of issue based upon zip code on the application:

http://www.ssa.gov/employer/stateweb.htm

with the exception of 700-728 which are for people who worked on the railroad (they did not contribute/participate in Social Security, my my grandmother actually had 2 numbers: one from when she worked for the railroad and one from when she worked elsewhere).

[Javaman]

10. So does this mean that mary was jesus's wife?

oh wait, sorry, wrong code.