SSN is supposed to be a secure sort of credit card extra code number that identifies you -- but dumb peasants never treat it that way. The consequence is that its 1 of the 3 identifiers needed to complete the stolen identity tools.
Think about the requirements for applying for a credit card -- SSN, address and ..nope that's it. :)
A 9-digit number is not exactly what I would call secure. Better yet is the first 3 digits indicate the state of issue (for numbers before 2011). Cryptographically, this a travesty.
It is amusing how conditionally people see that the SSN is protected on most inputs they enter but when it comes to actually treating that number as personal, no one cares. Same with license #. The trust to distrust but not act on it ratio of Americans is infuriating for security analysts.
In principle it is a bank account number to the federal government or a routing number. But it sort of evolved (always intended) to become more of a serial number for citizens bcz a regular government ID is not serialized enough with how this dumb country has states and different rules per state per ID. America does not work. It can not be used in general purpose as ID.. except it is a component of setting up financial approval.
Does that clear it up :) No? Yeah well welcome to America.
So it is a critical document that mostly used in financial life of American citizen, so it could be used in various cheats in financial sphere. Am I right?
Does that clear it up :) No? Yeah well welcome to America.
There are tons of weird things of that type in every country you could find. F.e. we have "pension insurance number", "individual taxpaying number", "mandatory medical unsurance number" and it's not easy to explain to a foreigner what they are in real life and how they really used.
How SSN could be used in malicious way?
SSN is supposed to be a secure sort of credit card extra code number that identifies you -- but dumb peasants never treat it that way. The consequence is that its 1 of the 3 identifiers needed to complete the stolen identity tools.
Think about the requirements for applying for a credit card -- SSN, address and ..nope that's it. :)
A 9-digit number is not exactly what I would call secure. Better yet is the first 3 digits indicate the state of issue (for numbers before 2011). Cryptographically, this a travesty.
It is amusing how conditionally people see that the SSN is protected on most inputs they enter but when it comes to actually treating that number as personal, no one cares. Same with license #. The trust to distrust but not act on it ratio of Americans is infuriating for security analysts.
Thank you!.
So, it is kind of internal passport/ID but without photo?
Not in that sense.
In principle it is a bank account number to the federal government or a routing number. But it sort of evolved (always intended) to become more of a serial number for citizens bcz a regular government ID is not serialized enough with how this dumb country has states and different rules per state per ID. America does not work. It can not be used in general purpose as ID.. except it is a component of setting up financial approval.
Does that clear it up :) No? Yeah well welcome to America.
So it is a critical document that mostly used in financial life of American citizen, so it could be used in various cheats in financial sphere. Am I right?
There are tons of weird things of that type in every country you could find. F.e. we have "pension insurance number", "individual taxpaying number", "mandatory medical unsurance number" and it's not easy to explain to a foreigner what they are in real life and how they really used.