Re: Colorado Supreme Court: Using a Stolen Social Security Number is Not Identity Theft

[Ned Fleming <ned () kaw us>]

On Thu, 18 Nov 2010 08:51:17 -0600, Bill Weiss
<houdini+funsec () clanspum net> wrote:

> Dan Kaminsky(dan () doxpara com)@Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 10:02:32PM -0800:

[snip]

> > Nawp, I was wrong.  They're non-random, but unique.
>
> They _should_ be unique.  A family member of mine was issued a duplicate
> SSN at birth, and only found out about it after the age of 40 when they
> noticed that their social security statements were all messed up.  It
> turns out that the other person on that number hadn't really had jobs most
> of their life and was in prison.
>
> Surprise, have some shitty credit!
>
> Oh, and good luck explaining to everyone that your SSN changed at the age
> of 50.



Won't someone please borrow my social security number? I need 
the help.

        "You need a Social Security number to sign up for utility 
        services, for example. No Social Security number, no 
        electricity, gas, phone, or satellite TV. So what’s a poor 
        alien to do? They go down to some local hangout and buy a 
        Social Security number to give to the utility. This has to 
        be a legitimate number or it won’t fly with utility 
        computer systems, but does it have to be the customer’s own 
        number? Good question. 
        
        Here’s where we have an interesting business ethics issue. 
        Say you are the electric company and someone tries to set 
        up service using a Social Security number that already 
        exists in your database and is clearly borrowed, bought, or 
        stolen. What do you do? Most utilities go ahead and set up 
        the account, because to them what counts is whether the new 
        customer will actually pay that bill and it turns out that 
        people operating on such borrowed numbers are more reliable 
        bill payers than the rest of us. They can’t afford to get 
        in trouble with the electric company because that would 
        draw attention to them. So there is a tacit agreement 
        between the parties that a Social Security number must be 
        provided because that’s the rule, but if it happens to be 
        someone else’s Social Security number, well that’s okay. 
        
        The funny thing about this is the impact it has to have on 
        the person who was originally assigned that Social Security 
        number by the U. S. government. Rather than hurt their 
        credit it actually helps because there is so much evidence 
        that they are good at paying their bills! Of course the 
        credit bureau notices something and that’s why they are so 
        able to estimate numbers in the first place. They know what 
        Social Security numbers are being overused and can probably 
        even trace the genealogy of that number as it makes its way 
        across the country. Here’s an amazing fact: some individual 
        Social Security numbers are in use right now by up to 3,000 
        people and it isn’t at all unusual for a borrowed number to 
        be used by 200-1,000 people at the same time . . . "

The whole article (recommended) is available here:

http://www.cringely.com/2010/01/predict-me-im-from-the-government/

Good info on one aspect of DHS ineptitude.

I now take a crack at haiku:

        I see thee naked
        before thou wingest thither.
        Thy fingers doth shake.


        March into the box!
        Zap! Terror clothes are burnt off.
        Ha, ha! Bad wig, Dad!



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