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ekkidee t1_iw6zh7f wrote

Last 4 digits + first name + birthday (that was next) can go a long way to identifying a person.

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dsbtc t1_iw77tqy wrote

"haha now let's all guess what the name of your first pet was!"

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joshuahtree t1_iwa6ecv wrote

I bet you think we couldn't guess the name of your third grade teacher

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ItsNotAllZeroSum t1_iw70zb1 wrote

And place of birth too, I believe.

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thomasthehankengine t1_iw76511 wrote

Place of birth is usually the first 3 digits of your SSN and birthday can get you close with the second 2 because there is an order that they were issued. So if you have DoB, Birthplace, and the last 4 digits, you can guess someone's SSN in a few tries.

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[deleted] t1_iw7i5ku wrote

Not true at all.

My birthplace is Washington DC and my SSN starts with 325 and not WDC.

My birthday is 2/21 but my second 2 digits are 45.

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dadonnel t1_iw7jne2 wrote

But your last 4 digits are based on your mother's maiden name, right?

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[deleted] t1_iw7l8hu wrote

That would be Harper, but again, my last four is 6528.

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John-Basedow t1_iw7ryfu wrote

Tell us more! What are the first 9 digits of your SSN. Then tell us the numbers on the back of your plastic money cards in your velcro card holder

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paulHarkonen t1_iw7n8c3 wrote

https://www.ssa.gov/employer/randomization.html

Thankfully SSA has realized that system was a significant security risk and has moved to a randomized system (although most people will still have the old setup).

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OcelotControl78 t1_iw824u4 wrote

My mother's SSN got totally messed up b/c they gave her a duplicate number when she was born. it had the incorrect geographical identifier for where she was born, which should have been a hint to the particular IRS employee who handled it (this was way before the process was automated). It took her U.S. Senator's office to liaise w/ Social Security to disambiguate her employment history from the other person's & get a new SSN issued. It took years.

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paulHarkonen t1_iw8ctku wrote

IRS doesn't deal with SSNs, that's the social security administration (SSA).

That said, that's rough for your mom. My issue with mine wound up being amusing and simple to fix rather than an enormous pain. Apparently when mine was issued it was marked as female (I'm male and was born as such) which triggered some fraud alerts when I started my first job. For me the fix was a simple trip to my local SSA office and saying "I'm male" but I've heard plenty of frustrating stories trying to sort out different issues.

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OcelotControl78 t1_iwgqka7 wrote

SSA, when I was growing up wasn't an independent agency, but I was wrong on its parent agency, which was Dept. of Health & Human Services. Today I learned it b/c an independent agency in 1994.

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paulHarkonen t1_iwgutxn wrote

Ah, interesting. TIL it wasn't always an independent agency, I'm young enough that all my interactions were with it as an independent one (I didn't deal with them much as an elementary schooler lol).

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