It’s supposed to be this super duper important and secret number, but you have to bring a physical copy to work miles away from home for some stranger to copy. Many times you have to provide the number to even apply for a job and it ends up at who knows where because the application is on a third party private website. :agony-deep:
"Here's a piece of soft, shitty cardboard with information proving who you are. Keep it for your entire life, and never laminate that motherfucker.
I know the reason for that for reasons. They aren’t meant to be carried with you. SSA assumes everyone has a safe place to store it (lol). If you lose it, it is degradable paper so that someone is less likely to find this. Like most things in SSA and the USA, this was developed in 1935 and never changed.
Like most things in SSA and the USA, this was developed in 1935 and never changed.
"Good thing we perfected society 80 years ago" might as well be the national motto at this point
I don’t get the no lamination rule lol. Mfs have high tech paper for passports and money but the SSN card feels like it’s recycled paper lol
Despite being absolutely necessary to run a modern society, the United States has stubbornly refused for a very long time to institute a real national ID number system. But seeing as it’s completely necessary, once one federal agency assigned every person a unique ID number for their own use, every other government agency and private actor said “Guess we’ll use that!”
Problem is since SSNs weren’t supposed to be national ID numbers they’re basically the worst most insecure version of a national ID system you could possibly create
“B-but implementing an actually efficient system for one of the most common yet important processes in life is literally 1987!!1!”
I don't know why they haven't developed a state o-auth system as a replacement.
Because they’ll sub contract it out to a third rate company that will sub contract it to bubba in the middle of North Dakota in his basement and 5 years later it’s revealed that everyone’s information was stolen because bubba fell for some Russian social engineering scam
bubba fell for some Russian social engineering scam
"hello my name natasha and i think ur hot sexy boi"
Sometimes it's more complex to replace an old system than to start from nothing
If you know where someone grew up and their birthday, you've already got like, 5 digits of that code. Its so hilarously insecure we would literally be better off letting people just pick their own number.
It was literally never meant to be proof of identity in any way, it just turned into that.
Xfinity use to require your social and made you tell it to random people over the phone. Just the other day my bank rep said they needed to verify me so they texted me a verification code that said "Do not share this code, a bank of america employee will never ask you for this" so i told them I wouldn't give it to them and they seemed surprised.
And oftentimes it doesn't even serve its intended purpose. It's supposed to identify you conclusively as an individual. But if, for example, a father and son have the same names, it's still possible for the father's credit history to become entangled with the son's, and the father's accounts to wind up on the son's credit report. Ask me how I know.
America should do the thing Discord does where your ID is your name and a random four digit number.
I feel like there's more than 10,000 John Smith's but I can't be sure.
It's also ridiculous that in the US, your checking account number + routing number is a private key that, if someone else knows it, they can just start withdrawing funds! In other countries, you can share your bank account number with anyone because they can't use it to withdraw, only to send money or request.
At least in my country, any time you want someone else to withdraw from your account (such as autopay), then you submit an invoice request to the bank with the company details. And between private individuals it's a request. I'm not sure how it worked before this was digitized, but now you can just use your bank app to approve.
I think US banking is like this due to the history of writing paper checks
I memorized my SSN when I was a kid. When I learned about the internet, I started using it as my password on websites. I cringe thinking about how many password dumps are out there that uniquely identify me to random accounts made by little me.
Honestly I've seen people post it in the comments on websites.
in my country (CH) we have ID cards with your face on them and a card number thats used by banks and hotels. it's a mini passport for inside Schengen land.
I think this about addresses. Like we're afraid of being doxxed but everyone I've ever bought GI Joes from on eBay knows my name and address.
