Tuesday, July 07, 2009

SSNs Are Guessable

New algorithm guesses SSNs using date and place of birth.

"So far, most of the [Social Security Number]-related ID theft problems have resulted from institutions that were careless with their record keeping, allowing SSNs to be harvested in bulk. But a pair of Carnegie Mellon researchers has now demonstrated a technique that uses publicly available information to reconstruct SSNs with a startling degree of accuracy. The irony of their method is that it relies on two practices adopted by the federal government that were intended to reduce the ability of fraudsters to craft a bogus SSN."

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