
The Most Misused SSN of All Time - polm23
https://www.ssa.gov/history/ssn/misused.html
======
jedberg
> They started using the number. They thought it was their own. I can't
> understand how people can be so stupid. I can't understand that."

Based on the number of emails I get because other people think my email
address is their email address, I too can't understand how people can be so
stupid.

~~~
_Understated_
Oddly my wife is experiencing the same thing: some random person in Ireland
keeps trying to sign up for things using her email address.

The latest is Paypal who WON'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT! (sorry, needed to have a
dig at Paypal's awful support there).

This person has tried to sign up for at least 6 things over the last year only
to find that the registration confirmation emails never reach her.

It's nuts!

~~~
banana_giraffe
I have a simple firstname.lastname@gmail.com as my gmail address, with my real
name.

Some lawyer with an amazingly active life, and is learning to be a pilot, and
other things I've forgotten has the same not too common name as me, and has
firstname.lastnamee@gmail.com as his email address.

While at first cute, the number of times I've had to deal with other law firms
who have sent me some incredibly sensitive document and then demanded I sign a
document somehow proving I never read, nor will keep, the document they sent
me by mistake is getting old.

Or my favorite, when a plane leasing company sent me some very large bill, and
when I tried to explain the confusion, they claimed it was my responsibility
to find the right person, or pay the bill.

People amaze me.

(And it's super petty of me, but this lawyer's family sends invites to family
events to me now. The first few times I responded trying to fix the situation.
Then I tried going radio silent to these, but they got more and more incessant
on a response, so now I just respond that I'm not interested in attending.)

~~~
londons_explore
> this lawyer's family sends invites to family events to me now.

Just show up to the party?

~~~
banana_giraffe
I considered that. They live too far away.

------
tyingq
Guessing the LifeLock CEO might be the distant #2 on the list.

[https://www.wired.com/2010/05/lifelock-identity-
theft/](https://www.wired.com/2010/05/lifelock-identity-theft/)

~~~
ashleyn
Almost 15 years later I can still remember that number from the TV
commercials.

------
playa1
CGP Grey did a great video a few years ago explaining how bad SSNs are.

[https://youtu.be/Erp8IAUouus](https://youtu.be/Erp8IAUouus)

~~~
mxuribe
Wow, i had never seen this video. I've been somewhat familiar with some of the
topics depicted in the video...But seeing them all in one place - and of
course the brilliantly cute and funny method - taught me lots more....Which
lead to me remembering that this is all true and not fictitious...which
instantly makes me a sad panda. :-(

------
jchw
> Company Vice President and Treasurer Douglas Patterson thought it would be a
> clever idea to use the actual SSN of his secretary, Mrs. Hilda Schrader
> Whitcher.

Can someone explain _why_ this would be “clever?” It just sounds like a bad
idea to me.

~~~
Pinckney
The SSN was never intended to be a secret. Nobody in 1938 thought that one day
banks and other businesses would use it as a credential to establish identity.

~~~
masklinn
SSCs even used to have "not for identification" stamped on them before SSA
gave up (the note was there from '46 to '72).

~~~
sverige
My circa 1969 SSC has that printed on it.

For GP, actually yes, people did think it would be used as a credential to
establish identity, and many feared (correctly, as it turns out) that would
happen. The phrase used by those people was "Papers, please!" with a German
accent, since it was well known by the mid-40s that identity papers were used
by the Nazis to control the population. Later variations by people my age was
to use a Russian accent since the Bolsheviks also used papers to control the
population.

My uncle and aunt never had SSNs for that reason (and no, never paid into or
collected social security either.)

I have a friend who is now in his late 50s who has never given his SSN to
anyone except the IRS and his employer -- which is actually the law, or at
least used to be, perhaps it has changed.

Rather than assume older people are less privacy conscious, the correct
assumption is that younger people are less inclined to protect their privacy.
Many millennials don't even believe in privacy. I blame it on the generally
poor education in history that most younger people have received.

~~~
davchana
I was renting an apartment few weeks ago, & If I had refused to not give SSN,
tough luck, application will not move forward.

------
darshan
I don't know if I'm having one of my hyper-literal moments, or if this is some
other neurodiversity thing, but I can't make sense of the last paragraph...
Can someone help explain it to me?

The way I read it is:

* 219-09-9999 is a made-up number that was never issued to anyone.

* The woman thought it was her number for unexplained reasons.

* She used the pamphlet as evidence that it was her number.

I must be missing something important. Is it a joke, with the punchline being
that she thought the pamphlet was her social security card? If so, how was
this the fault of the Board? _Was_ it her SSN somehow? If so, how did the
pamphlet prove it?

~~~
tux3
>The way I read it

Looks right to me. She received a document from the Social Security Board with
a made up SSN on it, and thought it was hers. It's not a joke, just an example
of how people can get confused by real-looking fake numbers.

This can be said to be the fault of the board in the sense that after dealing
with the 1938 incident they could have learned that this is confusing to some
people, and for example printed 219-09-XXXX instead.

------
anilakar
SSN misuse will stop the moment companies are made responsible for all actions
that result from using SSN as an authentication token.

~~~
parsimo2010
SSN misuse will stop once the USA has a secure national ID that is free and
easy to get (don’t have to go to a DMV). Driver’s licenses aren’t a good
enough solution. Less than 10% of Americans have a passport. But somehow the
idea of a national ID has opponents everywhere. The right thinks it will
create a surveillance state, the left thinks it will be used for voter
suppression. So we are stuck with the misuse and abuse of SSNs because they
weren’t designed as an ID number.

~~~
SilasX
>SSN misuse will stop once the USA has a secure national ID that is free and
easy to get (don’t have to go to a DMV).

What does that even mean? There will definitely be a bureaucracy with offices
that administers it, which will be functionally a "DMV".

~~~
crooked-v
The distinction here would probably be with how state DMVs do things like
'only open every fifth Wednesday'
([https://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2016/feb/19/...](https://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2016/feb/19/john-
oliver/office-provides-id-voting-one-wisconsin-burg-open-/)).

~~~
parsimo2010
Sorry, the distinction was supposed to be that state level DMVs can't securely
verify someone's identity. Although they are often frustrating to deal with,
it's the issue with fragmented administration that's the real problem with a
DMV- each state decides the burden of proof before they give out an official
"government issued ID" and most states are very lax- there is no way the DMV
is Nevada is going to call up a county records office in Georgia to verify
someone's birth information. A national system would be better at verifying
identities.

------
parsimo2010
“ Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build
bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce
bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.” -Rick Cook

I’m sure that this sentiment isn’t exclusive to programmers, but applies to
anyone who has to consider how the general population will handle their
product.

~~~
mikestew
The arrogance and tone-deafness of such statements astounds me when they come
supposed professionals. Those “idiots” you so frequently run into? Yeah,
polite people call them “your customers”, or “your boss”, or “people who will
complain to your boss”. Or just “people who look at the world differently than
you do”.

If you consider the “general population” to be idiots, you:

a. Don’t know how intelligence measurement works. (Hint: they cant all be
idiots. Maybe it’s you.)

b. Are still an amateur who will hopefully someday mature into a professional
who works with the circumstances at hand rather than complaining that
conditions aren’t right for the world to appreciate your genius.

~~~
nefitty
I was on board with your comment until the mean-spirited "maybe you're the
idiot or unprofessional". I don't like how people are calling some people
idiots and stupid over _dumb mistakes_. It definitely gives a bad vibe about
developer culture that is only detrimental. Developers and tech professionals
exist to serve users... Without them we would be shit out of luck. I don't
think turning that mean-spiritedness back on them helps either, though. Tone-
deafness all around here.

------
burfog
This wouldn't be possible if we were serious about stopping identity theft.
The usage of inconsistent identity would trigger an alert, immediately
dispatching law enforcement to deal with the problem. Most identity thieves
would find themselves in jail within hours, so there wouldn't be many people
willing to risk it.

~~~
mxuribe
Yeah, sadly there's just no incentive for anyone - neither U.S. government or
U.S businesses - to alter their behavior. Even sadder, any pain of identity
theft/fraud are felt by the victims/citizens, and not felt by businesses or
government. Unless/if/when this changes, identity theft/fraud won't really go
away.

------
bitwize
I thought for sure it'd be 123-45-6789.

------
wycy
> Even though the card was only half the size of a real card

I'm confused by this statement. The card appears to be the same size as a real
card in the picture of her holding up the two cards, and for the purposes of
showing people that the card would fit in a wallet, it'd have to be regular-
card-size.

~~~
mikestew
Accurate statement or not, how many people in 1938 had seen a “real card” with
which to compare? Having been born several decades later, I think I’ve seen
one real SS card in my life: my own. And I lost that years ago.

------
JohnFen
I was really expecting the most misused SSN to be Richard Nixon's.

Whenever someone asks me for my SSN without having a legal need for it, I give
them Richard Nixon's instead. I know first hand that I'm not nearly the only
one.

~~~
whatshisface
Who does or doesn't have a legal need for your SSN? How do you tell?

~~~
JohnFen
You are legally required to supply your SSN for the following reasons:

Credit applications

Cash transactions over $10,000

Applications for certain federal benefits, including Medicare and Medicaid

Military paperwork

Interactions with the Department of Motor Vehicles

Social Security business

You also need to supply either your SSN or a taxpayer ID number to companies
that are required to report about you to the IRS.

Under all other circumstances, there is no legal requirement to provide your
SSN.

~~~
polm23
Great list! Do you have an official source we can reference?

------
RickJWagner
Nice of Treasurer Douglas Patterson to use his secretary's number and not his
own!

