Slashdot Mirror
Website Posts Partial SSNs of Politicians in Protest
John3 writes "The Foundation for Taxpayer & Consumer Rights has posted partial Social Security numbers for several California politicians to protest their vote against pending privacy legislation. According to a San Francisco Chronicle story, the SSNs were purchased on the Internet for $26." Now there's an effective way of showing the problems of the status quo.
Exactly...in fact the article says that the legislation may be reconsidered on Monday.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
Useful information derived from SSN can be found here . You can see everyone was born in CA by the first three numbers. Group numbers can be verified, but isn't the serial numbers the important information?
This actually exposes an interesting gap in SB 1386.
Under SB 1386 (which goes into effect on July 1), any entity covered by the law has a duty to notify California residents âoein the most expedient time possible and without unreasonable delayâ when it is known, or reasonably believed, that âoepersonal informationâ stored on the entityâ(TM)s computer systems has been disclosed to unauthorized persons as a result of a security breach. An entity is only exempt from the notification requirement when: (a) the âoepersonal informationâ disclosed was already publicly available through the federal, state, or local governments; (b) the âoepersonal informationâ was stored in an encrypted form; or (c) the unauthorized person would be unable to link the California residentâ(TM)s name with other sensitive data (e.g., Social Security number, credit card number, etc.). Entities that fail to comply with SB 1386 can be sued by individuals whose personal information was disclosed for damages suffered due to the disclosure (i.e., damages resulting from identity theft).
But, SB 1386 does not cover information legitimately sold, such as the SSN information acquired by the lobbying group. (I'm assuming that they weren't receiving stolen information.)
John
"The plural of anecdote is not data."
This was done after the bill was passed....how could posting the SSN after the fact change anything?
Actually it was done after the bill was killed. If the bill had passed, what they posted may have been illegal, as it stands they were showing the politicians what exactly they could have prevented.