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.

Comments

Change their minds?

[Gr33nNight]

This was done after the bill was passed....how could posting the SSN after the fact change anything?

Re:Change their minds?

[John3]

Exactly...in fact the article says that the legislation may be reconsidered on Monday.

Re:Change their minds?

[Jason1729]

It might make politians think twice next time.

It would be nice if they'd think once.

Jason
ProfQuotes

Why only partial?

[anthony_dipierro]

Just post the whole thing. It's not like it matters. Bill Gates' social security number is 539-60-5125. So what?

Re:Why only partial?

[TomGroves]

If it doesn't matter, why don't you post yours instead of Gates's?

Re:Why only partial?

[violent.ed]

Any financial institution which uses it as such does so at their own risk.

Incorrect, they do it at YOUR risk.

Trading Card

[Jad LaFields]

Gray Davis trading card, "Privacy Series". Mint condition. Best offer.

I love it when political groups pull off silly stunts to make a point. Politics grows more and more entertaining and less helpful everyday.

Whoop deedoo

[KingArthur10]

If you really want to find someone's social security number, you can do it a million ways. Every business they work for has it on record, the credit beuru has it, your D/L has it tied in for police. All anyone really has to do is do a credit check on you, claiming to be a possible employer and such. I am not afraid of my SSN being released. Yeah, someone could really screw with my life, but then, I could sue the heck out of whatever company released it. Anything in life either has to have a SSN or a Birth Cirtificate anymore. Why not just implant babies with chips and call it a day? ;-)

Re:Whoop deedoo

[KingArthur10]

Actually, the credit beuru once accidently typed in the wrong SSN of a convicted felon. After that, the man's SSN that they typed in was suddenly not able to find a job or get credit for anything. After at least 10 years in the gutter, one of the people he looked to employment said to him "we don't hire people with your history". The man began inquiring what that must mean and found out that the credit bearu screwed up his account by saying he was a convicted felon. He then sued the bearu for a good 20-50million dollars and is now living on easy street. All I was really trying to say is that if someone wants to get your SSN, all they have to do is act like an employer and do a credit check. There are a million other ways, too. When I worked at CVS, our login code was our SSN. All someone had to do would be watch closely a few times, and wham, they've got it.

SB1386 tie in

[eericson]

What I find amusing about this situation is that these are the same leglislators (scuse the spelling) that unanimously voted for SB1386 when their bank/credit info was compromised, yet don't want to take that last step now to protect everyone's privacy.

The more time I spend in CA the more I realize our state legislators are like ill trained puppies: They're cute to look at, but occassionally you need to whack them with a magazine to keep them from crapping on the carpet.

-E2

Re:SB1386 tie in

[johnnick]

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

"vote our conscience" hahahaha

[konichiwa]

from the sfgate article:

"We should be free to vote our conscience and not be threatened or harassed if we choose to vote contrary to people who are lobbying for special legislation," said Assemblyman Ed Chavez, D-La Puente, one of the lawmakers whose partial number was published.

What a crock. I wonder how much money he takes from special interest and lobby groups that pay him to "vote his conscience."

Politicians = soul merchants

Re:So does that mean

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Buy Bill Gate's SS for $26
2. Slam face into tree repeatedly until looking like Gates
3. Buy stupid glasses
4. Identity theft
5. Profit!

Re:Valid Point, but..

[Lord Kano]

Had they done it before the vote, or gone to each Assembly-person and demonstrated the capability before the vote, that would've been legitimate lobbying. This is just petty and serves to make the Assembly-people less likely to listen to this group in the future.

I respectfully disagree. This is a perfectly valid way to express dissatisfaction with the decision of these lawmakers.

"Really assemblyman? This privacy measure isn't needed? Will your position be the same when it's YOUR information instead of ours?"

I agree 100% with these guys.

SSN: Public or Confidential Information?

[GillBates0]

Social Security numbers were originally intended to be used only by the social security program and were supposed to make record keeping easier. They were never meant to function as an authentication mechanism.

The problem arose when the mapping between a person's name (or identity) and the SSN was considered confidential information, and a number of government and non government organizations started treating the knowledge of a person's SSN as an authentication mechanism.

Many companies treat the fact that you know (the last 4 digits of) a social security number combined with some additional information like the last name and street address as proof that you are indeed who the record states you are.

This is absurd. Either each individual should be assigned a secret id, which when used in conjunction with the SSN proves one's identity, or some other mechanism to verify identity should be developed. As long as the SSN continues to be (ab)used as a supposedly public index into a database, as well as a piece of confidential information, privacy will remain a farce.