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Identity Theft-What Can Really be Done w/o a SSN?
TheItalianGuy asks: "Many of us that work in the financial sector are bombarded with daily security threats. One of the biggest these days is Identity Theft. My fellow comrades and I have been really grilling each other on differing scenarios on what could be done with what information. However, it all seems to come back the the Social Security Number. Financial companies have other controls in place (customer service verification checking, account passwords, etc) to ensure identification. But in order to be of any use, a bad guy would really need someone's SSN. Absent of that, other information would be useless. Right? That's what I would like to ask Slashdot folks. What could be realistically done with customer information without a SSN? Account numbers, address, maybe a phone or payment amount. Is that really dangerous to the customer if only those get compromised?"
Stalking
It seems to me that SSN would be of moot importance if you have everything else. Especially for lower age victims where "Im sorry sir, i dont know my social security number" might be a valid answer..
Considering so many uses only request the last four digits, that makes the SSN a really insecure PIN in some cases. Insecure because it's only 4 digits, and because it never changes.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
If you had someone's credit card, you usually dont need any other type of ID at all.
Or if you were buying something online, and you had someone's credit card info and what not, you could make purchases without the SSN.
I think a lot has to do with knowing who to talk to; the problem of not having a SSN can also be solved via identity theft. At the school I'm getting my Master's from, you can call the financial aid office and get information on your account by using your name. I've always thought it was convenient, but I can certainly see how it's very dangerous.
I remember watching a specail about identity theft, and basically the point of the special was that with just a name and address, they were able to gather basically everything about the person. So with enough dedication and the right resources, getting a SSN is possible. Which is why i have since moved to 123 fake street.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
If you had someones birth certificate you could then find out their SSN. As well as apply for a passport.
It's called an aggregation attack. If you have all the pieces but the SSN, not only is it relatively trivial to obtain access to the SSN, but it's pretty much superceded by everything else.
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
Why does every company still legally insist you provide that information? Isn't it illegal to ask if you're NOT a federal institution.
I've worked for companies who game my SSN to my health-insurance company as my member ID. Why do they need it, and what the hell is it being used for as my member ID? Yes, with you SSN, people can do a lot of evil things. Handing it out willy-nilly (without asking you) is jut as bad.
But why is it legal for an employer to just hand this out to third parties? I think the abuses of how people use SSNs stems from the fact that way too many companies ask for it, and way too many companies hand it out to their vendors without any real regulatory restraints.
IMO, it should be illegal to pass out that information without my consent. But I've seen too many examples of my employer passing it on without asking me.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Incidentally, Richard Nixon's social security number is 567-68-0515; there are many cases where a given agency doesn't actually need your number, and it's perfectly appropriate to give them his instead. Have fun.
I used to carry a bottle of whiskey for snake bite. And two snakes. -Nefarious Wheel
I hate to flip the question at hand on its head, but a friend of mine got himself into a potential landmine of a problem last week when he possibly *LOST* his SS ID card at the subway station. (We're all still praying for him to find it elsewhere, but the chances of that are pretty grim. Guess that'll teach him to start using a wallet like us normal people. But a better lesson would probably be to just not carry the damn thing around - how hard is it to memorize 9 digits anyway?) He said he didn't think a person's SSN could be changed. Any advice on what he should do or be prepared to deal with?
Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
By college age you have used your social to fill out god-knows-how-many college applications, college loans, car loans, drivers license, etc. Before 18 you shouldn't be in the position to have access to something requiring a social security number unless you have access to it (IE: a bank account)
-everphilski-
I never thought I'd have an issue with identity theft, as a Vice President at a top 5 U.S. bank (in IT, of course). Two years ago, I was building a MythTV DVR PC, and wanted to get a good deal. I scoured the internet for the lowest prices on every individual component, and along the way, apparently ended up giving my Visa CheckCard number to the wrong person.
Suffice to say, they did not need my SSN, or anything beyond what would normally be used to purchase items online. I found out when my card was denied at a store - the theif had emptied my primary checking account, and because I had overdraft protection, the attached savings account in one night. Nice thing was, the bank immediately reimbursed me for the fraudlent purchases, followed up with the police, and prosecuted. (Not simply because I am an employee, mind you - but I did get something most people in my situation don't, follow-up. Typically, the bank reimburses a customer and follows up with the authorities separately - without ever contacting the customer again unless required.)
Now, I use a random card number service associated with my credit card to purchase anything on the internet. It may not be the worst form of identity theft, but it can be inconvient, expensive, and time-consuming to recover. I had to deal with bounced checks for bills, and set the fraud alert on my credit bureaus as a result of this. It's certainly worth using a temporary card service if your bank or credit card company offer it.
Just my "It happened to me" tale, but it's one we hear over and over again these days.
"Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things."
"So how exactly do I own if all i have are these few details from a romanian site?"
Many scri^W^W^Wsecurity professionals await your responses
"Attack submarine, designed to seek and destroy enemy submarines and surface ships. Their other missions range from intelligence collection and special forces delivery to anti-ship and strike warfare. It is a multi-mission vessel, capable of deploying to forward ocean areas to search out and destroy enemy submarines and surface ships and to fire missiles in support of other forces."
Sounds pretty serious. If you have an SSN, you should definitely not let another person or country get hold of it. Frankly, I'm amazed that anyone in America can get an SSN, but that's liberty for you.
Different Year/Month/Day Born
Different town I was BORN in (yes that was one of the "secret" questions)
Different Mother's Maiden Name (actually I have several of these and rotate them or combine them...)
Different Town and ZipCode where I live
A non-existant Favorite Pet
Same Gender though....
I did sign on to Classmates.com as one of the kids I hated.
I started getting emails from all the girls that would never go out with me in High School!
I couldn't reply though because it was the "free" version of Classmates.com, however, I took comfort knowing the guy I was impersonating could not sign up as himself as I had already taken that position!
karma's a bitch ain't it?
I like microcars
I've been helping a relative with Alzheimer's, and I've been able to do pretty much anything I wanted, aside from dealing with actual money.
Telephone service is particularly easy to mess with; I just called repairs and ordered service changes and no attempt was ever made to check on me. I was able to add and delete services, change phone numbers and billing addresses, etc. I didn't even have be at the service location to order any changes.
For utility accounts, all the info I've ever needed was on the bills. Again, I was able to change services, update billing records, etc. all without any difficulty. It's been very convenient for me to be able to set things up without having to muck around with Powers of Attorney and so on, but it gives me the shivers to realize what must be possible to one "skilled in the arts".
Once you have utility bills with your address on them you can establish a residence and a lot of stuff follows from that. For instance, I could easily get a library card and enroll my kids in school in the town where this relative lives.
With a little bit of creativity I could probably do stuff with money, too. I guess it's a good thing I'm honest, huh?
Considering that acquiring the SSNs of large groups of people is as easy as getting a desk job in certain businesses or educational institutions, I'd say getting an SSN is probably the EASY part of identity theft. How much can be done without having one would seem to be a moot point.
Mine is 000-00-0002 (Damn Roosevelt!)
I suppose it all depends on what you consider to be potentially damaging information. You may not be able to run up my credit card if you possess my account number with my cellphone company but you will have access to information I consider private. Imagine, for example, an employer suspecting you of having contact with a rival company. It would be possible, with information other than your SSN, to obtain copies of your call records. I would consider this a breach of privacy and potentially damaging.
I expect (though I don't always trust) any company I give my personal information to keep that information private no matter what that company perceives the potential damage of that information to be. The bad guys are often more inovative than the good guys and who knows what they can do with any given piece of data?
You guys know this SSN thing was dictated by db schema developers. What's a good primary key...hmmmm...SSN! yeah that'll do. Hey that could also be a good default password. Yeah or login name! This is great as long as every other financial or educational institution doesn't pick up our idea.
SSN isn't the problem. Anytime you have a national universal "user id come password" you're asking for it. Inside a state DL#s are probably somewhat a commodity in dark hat circles. Though not as usefull in financial situations.
Isn't SSN and other more personal info available from credit reporting agencies with some $$ and a name for any jackass?
Seriously - almost every financial transaction needs this number
I don't need an SSN to withdraw money from my ATM, or make a deposit. And it should be kept that way. Anything that has a frequent transaction rate (financial transactions, university logins, bank logins, etc) should never use anything involving a SSN. By increasing the frequency of transactions involving SSN, you remove the user's will to protect this number. It begins to become more of a hassle for them to use this number, thus they'll do anything they want to make it easier for them to use the number (writing it down on notes, cards, sharing is easily to get from step A to step B). By making it rare to use the number, you also increase the user's protectiveness towards the number as well as the amount of information in exsistence using the number (transaction receipets, database entries, etc), causing eless things to become compromised. So if we apply the same ideas, any number, or piece of information that is used freequently, can be easily obtained. While information that is not frequently used, is harder to obtain, and more easier to secure since you have less of a paper-trail.
A little old lady had moved a year earlier, and a credit card co. sent her "checks" to use against her credit card... to the old address. So, whoever moved in there (or whoever stole the mail) was using the checks before they expired for things that were nondescript. Wrote the checks to pay some bills and buy some things, local address sure come on in no id required.Yes it is that easy and that simple. However, if you have all the pieces it gets much worse.
I'm waiting for RIDS - Retinal Identification System, gonna use my glass eye, eh Sammy?
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
I don't know about anyone else, however I view information such as you've listed as being privileged. Said information may not be so described legally as being privileged or confidential, but that's just how I feel about them. SSN is the most critical of course, but you said discount it. Account numbers, mailing address, Names, birthdates, familial relations and phone numbers could all be gleaned by some amount of investigation by a person or persons so inclined at getting it; it'd be a lot of work, but it could be done. You then have a picture of "me," who I am, what I do, why I do, etc. You might be able to do something with this, like call up Dominoes and order a pizza, or get online and buy a book from Amazon. If you call the right guy at 1st National Bank of Bumfuck, you might just be able to break into my account and steal my money; how much is that guy getting paid to look out for my interests?
All this being said, if a company doesn't do what I consider adequate protection of my information, I don't want to do business with them. It's not that a malicious user couldn't get it any other way; I just don't want to make it any easier for them to get to me. Let them go hog-heaven on the blue-hairs that don't know any better.
And I haven't even talked about your real question. What could one do with a "lowly" account number? Well you tell me. Let's say that's all Joey Malicious has on me. Has he hacked in to your network? Does he have access to your applications and know how to use them? Do you KNOW he hasn't? All I know is that when I call the credit card company, they want the account number and SSN. Are they typing it in with me and can't proceed without me, or are they verifying my answers against what they see on the screen?
What if Joe Malicious works for your company? I'd say you, as a member in the financial industry, are in a much better place to answer this question. YOU need to tell ME that my fears are unfounded, that technically Jane Helper can't review my account info and do a transfer without my account number AND SSN AND mothers maiden name AND first-born sons' DNA because she has to enter it into the system as well. Of course, most financial institutions don't disclose their security practices (or lack thereof) for obvious reasons. None of us outside your "closed-source" way of operating can truly trust the process. All we know is that the threat is real, and we have little control of the problem.
In Australia, the closest equivalent we have is the TFN (Tax File Number). The only people that end up with it are:
As far as I can tell, it is NOT an offence to refuse to give it to any of these groups. That includes the Tax Office themselves. There are consequences of not quoting it, however. Namely, all tax payable is taken out at the maximum tax rate. To not give it to the ATO means that your tax return can be delayed while they search for you by name and DOB.
Also, it's pretty crap as ID for banks, because all they get is a small note on the screen of your account details that says "TFN received" or similar. This makes much more sense, IMHO.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, however, there is.
Breakfast served all day!
All you need is one piece of information if you are a good con man.
In other words, the SSN may in fact be critical to most realy disastrous identity thefts, but a smart thief can get the SSN based on very little prior information.
For example, you can get a official copy of a birth certificate with a wink and a smile. With that you can register for classes at the local community college. A student ID with your birth certificate is enough to get your Social Security card, even if you don't know the number. Student ID can also qualify as proof of residence in an area, which combined with the aforementioned social security card and birth certificate is enough to get a state ID or drivers license.
Badda boom, you have a complete identity, including paper trail, without anything more complicated than forging a signature
I also know your IP is 127.0.0.1
From my ideas page.
A private-key credit/debit card.
Prevent identity theft (if you can keep your hands on your card) by using challenge-response authentication. The POS terminal sends your card a challenge, the card encrypts the challenge and sends it back, and the POS terminal checks it using your card's public key (which it fetches from the credit card company). Bonus points: put a key pad on the card, so that your key is protected with a password, and you know your password isn't going into random hostile machines.
Since Social Security numbers are non-random, could they be sourced? The first 3 digits are where you were born geographically, and if you knew the year, you could narrow it down to a few thousand possibilities, right? then use death records or something to narrow that further?
I don't know what impact this has on the discussion, but it seemed important to consider.
True identity theft is when somebody opens new accounts using your identity, obtained using surreptitious means.
Now having said that, isn't the fault really with the credit issuers for making it too simple for credit to be obtained fraudulently? Why should it fall back on the poor, unsuspecting consumer, when the credit issuers are really to blame?
Huh? You don't think the credit card company is going to issue /mass/ chargebacks /after/ reconciliation to a single merchant account and not go after them tooth and nail for obtaining financial advantage by deception?
To elaborate (but at risk of going off-topic), the basic idea is that if someone wants to store information about you, you should have the right to make them store it on your machine. They can sign it or whatever to prevent you from tampering with it, but if they want to see it again, they should have to ask your permission. As long as it's reasonable, you can let them see it--unless you change your mind. Even including your SSN.
This is not really as radical as it might seem. Only a few years ago, pretty much all of your personal information was stored in your punkin head, so to speak. If someone wanted to know about you, they HAD to ask you. From that perspective, the essential principle of the Fifth Amendment is that you didn't have to tell them if you don't feel like it. However, these days it is increasingly less necessary to ask you anything--someone else already owns your data.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Well, for total identity theft you probably need the SSN. However, a lot can be done without the SSN. Given someone's name, address and birthdate you can get a forged driver's license that'll fool most clerks. If you also have their driver's license number, it'll fool most electronic checking systems as well. Know their checking account number and that gives you enough to write checks in their name. Know their credit-card number and expiration date and you've got enough to run most credit-card transactions. Just knowing the name and checking account number gives you enough to submit an electronic check against their account (you'll have to move fast to get the money out of your account and disappear before they notice the discrepancy, but if you've got that forged driver's license you can probably open a throwaway account easily enough).
Looking at it, a name and date and place of birth seems to be enough in most cases to get an official, certified birth certificate for that person sent to you. Just make sure to pay by money order, not credit card. A birth certificate's a stepping-stone to a lot of... interesting things.
1) Walk into registrar of Births/Deaths/Marriages
2) Claims to be Joe Bloggs, citing correct date and place of birth
3) Walk out with birth certificate for Joe Bloggs
4) Get driver's licence in name of Joe Bloggs
5) Get bank account in name of Joe Bloggs
6) Engage in fraud as Joe Bloggs, getting hold of $500k worth of stuff on 7-day invoices
8) Ditch all identifying material, returning to your old identity
9) Watch in the news some weeks later about some poor sucker called Joe Bloggs who is up on counts of fraud totalling $1M odd.
The first three numbers refer to the area. There was a 001-01-0001, although it wasn't the "first issued". Read all about it: First SSN & Lowest Number.
Well, one thing that comes to mind are two different major telco's I deal with. I have a great working relationship with both of the companies. (I'll give you a hint, one starts with a "V" and the other with a "Q".) I've done things with both of these companies you should never be able to get away with. I'm not doing it illegally - I could get permission from the folks who actually want the work done. However, neither of these carriers asks for enough identifying information to be useful. We have backchannel phone numbers into God-Knows-Who call centers. If we need a line to be moved, we just provide addresses and phone numbers. Once in a while we'll get hassled a bit, but it's just a matter of giving a line of BS to get past them.
In the event we need something strange done, we have reps we work with. If we asked for some info on the account, such as a SSN, I wouldn't be surprised if the reps would quietly provide it.
So, don't give your SSN to utilities folks. Your electric company doesn't need it.
----- obSig
Is we need to stop treating SSNs like proof of identity. Just because you know my name, doesn't prove you are me, neither should knowing my SSN. I mean what is it, after all? It's an identifier. The problem we face is that there is no gaurentee of uniqueness in names. If you are John Paul Smith, I'd be willing to bet you can find another person in the same city with that precise name, never mind the whole US.
So, we need something more to allow us to uniquely identify a person for various things. It is important, for example, for a bank to be sure you are the John Paul Smith they are thinking about when considering your creditworthniess for a loan. Well, since everyone in the US has, at least in theory, a unique SSN, that solves the problem. Name + SSN = a near certianty that you are dealing with the person you think you are.
However, much as a name isn't a proof of identity, neither should an SSN be. SSNs should be something that it doesn't matter if someone knows any more than if they know your name. It should be used just to establish who you claim to be, something else then is needed to verify that, indeed, you are that person.
Not only does this information jump start a police investigation, but it also tells you which database was broken into and thus which set of customers to warn about possible impending credit card fraud.
I had my identity stolen without the use of my SSN and it took me several years to clear my name. In short, a small, scrawy, red-headed meth-head tweaker got a drivers license issued by the state in my name. I was lucky enough to have a detective on the other side of the state alert me a day before a warrant was to be issued in my name.
So in a six month period this idiot was able to get my license suspended in three counties, multiple traffic violations, driving without insurance infractions, driving a stolen vehicle, and countless drug dealing and drug possession charges.
Can someone do damage without your SSN? F$CKiN A! I spend countless hours appearing in front of Judges, DA's, Court Clerks, Law Enforcement Officers, and lawyers and regardless of how much evidence I had, I was regarded with contempt and suspicion until someone could verify I wasn't lying and pardon me.
In the end they caught the son of a bitch and he did 18 months for the Identity Theft charges (He's still in pound me in the ass state prison due to all the other charges in his name and my name). The interesting point is that I had to argue in front of a judge that it would be pointless to keep a drug charge on my record that I didn't commit just so that they could track the crime back to me from his record. By the way, they dropped the drug charges because he pled guilty to ID theft (that's how I got the last stain on my record removed). Government...
The time I lost in wages (I was a contractor at the time) and the hell he put me through trying to clear my name which isn't easy when people look at their computer screens and think your a drug dealin dope fiend is enough for me to hope he's still being anal raped by some large man named Bubba. So you ask the question can someone cause damage without your SSN? They could send you to prison if you don't find out in time and clear your name. All they need is a few corrupt government employees and your first and last name.
---well i guess amex just sucks balls then, i called visa when some drawing software company sold me a $20 download (not a problem) then called my dorm and told me the software i bought was shit (a problem) tried to get me to 'upgrade' to the $100 version (a problem) then wouldn't cancel the order (a problem) they took care of me even though i'm just a lowly college student with an $800 credit limit
Living in a dorm and BUYING SOFTWARE?!?! What kind of fucking fruitcake are you????
You really are sad.
Each and every entity above can revoke the key at any time.
Merchant can revoke a transaction or deny a consumer (due to poor credit). Consumer can revoke identity if stolen with assurance it won't be used again ever. Arbitrator can authenticate/reject for both parties.
Zero identity theft.
This would require a smartcard that generates rotating public key protected by a PIN/fingerprint (I'm not big on biometric, but consumer ease of use is the key here).
Significant technical hurdles remains with regard to "WHOM" process the public-private key verification as it takes CPU-time. Perhaps the smartcard has advanced enough to the point where it can sign the keys.
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mcredit.html
Thanks for playing. You lose.
...Also, I didn't know Buggalo could fly.
My grandmother was paranoid about her SSN and its privacy. She did not give it out to anyone. Most people's drivers license numbers are their ssn too, but hers was a different number by her request.
She spent about an hour at Sears one day, trying to apply for a Sears charge card. They requested her ssn, but she would not give it. After about an hour of them calling around to figure out what to do about it, she did get the charge card and did not have to give her ssn, but the drones at the counter had to scramble for an entire hour to figure out how to get her the card without her ssn.
So while this may be possible, it is not always easy.
Also remember, for things like business transactions, in most cases they can require you to do anything short of violate your civil rights. Your option of course is to just not do business with them. AFAIK, not having to give out your ssn is not a civil right, so they could make this a requirement for them to do business with you?
Also, it's possible that what you are getting (cc, or whatever) is using your ssn as a unique identifier. So if you use a popular ssn, or really anything short of your ssn, you are risking duplication in their database. It won't be so funny when you start receiving credit card bills from 10 other people that are all using Nixon's ssn for their IDs. It looks reasonably safe to make up a number starting with 000, since that region code was not used. For simplicity sake you might just change the first three to 000. Again this could potentially produce database duplication, but the odds would be greatly reduced.
It's also possible that some automated processing may choke on a number that starts with 000, simply because according to the rules it's not supposed to exist. (that could actually be somewhat humorous, I bet you could crash numerous data processing systems with an array-out-of-bounds error when it tries to hash sort your SSN)
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
I don't mean to minimize the life experience you describe, and there is absolutely no justification for the actions of the drugged idiot who screwed up your ID, but I have to ask this:
Analytically, can you really make an equivalence between the hours of your life that were 'stolen' from you, the angst, frustration, and contempt that you felt, and having someone anally rape the perpetrator?
You are justifiably angry with the person who selfishly stole your identity so that he could live without consequences, but would it be just for him to be sexually abused while doing his prison time?
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
This would be scary. One of my least interesting work assignments is to send the FICA payroll to the federal govenment for 130,000+ US employees. If our HR and payroll systems didn't store the SSN, this trivial assignment would take years.
70% of statistics are made up.