Slashdot Mirror
Does Your Employer Still Use SSNs?
An anonymous reader asks: "My company, a fairly large telco, still uses social security numbers for non-financial purposes; mostly for our IT ticketing system. I find it amazing that in these times, with how easy it is to use an SSN to obtain credit, that any company still does this. I've heard talk for almost eight years that the practice is going to be stopped but little progress has been made. How many companies out there still use SSNs so openly? Since it seems that nobody is in a hurry to solve this issue, what can be done to speed the process up?"
My company makes us use our ssn as our email address. Talk about being a number...
My employer, a large bank, doesn't even use SSN's (or, more specifically TIN's - Taxpayer Identification Number) for non-financial information. Our employee ID numbers are unique, distinct, and not based on any formula. Now, that said, any employee that has a corporate credit card or is an officer of the company ("Officer", "Assistant Vice President", "Vice President", "Director", "Managing Director", "Senior Vice President", "Executive Vice President", "Senior Executive Vice President", etc., etc., etc.) does have their credit checked monthly by the company. But, I would assume that any company - not just a bank - would take that precaution with employees with purchasing or signatory authority. That system is based on SSN/TIN at our company - but it makes sense there.
I believe that there is a Federal Regulation that intends to restrict the use of SSN/TIN numbers for identification by (guessing here) 2010. I'm certain there is such a law for banks, but I believe that it extends to any US public company. Anyone have details on this?
One last thing - I know many people who use fake SSN's for non-financial uses. For some time, Richard Nixon's SSN was very popular. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not endorsing that practice - just sharing that it seems pretty common to me.
"Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things."
In the beginning the Social Security Number was issued by the government and is unique to each living citizen. This much still holds true.
But what was lost somewhere via the effects of Capitalism.... was that this number was supposed to be private to the individual assigned it. And, while there are laws protecting a citizens privacy. Companies were granted positions to effectively counter such laws. Only the government, state or law-enforcement officials may "demand" your Social Security Number. Visa can not demand you give it to them. Your landlord can not demand you give it to him. Private schools by law, can not demand you forfeit such information.
But no law is telling Visa or anyone else to accept alternate information for their personal records. As a result, you have to give out your Social Security Number, becuase if you don't, you can't apply for an Apartment, you can't buy a car, you can't have a credit card, you can't open a bank account, you can't get a job..... yeah, we have a choice.
*Some places do accept alternate information such as Drivers License Numbers.*
That SSNs are non-unique. They used to be, but thanks to illegal immigrants, ID theft, and a lot of other problems, SSNs simply aren't unique anymore, and thus are not a good identifier.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
From the Social Security Administration:
It appalls me how irresponsible this is. I have to write out my social security number down for the desk worker if I lock myself out of my room, to log-in to view my classes and grades, and all the time online to manage my account.
I cannot believe that such a highly accalimed university promotes such reckless actions. SSN's are basically our national ID number, and the fact that I have to throw it around all the time scares me.
My company is definitely not that bad, but SSN is still used on certain internal documents that really don't need the SSN and should just have the employee ID number instead.
The wrong way to speed up the process - post SSN of your CEO and higher management on the web or even sell them.
Do some research. See if there are any lawsuits holding companies responsible. Check for hard info on identity theft. Express your concerns to management in a documented fashion. If you can involve lawyers, HR, and the right management, the process could be sped up. If it isn't then you have documented steps that you took to clear up the issue before problems happened.
I go to a public university in Indiana and they are in the process of phasing out SSN's as your ID number. Starting with the people who are currently seniors they began issuing dual ID numbers (both a 10 digit and 9 digit SSN were valid), the year after that SSN use was discouraged, my freshman year only use of 10 digit ID was officially sanctioned but SSN still saw occaisional use, but I havn't been asked for anything but my 10 digit ID number all year.
...that my employer, a place flat-out driven by SSNs in many aspects of our work, wouldn't think of using them for anything internal that isn't mandated by law. We issue to everyone a 5-character ID that's used for signons and all sorts of IDs. We used to use a contraction of the user name, but even that has been 95% phased out for years.
It's not that difficult to quit using SSNs and it's just good policy. I'm surprised that they are still so commonly used in situations where they might be disclosed to anyone but the person to whom it belongs.
I always wondered about this with the SSN's on dog tags.
---In a time of Chimpanzees I was a Monkey.
I work for the US Post Office at a REC site. We still use parts of our SSN for identification. I don't really want to elabourate, but anyone who wished to steal SSNs there could easily do so.
Radio Shack still uses them to do employee discounts and certifications. Bank of America uses them to login to online banking.
Your ad here.
what can be done to speed the process up?
Leak it.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
It's only a matter of time before someone gets their hands on the SSN:name database and posts it for all to see.
What the fuck happens then?
We were required to give the last four digits of our SSN to get in the gate. Their verification was someone sitting on the otherside of the gate call box with a list of everyone's SSN. I expressed some concerns to my supervisor at the time because I didn't really trust my coworkers. Stupid bitch ran and told our manager that I was going to refuse to give it. She came back and told me that I could be fired for not following the procedure.
That said, Larry Wise's last four SSN numbers are 2795.
Someone hates these cans.
I was talking about this at earlier today, because it is of great concern to me. I think I have the start of a solution:
There needs to be a way to uniquely identify someone, and verify that identity. What does not need to be done is make that id public. That is the whole point of PGP encryption. An national ID number needs to be assigned. I hate the thought, but I finally gave in that it is a necessity. We already have a SSN, so it isn't something new. It just needs to be seperate from your SSN. In fact the plan I have, would allow your national ID to still be used for your SSN, and still be seperate from every other business or goverment department.
Set up a goverment department whose entire job is to administer ID numbers. The only information they should have is Name and age. They isssue everyone a private ID number and and encryption calculator. With the price of handheld calculators, I am confident that it can be done at a very reasonable cost. The department will then issue an ID number to each business that may need to know your ID. When a business or goverment agency wants your ID, they must give you their ID number, you encrypt your number with their ID number and give them the results, they then send that encrypted number to the Department of Identification along with their number where it is looked up on a database and the company is only given your Name and age group i.e. Under 16, 16-18, under 21, or over 65, depending on why the needed to register for an ID request. An adult site can request an 18 or over check, a convience store would need to know Under 18 for cigeretts, or under 21 for beer, etc, etc. Since each company that needs your information would have a different number to Id you with, it would prevent massive datamining into your life.
My company uses SSN's as our passwords for logging into our timeclock application through our web browsers. While the connection is behind our firewall, it's not SSL-encrypted... And I have no idea how the SSN/passwords are actually stored. Only been working there for 3.5 months so far, but have felt uncomfortable about it from day 1.
The University I work for has very limited disclosure of SSNs, and has system-wide been cracking down on the users of them - justify the need, or get rid of them. And if you have them, then your systems get to undergo more frequent and in-depth security audits.
The College I attend uses an 8-digit serial number which is linked across to the SSN for student identification, but they can still use your SSN if you don't know the other number.
I think the biggest point is that I don't want someone (even me) to be able to see the SSNs of others, but being able to search against them is very helpful, especially when dealing with new students who haven't a clue what their university ID number(s) are.
First off, one of the biggest telco's in the US used, at least the last time I checked, about two years ago, the last four digits of their employees' SSN's as *EMAIL* addresses. Emails were initials followed by the last four. Sad and pathetic...
However, if this is truly something you want to see changed, it might be worth calling around to a local reporter or television stations and seeing if you can hook a reporter on the idea of getting a good story out of this. Privacy concerns these days are no laughing matter and I've found recently that sometimes corporations have individuals in them with good intentions but beauracracy and inertia make it difficult for even some of the highest placed individuals to effect real change.
And just think about how exciting it would be to the the "Anonymous Source" in a nice little news story...
Or do credit checks on him and let them slip into the fax machine when it's set to auto-dial the NY Times, Washington Post, His Wife, Misteress, and several corporate leadership figures in the company.
-jX
Don't you just love politics? It's like a comedy of errors.
In fact, all the roll sheets distributed to professors (and handled by 2-5 people before it hits their hands) have the last 4 of our SSN on it, and it's used as a main identifier for students.
It's not that I'm asking the big questions, it's that I'm asking lots of small ones.
Companies don't really seem to care whether their FICA contribution actually goes to the right person or not -- maybe they get their payment amounts returned later, for the bogus SSNs.
My employer doesn't, because none of his employees has an SSN.
Usually the SSN is the PK in a relational db. It isn't hard to assign arbitrary account/user/customer numbers to those records, and replace the SSN in other tables with that number (assuming you have cascading updates). If the SSN is necessary for business, it should be stored without relationships to other tables. Of course this usually requires your program to be edited...
Starting from the point the government decided SSN's were how they were going to track us financially you have had the choice on whether or not that number is used anywhere else. If they have automatically used your SSN without your permission, then I would send them a Certified Letter stating that you do not want to use your SSN in their IT Ticketing system, they will have to change it or face the law themselves.
I dont know where to find these laws, but you could certainly contact a lawyer that is familiar with SS, and he/she would be able to help you promptly.
JS
Just a point of information, I used to work for a large regional telco (whose slogan could have been "a new *Frontier* for all *Citizens* and their *Communications*", but I digress...) who used the last 4 of SSN for identity confirmation when calling customer support, including password resets. For a 6000-employee company.
I'm a high school teacher in Kentucky. Yesterday, every teacher in the state got an email informing us that letters sent to our homes inadvertently displayed our SSN through the address window!!! Anyone could have swiped the numbers just by looking at the envelope. I'm not worried myself (my credit is so bad I hope someone will steal my identity), but just imagine if some unscrupulous postal employee noticed thousands of SSNs in plain view.
Or at least allows you to. All universities and colleges MUST allow you to change your student ID to something other than your SSN if you ask (and are encouraged to not use SSNs anyway, though not required). It's federal law (a law passed about five years ago, I beleive). Ask and you shall receive. If you don't, sue and you shall receive even more.
Using an SSN for an IT ticketing system? What do they do, run a credit check before unlocking a user's account?
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
i live in WI and someone in Milwaukee (with many, many previous addresses) is reporting my SS. I have no idea how or where they are reporting it, but they're in the database with my #. They have never used it for financial things yet, though, so my credit is fine. I reported this to the cops several times but they won't do anything about it because they arent using it for credit related things. This pisses me off to no end.
I have the original SS card in its original envelope from 2 months after I was born.
I had a hard time explaining things to employers when I was a teenager because they'd do checks of some sort and find this other guy's name.... notably Radio Shack and Menards (Like Home Depot) were the main ones causing problems over it.
Thats what it means to many programmers (and creditors), of all the things a person has on them - thier SSN is unique (not totally, there have been mention of dupes - though no accounts I could verify).
It's not a problem if you are dealing with one location or a small set of locations, but if you deal with state-wide or federal data it gets to be an issue to have a good unique ID for everyone.
The idea of a national ID would be an alternative (as SSNs go up to 999,999,999 we are running out). ANother would be biometrics but those are from what I hear at least 512 bytes for a fingerprint metric and higher for others.
Though I don't think it was a problem until private-sector creditors picked it up as thier de-facto key unique ID for financial identity, and when or if the national ID comes out I am sure the banks will adopt that too and keep the system screwed up.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
The problem isn't that people can find out your SSN.
The problem is that banks etc. use knowledge of SSN for authentication. If someone accumulates debt in your name, based only on their knowledge of your SSN and other readily available data (DOB, mother's maiden name) then you should be able to simply disown those debts, sticking the problem back on the people who accepted inadequate ID.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
When I worked for FSU, to login to our timeclocks we had to enter the last 4 digits or our SSN, but we entered them BACKWARDS. The thing is, everyone knew we entered them backwards... I couldn't quite figure out the point. Were they trying to point out that the policy itself was backwards?
From the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse: Your Social Security Number: How Secure Is It?
"I came here to kick ass and chew bubblegum. I'm all out of bubblegum." MSE USC APX AIA CSI CASp
1. Leak SSN Name databse
2. ???
3. Profit
the only reason I ask is because I know of several US Citizens that don't have SSNs.
After all, there's no law saying you have to have one.
In some countries the SSN-equivalents are public and not excpected to be a secret usable to prove your identity. E g in Sweden the Personal Number of all citizens is public. No organisation would use knowledge of the PN as proof of identity. That is what a photo id form an acreditied organisation is used for. The PN is simply a good key to use.
One may argue that having compatible unique keys in almost all databases enables or at least simplifies abuse by correlating various databases. But as far as identity theft goes, the SSN only enables it if the SSN are expected to be kept secret. AS long as they are public they are no more useful for identity theft than your name.
That is possibly the most brilliant suggestion I've ever heard regarding identity-theft mitigation in the US. Releasing all of the SSNs is excellent, and we need to do it. Right now.
Currently, the weakness in the system is that a SSN and publicly-available information is still being treated as secure enough to be useful for identification, despite being demonstrably insecure for nearly all individuals (I'm sure there are a few people out there who have never had a job, but they probably don't need to worry about identity theft) and completely compromised for a few.
A complete disclosure would kick the legs out from the whole ridiculous system, forcing all stakeholders currently using it to stop, because the entire system would be demonstrably compromised. Right now, the burden of proof is on the victims of identity theft, but after a leak of this magnitude any entity who used the SSN for authentication would be facing the legal equivalent of Armageddon.
Someone needs to acquire the complete SSN database, then publish the names followed by a new digit every week until complete disclosure is attained two months later. That'd give time and publicity for bureaucratic inertia to get a sound kick in the ass, and spark a dialogue about a robust, secure, and real system of identifiability to replace the worse-than-useless consensus kludge we have now.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
"My company, a fairly large telco, still uses social security numbers for non-financial purposes; mostly for our IT ticketing system. I find it amazing that in these times, with how easy it is to use an SSN to obtain credit, that any company still does this."
I would say that the problem is not that your company uses the numbers for non-financial purposes, but that it is easy to use it to obtain credit.
*that* is the thing that should be fixed. Don't attempt to keep something like an SSN a secret, because that will certainly fail.
Here in the Netherlands we have our equivalent of the SSN printed on just about every document and letter, and nobody considers that a problem.
My former didn't stop SSN as employee ID until they launched a two year project to consolidate all the the various HR processes into one big enterprise management software package. Keeping identification numbers straight during the switchover was a huge headache. Every current and former employee had three ID numbers during that time.. SSN, old employee ID (which was 0 + SSN, don't ask me why) and their new randomly-assigned employee ID. Keeping those numbers straight during the transition, making sure every single old database was scoured and updated, knowing which numbers to use in which situation... all of it was a major headache.
It didn't help that we had a couple of major gaffes during the transition. At one point late in the process, a letter was sent out to all 6000+ employees with the information that "Your new employee ID is printed in the upper left corner of the address label on this envelope. If you have any questions call HR at xxx...". Except that somehow they managed to mail out all 6000 of those letters without anyone noticing that actually, the new employee ID *wasn't* printed in the corner of the label. Or anywhere else for that matter.
I am NOT a man!
I am a free number!
Visa IS REQUIRED BY LAW to take your social security number, or a tax ID number if it is a corporation, as part of their financial reporting requirments.
There's a big difference between being required by law to collect your SSN AFTER/b> you have applied for the card and been accepted, and collecting your SSN BEFORE you have accepted in order to do a credsit check.
There is no need for anyone to ever give their SSN to a company to do a credit check. However, most do anyway to save time.
Perhaps it shouldn't be so easy to missuse SSNs? Why do you have companies that allow the use of just SSNs to signup for something? SSNs and their equals are a very good identifiers but only if you have a password or something else that has been established as yours already.
SSNs are the perfect single sign on.
I don't see the problem at all...
Right. The problem isn't your employer using your SSN to identify who you are uniquely. The problem is dumbass companies that pretend that knowledge of your SSN proves you are that person.
I've written before that there's actually a free market solution to the problem. What it needs is for some well-funded activists (Gilmore?) to put together a nice big database of SSN info. We know all that info is available to any company that wants it.
Then, public announcements are prominently made in the press (NYT ads, paper mail notifications to every major bank and so on) stating that on 2008-01-01, the entire database will be made public for search purposes on the Internet. On that day, you'll be able to look up and verify anyone's SSN for free. That's the way it should be, after all--it's an identification number, not a password, and anyone can look it up for $20 from one of the many online services. We're just going to change the price.
This means that any organization currently using SSN as a secret identifier basically has to stop doing so, or face massive fraud and consequent liability lawsuits.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
RE BOA -- That's your choice.
Years ago, you got to choose your own (long) numeric ID, and most people used their SSNs because they knew them. (I knew one person who used her phone number instead.) Now you can change your login ID through your account preferences, and the system prevents you from setting it to your SSN.
Several other banking and brokerage institutions allow you to change IDs that in the past were required to be SSNs. Take a look at your account preferences.
I used to work for a Help Desk for a large military contractor. When people locked their account or needed a password reset, we had to ask for the last four digits of their SSN to verify their identity. For the most part that worked fine, and nobody complained. However, someone in HR decided that we cannot get the SSNs of any contractors that we hired so for the last four digits field, they put the last four digits of their badge number. They forgot to tell us that, and we had lots of contractors who had to physically go to the security office and verify their identity because they fat-fingered their password. This also caused problems, as HR's software required the last four digits to be unique, which pretty much limited us to 10,000 contractors ever.
The law was added at the state level in some states. An example is Vermont.
And it is needed in more states.
Basically, federal and state laws have all sorts of different restrictions. Related to this topic, it says:
We used to have SSNs on certain employee forms until I noticed them and mentioned that it was a bad idea to my supervisor. I removed it from the forms (we also have a unique ID number for employees). I also set it up so fewer people have access to SSNs.
/.- most of us here work in IT, so we are the ones who control the information distribution in our companies. If you notice something stupid about how SSNs or other personal information is distributed, tell your boss (or your boss's boss) and get it fixed.
Seriously, though, this is
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
False in a lot if not all states. The federal form from the BATFE that you have to fill out to buy from an FFL makes it clear that putting your SSN on it is optional. The form in Virginia also is quite clear that your SSN is optional. I've never given my SSN to buy any of my guns.
Since I know one item in your comment is false, I'm going to have I suspect the rest of your info is just as faulty. Please cite the specific laws which requre the use of SSN in all the instances you mentioned.
I need to get a tax form form Meryl-Lynch. I had moved right before they mailed it out. I called to give them a change of address. In order to log on the system I had to enter a username and password, the system told me the default was username:SSN Password:Last 4 digits of your SSN. It then informed me that I did not have a valid PIN number for the system, and asked me to enter one. I then got through the voice mail system to a real person. The first thing he asked was to verify the address: I explained that the reason I called was to change the address, because the one on record was not valid. He told me that they used the address to verify ID, all this after using my SSN to verify the ID and account information. The big problem was that the place I had moved from did not have a distinct address. Every utility had a different address listed. I use to have 6 lines of info for things I mailed hoping one would work. These address were spread across 3 cities. The Post office and UPS had different address, the electric company and the phone company had different address. Figuring out which address this guy need was a nightmare. I wanted to know how knowing my address was a good verification that it was me, and I got a smart answer about it apperently not being me. I finally gave up, hung up, found a previous bill from every utility company, had a list of several addresses that I was ready to try and started over.
When I called back, I entered the SSN, last 4 digits of the SSN, and the PIN number I just created. The guy that answered the phone asked to verify that my address was "XXXX dumbas Dr..." and proceded to tell me the full address that they were using to verify ID. Finally getting to a manager it was explained to me that they only used the address if a valid PIN number was not entered. I explained that this leaves the SSN as the only thing needed to access the account. I was assured that it was much more difficult. I explained that I just did it, and was again told it could not be done. I asked to talk to a manager in charge of security, and was told that he was the one in charge of security concerns.
The SSN number is to only be used for tax purposes -- any company using your ssn for any other reason is actually breaking the law. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=3&url=htt p%3A%2F%2Fwww.utsystem.edu%2Fbpm%2F66Apx1Federal.d oc&ei=fckvRau9D4GuaIjmhNUO&sig=__4MlMe-Pw8Fg0LCc_8 47RUtK6Gg4=&sig2=-xa3oA2B8uL_CRzeFU25oA
The above link is an amendment to the origional law.
I recently started work at a fairly large human resource outsourcing firm, and while many of our clients have their employees marked by an SSN, they're all identified by an internal ID. There's also a push to start taking SSNs out of client records completely. The unfortunate problem is that because everyone started using an SSN ID system, it's very difficult to take them out of the equation.
Back a few months the hard drive on my work system crashed. IT rebuilt everything and delivered it to my desk with a new Lotus Notes password stored in a text file on the Windows desktop. I opened the text file, and sure enough, it was my full 9-digit SSN. Since the most everything else here uses is the last 4 digits, how and WHY did lower-level IT people have access to the full thing?
How WRONG you are, sir!
On one 4th of July, 1999 I was asleep in my car on a paved street among a knee-high field in a little place called Alviso (at the time my future home was under construction and I'd already sworn I'd NEVER again rent an apartment, so I slept in my car for some 6 months, exercising and showering at work, but eating and recreating elsewhere...)
Sunrise was past, and the fire department arrived to hose down the dry grass to prevent or reduce the risk of blazes, and when they saw my car, rather than knock on the window to see if I was alive, they instead called the police. She arrived, parked behind me, and then, I presume, ran my plates (SOP for any half-brained cop who doesn't want to be offed without the PD knowing their last position/contacts, etc...)
She rapped on my car with her baton or truncheon or whatever the hell it was she had and asked for my ID. But, before that, I'd already sensed something was up because the fire trucks had backed away prior to her arrival. She ran my D/L and came back and asked for my SSN, no negotiation about it.
I don't think that was the ONLY time they've asked me for it. Must be profiling, looking at my surname (purportedly of French origin, with a misspelling due to my father's father's family having been illiterate and released by their slave owners), probably thinking, "Oh, we've got Sayed, Sayid, Say-something....
As IF that weren't enough for her, she wouldn't give (or was hesitant to give) me a "contact/report number" for my OWN future reference of the encounter. She had also asked me whether I had any scars, tatoos, or other identifying marks. I'd had enough of her egg-hunting shit and flubbed yes or no for any remaining questions. FUCK HER! (not because of gender, mind you..., but "FUCK THAT!") Why? Because she was a San Jose cop, ran my California plates, checked my CA drivers license, and STILL wasn't satisfied. I'd alREADY had contacts with the police from previous sleepings (changing my spots every night, rotating among some 5 or 6 to not "wear out my welcome". even had some police politely ask me to move on due to previous issues in the neighborhoods, but these didn't fish for things/beat the bushes, didn't challenge or question or humiliate me with their authority, just to be fair to them...)
If my CDL and car plates don't bring back "detain"/"hold", "wait for backup", then DON'T hold or harass or humiliate YOUR SALARY PAYERS! I was beyond incensed, but I kept my cool. Besides, you DON'T want to go quoting your rights, penal codes, vehicle codes, etc without your OWN backup (say a live video feed of your own, an open mic that you tell the cop is on and will NOT be turned off and will NOT be removed from your vehicle or your person and that you will comply with the ticket signing expeditiously so you can both part ways to meet later in court...)
YES, they CAN and DO ask for SSNs. If you don't give it, they can haul your ass in, whether or not the judge later tosses the arrest/detention out.
And, YES, I even carried my buyer's/escrow papers and ALL the damned paper trail they'd need to find legitimate my reason for being in my car. I don't recall hearing of people in escrow murdering or being fujitives willing to flat out lay out their paper trail. And NO, I did not act furtively. I even let her (or other cops) check my car, in which they'd always find neatly/navy-style folded clean clothes and bagged, segregated worn clothes, my company laptop, my books and a few DEfensive implements...
And, let's remember that was in 1999, and even IF some case could be plugged with my name, why would they suddenly NOW find something to pin on me (other than the urge to close some case?), so if I had something to hide, I doubt I'd sleep in a car just hollering "come check me out" when I COULD have rented a place but refused to. (Humbly and frustratingly, tho, I was part of the mass layoffs and since 2001 have been renting...)
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Sorry, but having a home under construction is not a legitimate reason for sleeping in your car on the street. In fact, in some jurisdictions, merely the act of sleeping in your car is illegal. If you like sleeping in your car, rent yourself a garage...
In different words, you didn't "have it bad", you were just behaving silly.
I never alluded that I had it bad sleeping in my car. It was a CHOICE. A rebellious choice. I decided to deprive rental properties and keep the damned money for myself. After all, why is it illegal to merely sleep in one's car, as ooposed to on the sidewalk? It's NOT just to "keep order" (reduced clutter or "car-invasions/robbery") and "sanitation", it's because of the same reason motorhome users have to keep roving all over the place when they travel: If people slept in "mobiciles" (I or we coined that term when he told me that he was going to do) as I did years ago and like friend who is a special-forces trainee did not too long ago, we'd deprive the State of revenues generated by rent taxes.
It saved US money WE knew better what to do with. $800 x 6 months was $4800 I needed to do things with. Many mobicile dwellers don't cause trouble, and not having a fixed address is NOT a crime. But, NOT having a fixed address for the then prior six months ALMOST made the Escrow/Title company not file my papers. I wanted to ring her neck telling me she was not able to hand over my new home's keys if I couldn't provide an address. THAT was a good reason for having police give contact reports to their contacts instead of keeping them in a wheel book (note pad). I had a mailing address (USPS building, not other places), had my vehicle registration in order, my license current, and numerous clothing receipts, dining receipts, and a continuous stream of paychecks. Obviously such a person is not a plant or a fraud she would be able to ferret out. Hell, they even got my thumbprint as part of the escrow closing process. Surely, if I were a fugitive or wanted person or person of interest, I'd have been long rounded up.
(Anyway, so much for sleeping on the streets being illegal. Just visit the Tendergroing/Tenderloin in SF. The police ROUTINELY don't enforce the anti-vagrancy law. Tourists must wonder what the hell is wrong with the US when they walk around Union Square, Powell, Taylor, Market, and numerous other streets seeing hundreds of people in tattered clothing waiting for food handouts from Glide Memorial; defecant and urine on building walls, in their doorways, between cars, on the sidewalks, in street tree boxes; vomitus and sleeping bags and blankets in the doorways of businesses, the stench of urine that cannot be washed away even by rain.... Sometimes I feel the UN ought to occupy various parts of the US to embarrass it into cleaning up at home. T/L should be earth-scoured and rebuilt, along with many other cities' blighted areas, affordable housing, living wages and more. Money wasted on fictitious enemies in the name of power, divine right and all the other bs instigated by shitty foreign policy could be better spent improving the Human Psyche/Human Experience and diginified living for "good 'ole 'merkuns".... OH, wait, my thyroid is out of whack again.... lost my meds....)
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
So how do you like working at Sprint/Embarq?
I ordered a frame relay from them, had some trouble with them delivering on it. I was included on a round of internal emails regarding the order, and included was the internal ticket they use for order tracking. On the ticket was the SSN of the person who handles our account. I was shocked that they so freely distribute employee SSNs like that.