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Comment on The entire Social Security database was uploaded on a random cloud server, Whistle-Blower Says

mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

I’ve said for a while that the SSA should do basically this exact thing. In a more controlled manner, but still the same result. Announce something like “in two years, we’ll make our database public. Every single name, DOB, and SSN will be publicly searchable.

It sounds radical, but SSNs were never meant to be a secure form of ID. Old cards even said something like “do not use this as ID” on them. But organizations quickly latched onto it because they wanted to have a way to identify individuals with the same name and DOB. And SSNs were convenient because people already had them.

It would force organizations to develop their own way to ID people. It would be a huge step towards making an actual secure form of ID. And the warning time would give people enough time to design the new system and roll it out, while still giving a hard deadline for when it needs to be done.

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Patches@ttrpg.network ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Exactly who I trust to create a logically organized database of all peoples within the United States. The Trump administration.

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- HBK@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I don’t love the idea of the Trump administration being in charge of creating a national ID system, but this maybe the best time to make one.
  
  If Democrats proposed a national ID database the crazy ‘FEMA is coming to round us up’ republicans would freak out about it. As proven with Trump sending the national guard into D.C., as long as Trump does it they don’t care.
  
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  - InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I hate this is a good point
    
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Bahnd@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I dont have a problem with that, but what I will object to is the current regime making the replament ID system. 1) there is no way they would design it well or securely, smart people capable of building such a system are usually the first to bounce to another country as they will have the means to do so. 2) it would be too easy for them to lord the new ID over peoples heads (like they are with immigration status now) and impliment a social credit score like China does.

Your correct that SSNs should not be used as IDs, but getting the government to build a modern system for that opens too many avanues for abuse (especially with darth cheeto in charge).

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- jwmgregory@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  this is a whole can of worms that you can look into but the entire western conception of the Chinese social credit system is essentially a myth propagated by western media outlets.
  
  don’t get me wrong, the chinese government legislated local governors implement something vaguely similar to the financial credit system in the west but, as the law works in china, they all interpreted the order differently and it seems only the “good” parts get rolled out nationally.
  
  situations similar to the western “social credit” myth existed for a brief time in a very small number of local pockets (think smaller divisions such as cities and towns), but they were quickly absconded and the architects of those systems punished, for essentially wasting government time and money.
  
  note i’m definitely not a tankie fuck tankies but i also think if we’re gonna talk about china we don’t need to make shit up bc just like the US there is plenty of real shit to criticize. the “social credit” thing is a joke that westerners get made fun of internationally for believing, pretty much. it’s not remotely real, at least how you probably think of it.
  
  realistically at this point you don’t have more or less rights or freedoms as a citizen of china or the united states. you’re pretty equally fucked either way now.
  
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- vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  and impliment a social credit score like China does.
  
  Honestly you don’t need such an official system, and such a commercial system, as that network of data brokers and credit rating providers, already exists. So of that in particular I wouldn’t be scared because it’s not avoidable anyway. What’s avoidable is government’s ability to discriminate based on data. Think how.
  
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- LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I don’t know much about it, but what did they change with the whole Real ID / star on Licenses and such. I believe the purpose was to make it so the IDs were to a minimum standard so they could be accepted in all 50 states. If they all had unique ID numbers (I don’t know that they do) they could have just used those, or expanded on those and already have the ID system in place. To travel to another state and have a valid ID, I believe the cut off date is November of this year. (At least for my State, because my spouse doesn’t drive and her ID she was told would no longer be valid post November if she doesn’t go in and get it done)
  
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vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
There was a time when bank card number was practically all you needed to get someone’s money.

I think Estonia’s electronic IDs are the best, they have the government sign (sometimes provide, but generally just sign) your public key. It’s both that the government doesn’t have your private key and that it’s immediately usable for many things. I don’t know if they do, but one can also make ID cards (with a necessary chip inside, of course), where a private key can be written and used for signing operations, but not read back.

Modern technology allows so much goodness that politicians and corps have just started globally gaslighting us over what can be done and what can’t. Stalling on technically easily solvable issues, so that it wouldn’t come to real ones.

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- turtlesareneat@discuss.online ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  The simple act of comparing signatures meant that it was very difficult to randomly target people. We don’t have anything like that today, like a key/token pair.
  
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angband@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
No, we don’t need this at all. businesses need to be fined out of existence for using the ssn, and lenders should do due diligence without some imaginary score.

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TheObviousSolution@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
It could be why it’s being done, because SSN are being used inappropriately. Potential leaks like this will force banks and other entities to begin making account access more difficult, and this will make it from difficult to next to impossible for a large number of seniors, those who’ve saved the most and have the biggest accounts, to access it. This would happen even if it was done in a two year controlled manner.

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