According to a protected disclosure filed with the Office of Special Counsel, Borges told the Government Accountability Project that DOGE officials working at Social Security created a “live copy” of the country’s Social Security records in a separate cloud environment that sidestepped usual security checks.
The group says those lapses put the Social Security information of more than 300 million Americans at risk.
All U.S. Social Security numbers may need to be changed
Yeah, sure, and winged monkeys may fly out of my ass. But I doubt it’ll happen.
Yeah, honestly they have needed to be changed for years now, what with all the data breaches and stuff… Pretty sure everyone’s info was leaked ages ago. Nothing has been done because this is how the people in charge want it.
Yeah, thanks for that Equifax.
For sure. They were fine invalidating mine and everybody else’s Puerto Rican birth certificate but they’ll never put this sort of administrative burden in action.
It would have happened after Experian if it was ever possible for it to happen.
EDIT: I was thinking of Equifax but Experian is not clean either
Wait, Experian or Equifax?
Cripes, did I miss another one?
Oh you’re right. You didn’t miss another one, I lost another brain cell.
Jim Carrey’s got you covered. https://youtu.be/_yRJOX1fppQ
They actually need to publicly release everyone’s SSNs so that they can’t be used for authentication anymore, which they never should have been
I’ve been saying this for literal years now. They should release a publicly searchable database of every single SSN, name, and DOB. Force organizations to stop using those as a form of ID, because they’re not secure and never have been.
Give it like a year of lead time. Like announce “March 1 2027, we’ll post the database” and then that gives institutions a full year to figure something new out.
Why not photos too? jfc.
And your mother’s maiden name
All this data and more is publicly available in many countries.
This is the reality in some other countries. In Sweden, our “SSN” is our date of birth followed by four numbers that have different meanings depending on when you were born. During the period I was born it was an area code, and a binary of male/female and a control number. This has changed over time to not be exactly the same for newer generations. All of this information is available publicly to search for through our version of the IRS that then trickles out to various private companies that just publish it out right.
I personally have a dislike for this system, as I am a major privacy enjoyer. But people can’t really do anything with the information if they had it. If someone looks up my name and SSN, they have it, but can’t bring me harm.
Regardless of whether or not they are breached, the social security numbering system needs to be changed because it is far from a secure number.
because it is far from a secure number.
It is only the American obsession with using it as a unique identifier for everything in their lives that has caused this issue.
It would be less expensive to simply trust everyone. Administering a numbering system and trying to prevent fraud costs more than the actual fraud it prevents, and does nothing to prevent the larger frauds.
It’s like having a chain on the pen at the bank, with a security guard watching the chain, and three managers making aure the secuirty guard is watching the chain all day, but the cash drawers are open and the three managers simply help themselves to as much cash as they like.
Changing the system do not make it more secure by default. Here the SSN equivalent is calculated with your name, surname, date and place of birth and a check code, and it is not a secret how to calculate it (it was the very first program you write if you study IT at school for example).
The problem is not SSN number itself, but the fact that you need only it to do everything.
Lmao, like they’d do that
They would do it to punish out groups…
They sure are making alot of lists lately.
How would changing social security numbers punish people?
If you make the barrier to entry high enough that only people with money can get issued new and secure ssn would be one way.
The more devious thing would to just not allow folks on your “terrorist” list to be allowed new numbers. Now you would have a new way to justify filling your concentration camps.
To be clear I don’t think currently anything like this is planned, this would just be the most fucked up way fascists could capitalize on their own fuck up. Also probably the only reason they would consider going through the hassle of a ssn restructuring.
Someone has to pay for the new SSN system. Someone has to pay to maintain the database for the old system, since a lot of stuff is still reliant on those “old” numbers and will be for some time. Someone has to pay for printing and distributing new cards to everyone. Someone has to pay for gov employees to check IDs and verify people before distribution. Someone is going to have to pay for errors in the deployment. Someone is going to have to pay for the damage done by identity theft.
I would bet that someone will not be Elon, or anyone else at DOGE.
Not with that attitude it won’t be.
A cynic in me suggests that this may be a move to push people off the system and disenfranchise them entirely, or the new rationale to create a second class of people who are forced to live with increased digital vulnerability while a new class of numbers can be generated with different privileges.
more than 300 million Americans
I know wiggle room is the gold standard of journalism… but you can just say “all Americans”.
File a lawsuit against fucking DOGE and MAGA.
0 chance they hand out new SSID, that’s money and work and confusion, imagine every medical entity changing over that code?
First, the govt would need to make a lookup table.
Anyone that used their old ssid for something, or a system that had the old ssid in it, would need a translation to the new ID.
Sooo at what point could you safely stop accepting old ID’s because they’re all changed over? Never. Some random medical provider in east bumfuck, TN, still uses your SSID from their own paper copy. So you’re stuck accepting old SSIDs and translating them into new SSIDs on demand, which completely breaks any security of changing IDs in the first place.
There have been enough nexus/credit leaks over the years, it’s hardly news that those ID’s are compromised.
I think bumfucking is not legal in Tennessee.
It’s Tennessee. You can have a little bumfucking as a treat, as long as it’s your sibling.
“uncle papa” and all that … as long as your family tree is a circle.
Not if you are republican in Tennessee, you are then encouraged to bumfuck your relatives for fun on Sundays.
It’s the day of the lard after all.
True, but the thing is that the people in power will still complain about increased fraud if and when it happens and point to the government as irresponsible custodians of personal data.
Don’t get so worked about what’s real and what’s not. It’s just the news. Phony as always.
(seriously tho yeah u right.)
SIEZE Elons assets arrest try him and repair the damage to American infrastructure with his money
ssn was never intended to be a form of identification. it was specifically decided that it would not be used as a form of identification by the administration that controlled it
I guess that shows what people get for believing the state.
i am not going to defend the government, but in this case, it was problem laziness from the private sector. instead of relying on actual identification forms they used the ssn to shortcut paperwork
I have long predicted the entire goal of DOGE was to feed more data to Palantir, and clearly no other company is ever going to be given this level of security clearance, so they become dependent on it forever. I think this view is gaining more traction from what I’ve seen.
DOGE was a coup within a coup.
Obviously the entire goal was to make the government dependent on their select batch of private companies which they control. Palantir is one, but don’t forget the huge order for military-grade armored Teslas. And probably many similar cases.
Are we efficient yet?
Yes, but not at anything good.
Just add a 1 at the end of them all. That’s what I do when my work says I have to change my password.
Same. My password is on hunter2111111111111 now.
Shit, shouldn’t have shared it. I’ll just have to change it to >!hunter21111111111111!<.
I don’t know what you’re talking about, all I see is *******************
I’m sure that this will be more expensive to fix than whatever “savings” Elons ghouls have managed to bring.
This is how Americans are going to lose their right to vote. The process will be “slow” for specific states and regions, just long enough to miss the midterms.
Y’all won your right to vote once, you can do it again.
Yep - I’ve already been bugging my grandma to get a passport so that she will be able to vote if SAVE act passes (she changed her name when she married, but doesn’t have a passport since she’s never left the country). Gotta avoid doomerism and make the fascists fight for every inch we can.
I will keep laughing at Americans till they manage to get their broken democracy to establish an ID system like every other country.
