<story><title>Experian Site Can Give Anyone Your Credit Freeze PIN</title><url>https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/09/experian-site-can-give-anyone-your-credit-freeze-pin/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>vec</author><text>This isn&amp;#x27;t going to stop until we stop treating SSNs like they&amp;#x27;re secret. Mine&amp;#x27;s not; it&amp;#x27;s been leaked at least once that I know of and I&amp;#x27;ve given it freely to dozens of clerks and HR staffers over the years, any of whom had ample opportunity to jot it down for personal use.&lt;p&gt;I know this will never actually happen, but I sincerely wish the Social Security Administration would publish a complete official database of real name to SSN mappings. It wouldn&amp;#x27;t impede their use as &lt;i&gt;Social Security Numbers&lt;/i&gt;, but it would make it extremely obvious how inappropriate they are as a proof of identity. Maybe then we&amp;#x27;d finally be forced to come up with something a bit less insane.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rdtsc</author><text>My university used to use SSN as student identifiers. So you&amp;#x27;d walk down the hallways and trash bins would be full of discarded test papers and homework assignments with a nicely printed SSN and full names on all of them.</text></comment>
<story><title>Experian Site Can Give Anyone Your Credit Freeze PIN</title><url>https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/09/experian-site-can-give-anyone-your-credit-freeze-pin/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>vec</author><text>This isn&amp;#x27;t going to stop until we stop treating SSNs like they&amp;#x27;re secret. Mine&amp;#x27;s not; it&amp;#x27;s been leaked at least once that I know of and I&amp;#x27;ve given it freely to dozens of clerks and HR staffers over the years, any of whom had ample opportunity to jot it down for personal use.&lt;p&gt;I know this will never actually happen, but I sincerely wish the Social Security Administration would publish a complete official database of real name to SSN mappings. It wouldn&amp;#x27;t impede their use as &lt;i&gt;Social Security Numbers&lt;/i&gt;, but it would make it extremely obvious how inappropriate they are as a proof of identity. Maybe then we&amp;#x27;d finally be forced to come up with something a bit less insane.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>curun1r</author><text>&amp;gt; I sincerely wish the Social Security Administration would publish a complete official database of real name to SSN mappings&lt;p&gt;Given the prevalence of fraudulent tax returns and people working under fake SSNs to avoid taxes, I imagine the IRS would be very displeased with them if they were to do this. It&amp;#x27;s not just credit reporting agencies that need to reform their identification procedures, it&amp;#x27;s also government.</text></comment>