A day in the life

[Trei, Peter]

> Harry Bartholomew[SMTP:bart0 at earthlink.net]
> 
> My SS# begins 078-
> Issued in NY in the 50's
> 
> Harry  Bartholomew
> 
> 7/21/2003 12:25:35 AM, Bill Stewart <bill.stewart at pobox.com> wrote:
> 
> >
> >
> >At 03:01 AM 07/21/2003 +0000, Justin wrote:
> >>J.A. Terranson (2003-07-20 21:07Z) wrote:
> >> > So I have seen two separate businesses today who are just shooting 
> >> themselves
> >> > in the head over the acquisition of data in the face of obvious
> refusal.
> >>....
> >>I'm surprised they didn't ask for your SSN ... as an index for the
> database...
> >>
> >>I've adopted a SSN I use for idiots like that.  I don't know whether
> >>it's assigned, but it's in the valid range.  Isn't that just terrible.
> >
> >Please don't do that.  You might pick a number belonging to some poor 
> >working guy
> >and mess up his credit or yours.
> >
> >I read on the net that Richard Nixon's SSN is 567-68-0515,
> >and then there's that usual 078-thing from fake SSN cards in wallets.
> 
From:
http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/privacy/ssn/SSN-addendum.html#FakeNumbers

Making a 9-digit number up at random is a bad idea, as it may coincide 
with someone's real number and cause them some amount of grief. It's 
better to use a number like 078-05-1120, which was printed on "sample" 
cards inserted in thousands of new wallets sold in the 40's and 50's. It's 
been used so widely that both the IRS and SSA recognize it immediately 
as bogus, while most clerks haven't heard of it. There were at least 40 
different people in the Selective Service database at one point who gave 
this number as their SSN. The Social Security Administration recommends 
that people showing Social Security cards in advertisements use numbers 
in the range 987-65-4320 through 987-65-4329.

There are several patterns that have never been assigned, and which 
therefore don't conflict with anyone's real number. They include numbers 
with any field all zeroes, and numbers with a first digit of 8 or 9.

- end quote - 

Peter Trei