Internal Passports
Bill Frantz
frantz at netcom.com
Wed Jan 1 13:43:31 PST 1997
At 11:02 AM -0800 12/31/96, Timothy C. May wrote:
>There have been several reports cited here recently about changes in the SS
>laws to make the SS number more of an ID number. ...
>
>And concerns about "identity theft" when such a simple thing as an SS
>number is the key to so many records, rights, etc.
I don't see how you can have the SS number be both a public ID number and a
secret password. Perhaps you could have it be one, but not both. It seems
to me that parts of our society are trying have it be a password and parts
a public ID number. (Perhaps the same parts?) Doing both just won't work.
(Using SS as a password is subject to all the stealing and replay attacks
that make passwords a really bad idea for secure identification.)
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