Social (in)Security Numbers

Many different news venues are carrying the story today of how SSNs can be guessed by knowing some demographic data about the subject. This is based on the fact that the first 5 digits (123-45-XXXX) are related to the place from which one applies and change only slowly over time. If one knows a person's date and place of birth, and the SSNs of others with similar date and place, those first five numbers can be reasonably guessed.

The two tested their hunch... and found that on the first try they could correctly guess the first five digits of the SSN for 44 percent of deceased people who were born after 1988, and for 7 percent of those born between 1973 and 1988.

It doesn't work as well for people born before 1988 because the tendency to get a SSN at the time of a child's birth is a recent phenomenon. Those of us who are older - who received a SSN at the time of our first job in our teen years, living in a place other than when we were born - are at no particular risk (at least from this hack).