social security number

Millions of SSNs lifted from South Carolina database

If you live in South Carolina, there's a very good chance that slipshod state government security has allowed an overseas computer criminal to acquire your Social Security number.

The South Carolina Department of Revenue acknowledged the massive electronic security breach today, saying an electronic intrusion led to 3.6 million Social Security numbers being stolen. The state's population is approximately 4.7 million.

"We are taking immediate steps to protect the taxpayers of South Carolina, including providing one year of credit monitoring and identity protection to those affected," Gov. Nikki Haley said in a statement.

Anyone … Read more

Feuding over Doodle-4-Google

Links from Wednesday's episode of Loaded:

Doodle-4-Google gets the search giant into more privacy trouble because of the possibility of storing children's Social Security numbers

iPad 2 might get a launch date as early as next week

Amazon Prime customers get Instant Streaming video with over 5,000 titles

China launches an official government search engine with Panguso

Mint.com gets new "Get Out of Debt" tools

Yahoo! Video gets rid of user-generated content, so download your uploads before March 14th

Top 5 worst places for your Social Security number

This is a depressing Top 5. Seems like pretty much all the entities that should know how to protect our Social Security number still don't.

For the full, gory details, check out McAfee's list.

Report: Social Security numbers can be predicted

It is possible to use publicly available data on state and date of birth to predict someone's Social Security number, particularly if they were born after 1988 and in smaller states, according to an article published Monday in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The ability to use statistic inference to predict the sensitive data exposes the Social Security numbers to identity fraud risks on "mass scales," the article said.

Social Security numbers "were designed as identifiers at a time when personal computers and identity theft were unthinkable; today, abused as authentication devices, they … Read more

Harvard student database hacked, posted on BitTorrent

Harvard says about 10,000 of last year's applicants may have had their personal information compromised. At least 6,600 Social Security numbers were exposed. Worse, a compressed 125 M-byte file containing the stolen student data is currently available via BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer network.

In a statement published Monday night Harvard officials said the database containing summaries of GSAS applicant data for entry to the Fall 2007 academic year, summaries of GSAS housing applicant data for the 2007-08 and 2006-07 academic years, and administrator information had been compromised. The server had been taken offline for several days last month … Read more

Before you activate your iPhone, read this!

I was casually cruising the news sites yesterday when I came across a story about porting "ineligible" numbers to AT&T and iPhone. I clicked on the story because I know some of the people who lobbied for and won the rights to treat phone numbers more like personal property you own than corporate property you rent. I was right with the author until he said (without comment or outrage):

On that screen, enter your name, Social Security number, and your current billing information and home telephone.

Say WHAT!?

Apple and AT&T are demanding customers reveal SSNs to activate their iPhones. That should be the lead of every technology and business article written this week. If you don't believe me, read on.… Read more