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In reply to the discussion: Jill Stein: 'No question' Julian Assange is a hero [View all]haele
(12,650 posts)Personal records - like medical records can be accessed by someone's social security number. Someone's social security record is linked to their birth records - place and date of birth, mother's name, father's name. So, someone can get a fake or driver's license. Someone can get access to otherwise secure locations - employer's records and SharePoint/data collaboration sites - or other accounts that you have access to, just by putting together your SSN and the birth record information that goes along with it and a few other details that can be found about you by Google search. Someone can impersonate you to commit a crime. They don't want your bank account. They want enough components of your otherwise innocuous "good" identity to get through someone else's protections against criminals. That's a favorite trick for more sophisticated black-hat hackers.
They can apply for a job in a critical infrastructure site using fake i.d. based off your SSI, and create all sorts of havoc.
So yes, having someone's Social Security number out in the open is the stuff of nightmares to people's lives require they maintain private security.
Even if you believe in transparency, you still want shower curtains, don't you?
Haele