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A comment on The careless errors of credit reporting agencies. Parent comment

Re:The careless errors of credit reporting agencies by sokoloff on Sunday September 11, 2016 @01:05PM (#12474331)
> If you were born before 1989, your SSN can be guessed with 44% accuracy by an algorithm.

The actual situation is quite a bit less dire than your quote.

What that linked article says is that for people born AFTER 1989, the first five digits could be guessed with 44% accuracy. (There's a very real sense that the "last 4 of your social" are less guessable than the first five, so it's no surprise that the last 4 is what is often used/misused.)

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Re:The careless errors of credit reporting agencies by deftnerd on Sunday September 11, 2016 @01:10PM (#12474361)
I've seen multiple databases that have the results of asking the user to enter the "last 4 of your SSN"

If you have those last 4 digits, and you can guess the first 5 digits with nearly 50% accuracy, then you have a very good chance on getting legitimate SSN's for mass numbers of people with a DB dump.

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