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A comment on Hackers Are Hijacking Phone Numbers and Breaking into Email, Bank Accounts. Parent comment

Re:Hackers Are Hijacking Phone Numbers and Breaking into Ema... by ryandrake on Monday June 12, 2017 @12:11PM (#14538389)
Relying on it is not the problem. Treating it (or "date of birth" or "mother's maiden name") as a secret for use in authentication is a big problem. These things are not secret, and having me say mine does not prove that you're talking to me.
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Re:Hackers Are Hijacking Phone Numbers and Breaking into Ema... by FabHK on Monday June 12, 2017 @04:00PM (#14540566)
In my (shared) office, everyone knew each other's last 4 SSN digits, because whenever on the phone to some random customer service rep, we had to give them to "authenticate".
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Re:Hackers Are Hijacking Phone Numbers and Breaking into Ema... by doktrin on Monday June 12, 2017 @03:26PM (#14540235)
> Relying on it is not the problem. Treating it (or "date of birth" or "mother's maiden name") as a secret for use in authentication is a big problem.

I honestly don't see how you didn't just restate what I said with different language, while simultaneously saying you disagree with me.

Either way, I agree, and don't really think this is worth a cyber-argument so not sure if I should even be responding. Oh well.

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Re:Hackers Are Hijacking Phone Numbers and Breaking into Ema... by PeterisP on Monday June 12, 2017 @07:11PM (#14541878)
It would be just fine to rely on SSN as an identifier, even to a much larger scale as USA does now, if only it would be clearly assumed that this number isn't secret.
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