Validating SSNs

At 4:13 PM 11/13/96, Black Unicorn wrote:

>Exercise for the reader:  How does the bank verify SSNs?

OK, I'll bite.

My guess is that the bank sticks the SSN in a report to the IRS and the
bank is happy with the SSN as long as the IRS doesn't complain about it.

Now, does the IRS check? I suspect that they don't, either. Their objective
is to look for "matches" with SSNs that show up on filed tax forms, since
they want to verify the data on the tax form. Given the behavior of every
other large database I've ever seen, I'd guess that there would be a huge
number of SSNs that don't in fact associate with tax forms. If someone High
Up hasn't decreed that they should chase such things down (and allocated
heaps of money to do it), they'll ignore the mismatches.

This seems consistent with the reports of people who use bogus SSNs for
decades at a time.

Rick.
smith@sctc.com

At 4:18 PM -0600 11/13/96, Rick Smith wrote:

>My guess is that the bank sticks the SSN in a report to the IRS and the
>bank is happy with the SSN as long as the IRS doesn't complain about it.
>
>Now, does the IRS check? I suspect that they don't, either. Their objective
>is to look for "matches" with SSNs that show up on filed tax forms, since
>they want to verify the data on the tax form. Given the behavior of every
>other large database I've ever seen, I'd guess that there would be a huge
>number of SSNs that don't in fact associate with tax forms. If someone High
>Up hasn't decreed that they should chase such things down (and allocated
>heaps of money to do it), they'll ignore the mismatches.
>
>This seems consistent with the reports of people who use bogus SSNs for
>decades at a time.

Indeed, I protected my privacy decades ago by discarding my issued SSN and
substituting a different one. This "phony SSN" is what I use on my tax
returns, my credit cards, and for my employers.

Ha! None of them know that this is not my True Social Security Number!

By this I protect my privacy.


--Tim May

"The government announcement is disastrous," said Jim Bidzos,.."We warned IBM
that the National Security Agency would try to twist their technology."
[NYT, 1996-10-02]
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

Timothy C. May wrote:
> 
> Indeed, I protected my privacy decades ago by discarding my issued SSN 
> and substituting a different one. This "phony SSN" is what I use on my 
> tax returns, my credit cards, and for my employers.
> 
> Ha! None of them know that this is not my True Social Security Number!
> 
> By this I protect my privacy.

Brilliant! Little do they know that when they analyze your spending 
patterns, your addresses, your employment, your education, and your 
kids, they're really investigating something that has NOTHING TO DO WITH 
YOU!

[Just in case there are people too thick to understand "subtlety."] 

-rich