5 ms·
When I went to college in the late 80s my ssn was automatically used as my student id. When I got my first bank account in 1990, they used my ssn as the account
by demondemidi 2y ago
When I went to college in the late 80s my ssn was automatically used as my student id. When I got my first bank account in 1990, they used my ssn as the account number.
- buildsjets 2y agoOur class grades with names snd SSNs were posted on the wall after exams in a list of hundreds of students. Go Jackets.
- galdosdi 2y agoAh it was a different time. Societal trust was greater. Without global internetification, the only people who could ever have any opportunity to exploit this information were your fellow campus denizens (students, professors, etc). Without global internetification, there was not as much an average person could really do or would know to do with an SSN alone to exploit it. This story is a good parable for so much of what has changed in the world the last couple decades -- we had a world built for less globalization, then we globalized, and we've been gradually adapting to / dealing with the unintended consequences since then. A real life door can only be picked by your neighbors or anyone else nearby -- attack surface is limited by the nature of physical distance. A virtual door can be picked at by 7 billion people.
- xyst 2y agoI wonder if the schools actually verified the SSN. Would have been dank to see 666-66-6666 next to your name
- mdavidn 2y agoMy first big employer in the aughts had my SSN encoded in a bar code on the back of my company ID, which they expected us to display at the office.