Comments on: Tech News Today 300: A Warm Fuzzy War http://www.tommerritt.com/2011/08/06/tech-news-today-300-a-warm-fuzzy-war/ Curious about what Tom Merritt's up to? Well here ya go. Fri, 07 Sep 2012 23:46:11 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 By: Kevin McDonnell http://www.tommerritt.com/2011/08/06/tech-news-today-300-a-warm-fuzzy-war/comment-page-1/#comment-8809 Kevin McDonnell Wed, 10 Aug 2011 08:34:20 +0000 http://www.tommerritt.com/?p=2443#comment-8809 At the end of the show, listener Ben's email was read in which he explained that SSNs used the format . From this he concluded that if you knew the last 4 digits of a person's SSN, you could figure out the entire SSN by doing a little research. This isn't quite correct. First, the 2 middle digits aren't the hospital number, but a group number, which for all practical purposes is really just two additional sequencing numbers. In reality, it makes the 4-digit serial number 6 digits. The geographic region, is not where you were born, but what address you used when when applying for the SSN. My siblings and I have sequential SSNs even though we were born in different hospitals and in different states. My mother applied for all of our SSNs at one time and hence the sequential numbers. At the end of the show, listener Ben’s email was read in which he explained that SSNs used the format . From this he concluded that if you knew the last 4 digits of a person’s SSN, you could figure out the entire SSN by doing a little research. This isn’t quite correct.

First, the 2 middle digits aren’t the hospital number, but a group number, which for all practical purposes is really just two additional sequencing numbers. In reality, it makes the 4-digit serial number 6 digits.

The geographic region, is not where you were born, but what address you used when when applying for the SSN.

My siblings and I have sequential SSNs even though we were born in different hospitals and in different states. My mother applied for all of our SSNs at one time and hence the sequential numbers.

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