Whistleblower Says Doge Officials Copied Social Security Numbers
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A whistleblower's allegations that Dogecoin (DOGE) officials copied Social Security numbers have sparked a heated debate about the long-standing reliance on these numbers as unique identifiers. Commenters are divided, with some, like emsign, condemning DOGE's actions as "criminal" and "illegal," while others, like d--b, suggest that the real issue is the continued use of Social Security numbers as "secret" identifiers. As the discussion unfolds, a surprising concern emerges: themafia's theory that the exfiltrated information might be used to train AI models, which emsign finds "realistic." Amidst the controversy, many are calling for a shift away from Social Security numbers, with some advocating for their use as public usernames and others highlighting their lack of uniqueness.
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https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v69n2/v69n2p55.html
Yes, it is a mistake for two people to be issued the same number and it is unusual for multiple to be issued to the same person.
However given the very large volume and the conditions under which things have happened (not just currently but back to 1936!) both mistakes and unusual conditions exist in numbers that cannot be ignored.
The coming of the "digital caste" society powered by "social credit" scores seems to be the end game. This is a battle of the rich and powerful against the average citizen and they want to reduce all of us back into fiefdom. We can no longer trust a large federal or even state government with these tools.
First is Hanlon’s Razor; “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”. It appears to be especially applicable here.
Second is that this kind of information (with far richer data) is already accessible to and used by corporations at scale; think credit bureaus, background checkers, etc.
Those "razors" (Occam's, Hanlon's, etc) are just heuristics, not axioms. At what point you're supposed to stop assuming root cause is just stupidity? given the priors one can perfectly asume malice right away.
I worked in marketing during Web 1.0–the brochureware era. I know all too well the difference between then and the modern web today.
What’s the point if it’s not to unify design AND data?!
What exactly is the problem?
> According to Andrea Meza, an attorney with the Government Accountability Project who represents Borges, the cloud environment appeared to be set up for DOGE-affiliated Social Security staffers, but it "lacks independent security, monitoring and oversight." She said Borges "has serious concerns about the vulnerability it causes for nearly every American's data."
Not all applications of "secure" are equal.
All from the same people that said we had the most secure election in history in 2020 while ignoring the voting machine hacks at Defcon for the last decade.
This was done to the Republicans for 4 years. I suppose he's just using the same strategy?
NPR wouldn't report on things that would actually hurt the Biden administration, like the laptop, so why should I believe them now? I haven't trusted them for years...the fact that my tax dollars aren't paying for it anymore is only a bonus.
This is why they can't be trusted: Non-biased reporting will report bad things about a politician they support, even if it helps the person they don't support.
In addition to this, the actual article is a nothingburger. They moved secure information from one non-Internet connected server to another. If this is the standard for security reporting, the violations found during the 2020 election should have been front-page news for weeks...but they were strangely silent..............
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