I thought I read somewhere that your social security card wasn’t initially at all meant for proof of identity and shit that we use it for today, which is why it’s made of fragile paper. But I didn’t actually look that up to verify so idk.
It stems from a conflict of need and want from what I understand.
The need for a national id and the refusal of the citizens for a national id. There was a lot of controversy about the SSN because it could be used as an id and the people didn’t want that being so privacy conscious, so they made the numbering system simple and that card fragile to show and dissuade that it isn’t a good id to get the SS passed.
But of course, there’s still a want/need for some kind of unified id across the nation - so it was used anyway
And thus we have a terrible id system: flimsy, deterministic, and mostly-unchangable
If you know the social security number of someone born in your hospital in the same day, it’s likely your ssn’s are right next to each other and could be guessed
At this point, I don’t think there would be much resistance to a national id, and it would be great for an update that is both securely random, and changeable so that leaking your SSN isn’t such a crazy risk, having it in a laminated card with a chip and electronic signature even better.
“Here’s your soggy cardboard square, you’ll need it in 65 years.”
-statements dreamed up by the utterly deranged
I thought I read somewhere that your social security card wasn’t initially at all meant for proof of identity and shit that we use it for today, which is why it’s made of fragile paper. But I didn’t actually look that up to verify so idk.
It stems from a conflict of need and want from what I understand.
The need for a national id and the refusal of the citizens for a national id. There was a lot of controversy about the SSN because it could be used as an id and the people didn’t want that being so privacy conscious, so they made the numbering system simple and that card fragile to show and dissuade that it isn’t a good id to get the SS passed.
But of course, there’s still a want/need for some kind of unified id across the nation - so it was used anyway
And thus we have a terrible id system: flimsy, deterministic, and mostly-unchangable
If you know the social security number of someone born in your hospital in the same day, it’s likely your ssn’s are right next to each other and could be guessed
At this point, I don’t think there would be much resistance to a national id, and it would be great for an update that is both securely random, and changeable so that leaking your SSN isn’t such a crazy risk, having it in a laminated card with a chip and electronic signature even better.
Nah, that was changed around ~2009. Now ssns are random.
It used to say that right on the card.
Here cgp grey with more
https://youtu.be/Erp8IAUouus?si=gna5uw8NrArBTsxM
They’re made of that material so the card is destroyed if you leave it somewhere. It’s an intentional design choice