[ale] OT: am I paranoid?

[Jeff Hubbs]

Yep - it's one of those cases of counterintuition where brute-force
cracks are made all too wasy, like the five-button cipher locks that
have only 60 combinations and can be opened in a few minutes by anyone
who's had a little practice.  

(By the way, I used to work with someone who didn't believe me about the
cipher lock even though he was very sharp - he was very shocked when I
demonstrated...)

- Jeff

On Thu, 2003-10-09 at 12:54, Robert Coggins wrote:
> Actually I didn't think about the 3 numbers for location.  So  if they are
> able to get the 3 numbers for location the 5 number from the website then
> they only have 10 numbers to choose from.  SSNs are only 9 numbers...
> lll-Fw-wwww  Dang....
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Bjorn Dittmer-Roche" <dittmeb at mail.rockefeller.edu>
> To: "Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts" <ale at ale.org>
> Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2003 11:40 AM
> Subject: Re: Re: [ale] OT: am I paranoid?
> 
> 
> >
> >
> > On Thu, 9 Oct 2003 griffisb at bellsouth.net wrote:
> >
> > > Don't know if these links will work or not - but the first 3 digits of
> > > your social security number are based on where you lived when you
> > > applied for an ssn. It goes by zip code. Since I received mine when
> > > living in Portland, Maine -my first digits are (something something
> > > something - so there!).
> > >
> > > If you have the last 5 digits based on the online game, and then ask a
> > > person where they were born and grew up - you can possibly grab another
> > > 3 digits. This leaves 2 for messing with.
> >
> > so 100 possibilities. I think you could do that when applying for a cc
> > online.
> >
> > It all Sounds pretty sketchy to me. I am always suspicious with anything
> > regarding SSN. My rule of thumb is: If they use your ssn for anything,
> > chances are they don't understand security and whoever designed the system
> > has never heard of identity theft.
> >
> > >
> > > References:
> > >
> http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/ssa.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_sid=KJQZKmVg&p_lva=&p_faqid=87&p_created=955483216&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9NjImcF9jYXRfbHZsMT0xNiZwX3BhZ2U9MQ**&p_li=
> > >
> > > http://www.ssa.gov/foia/stateweb.html
> > >
> >
> > thanks for those refs, bruce!
> >
> > bjorn
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> >
> 
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-- 
Jeff Hubbs <hbbs at comcast.net>