I read stories from older university alumni from back when SSN served as student IDs where someone who issued gym uniforms or something like that would wow students by telling them where they were born when they’d tell him their SSN.
I went to state college in the 90s and they posted test scores with SSNs. That is when I noticed that most of the students had one of two three digit prefixes. Thought it was based on when they were issued, looked up how SSNs worked and found out about the location pattern.
This was before the credit industry hijacked the number and started treating it as a secret code, despite SSNs not being intended for anything other than Social Security.
When I went to college early 2000’s, my SSN was printed directly on my student ID card. It was the unique ID that the university used for each student. Then like a year or two later, they required all the students to get new IDs without the SSN printed on them.
I read stories from older university alumni from back when SSN served as student IDs where someone who issued gym uniforms or something like that would wow students by telling them where they were born when they’d tell him their SSN.
I went to state college in the 90s and they posted test scores with SSNs. That is when I noticed that most of the students had one of two three digit prefixes. Thought it was based on when they were issued, looked up how SSNs worked and found out about the location pattern.
This was before the credit industry hijacked the number and started treating it as a secret code, despite SSNs not being intended for anything other than Social Security.
Now it’s just SN.
But it’s not secure. It’s the IN.
When I went to college early 2000’s, my SSN was printed directly on my student ID card. It was the unique ID that the university used for each student. Then like a year or two later, they required all the students to get new IDs without the SSN printed on them.
It wasn’t until the internet that people started to secure their social. It took the internet for it to be a thing.
It could be used for identity theft in the pre-Internet days, but it was a lot more work to do (though also a good bit harder to catch)