Predicting Social Security numbers from public data (PNAS, 2009/07/07)

From AcaWiki
Jump to: navigation, search

Citation: Alessandro Acquisti, Ralph Gross (2009/07/07) Predicting Social Security numbers from public data (PNAS, 2009/07/07). PNAS (Volume 106) (RSS)
DOI (original publisher): 10.1073/pnas.0904891106
Semantic Scholar (metadata): 10.1073/pnas.0904891106
Sci-Hub (fulltext): 10.1073/pnas.0904891106
Internet Archive Scholar (search for fulltext): Predicting Social Security numbers from public data (PNAS, 2009/07/07)
issn:
Download: http://www.pnas.org/content/106/27/10975.full
Tagged: Computer Science (RSS) privacy (RSS), social security numbers (RSS)

Summary

"It is possible to predict, entirely from public data, narrow ranges of values wherein individual SSNs are likely to fall. Unless mitigating strategies are implemented, the predictability of SSNs exposes them to risks of identify theft on mass scales."

Theoretical and Practical Relevance

Weakness in Social Security Numbers is Found. NY Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/us/07numbers.html

We Can Guess Your Social Security Number http://information-security-resources.com/2009/07/22/we-can-guess-your-social-security-number/

Related policy implications: http://epic.org/privacy/ssn/

This was published in an open access journal.