• CodexArcanum@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    1·
    29 days ago

    I’m sure folks on here know this, but you know, there’s also that 10K a day that don’t so…

    What makes this especially funny, to me, is that SSN is the literal text book example (when I was in school anyway) of a “natural” key that you absolutely should never use as a primary key. It is often the representative example of the kinds of data that seems like it’d make a good key but will absolutely fuck you over if you do.

    SSN is not unique to a person. They get reused after death, and a person can have more than one in their lifetime (if your id is stolen and you arduously go about getting a new one). Edit: (See responses) It seems I’m misinformed about SSNs, apologies. I have heard from numerous sources that they are not unique to a person, but the specifics of how it happens are unknown to me.

    And they’re protected information due to all the financials that rely on them, so you don’t really want to store them at all (unless you’re the SSA, who would have guessed that’d ever come up though!?)

    It’s so stupid that it would be hilarious if people weren’t dying.

    • senkora@lemmy.zip
      0·
      29 days ago

      Small correction to an otherwise great explanation: SSNs are not recycled after death.

      **Q20:  *Are Social Security numbers reused after a person dies?*****A:  No. We do not reassign a Social Security number (SSN) after the number holder’s death. Even though we have issued over 453 million SSNs so far, and we assign about 5 and one-half million new numbers a year, the current numbering system will provide us with enough new numbers for several generations into the future with no changes in the numbering system.

      https://www.ssa.gov/history/hfaq.html

        • KamikazeRusher@lemm.ee
          1·
          29 days ago

          Nah. It’s worked for 50 years and if we get another 30 then it’s done its job well. Government is supposed to review and adjust things as time goes on and Social Security Numbers weren’t intended to uniquely identify citizens. They probably expected an overhaul to be done by 2020.

          They fact that we haven’t reworked portions of it and rely on SSNs to identify citizens shows that we haven’t had a forward-thinking Congress in the last 20 years at minimum.

    • vormadikter@startrek.website
      0·
      30 days ago

      Thanks for (starting to) explain this concept to people not accustomed to how the US does their shit.

      See, where i live, we used to have for example a Tax-Number. That was a thing the taxdepartment used to identify a person. But if you move from city a to city b, that numbers changes. So if you move a lot, you will have numerous of these.
      Now, some 15 years back, the Tax-ID was introduced (fellow residents at this point will lnow it might be Germany) and this number is a one-in-a-kind ID that will only be assigned to you. They create it shortly after birth. My sons first registraion ID was this, before anyrhing else. You will also get a uniqie healthcare-ID that also works like that.

      So…how does that work in the US and why is habing a changing number that is not unique helpful? Or what is Elon not getting? I dont get it either because I dont know how this works for you.

      Thanks in advance to shed light on this.

      • mesamune@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        30 days ago

        It doesn’t. There is no truely unique ID in the US.

        Source: myself. Worked on health insurance and it was hell.

        • CodexArcanum@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          1·
          30 days ago

          It’s wild too. I’ve been in the hospital a lot lately and in addition to a bar-code wristband, every healthcare worker, before doing anything with me (the patient) will ask my full name and either birthday or address and then double-check it against the wrist band. This is to make sure, at every step, that they didn’t accidentally swap in some other patient with the same name. (Not so uncommon, lots of men have their father’s name.)

          Meanwhile in like Iceland, everyone gets assigned a personal GPG key at birth so you can just present you public cert as identification, not to mention send private messages and secure your state-assigned crypto-wallet. Not saying such a system is without flaw but it seems a lot better than what we’re doing!