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Comment by ars | Hacker News Reader

"We want to assure our customers that the issue did not impact Social Security numbers or credit and debit card numbers, but in some cases, may have affected information such as name, contact and demographic information, date of birth"

How exactly is this meant to be "assuring"? Who cares in the slightest about credit or debit card numbers? The other stuff matters FAR FAR more.

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Agreed. Our SSNs are already for sale on the dark web.

Dear Samsung: What the fuck was stolen, exactly? Do you even know?

Worse yet, maybe people's TV viewing habits.

Umm, you don’t need the dark web to get SSNs.

If you know the person’s exact name and city of residence you can use a supposedly legit service to purchase their SSN for $50. I won’t post it here, but should be trivial to find the name of company.

I used this service several years ago when a contractor tried to give my business an obviously fake SSN as he thought he wouldn’t have to report the income.

Name, phone number, current location and date of birth that are easy to find are more important than SSN and actual financial information? How so?

Financial info are easy to change. Financial info that is stolen and used won’t hold the victim liable for the damages (in us). SSN is basically universally leaked and also deterministically generated. Again, no harm to victim for any fraudulent uses.

Address isn’t likely to change. Especially not due to a leak. Phone number changing is a PITA even if easier. Date of birth can’t change ever really.

> Address isn’t likely to change

Addresses are already public records because property ownership and tax records are public.

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