MSNBC: Whistleblower accuses DOGE team of endangering Social Security data | Hacker News Reader

MSNBC: Whistleblower accuses DOGE team of endangering Social Security data

whistleblower.org

SSA Chief Data officer (who blew the whistle) has now resigned: https://bsky.app/profile/marisakabas.bsky.social/post/3lxkry...

Pretty much every SSN has already been leaked previously. Notably by NPD last year. Your SSN was never intended to be a hidden and secret number. Banks and Credit cards need to top using it to verify and identify people.

The real worry here is that these systems are no longer secure because of the hotdogging cowboy fest that went on for two months.

Its not the SSN numbers that are the problem. Is the records of sensitive information tied to those numbers that are the concern.

SSA doesn’t just have social security numbers. It has a lot of information about earnings, health, and disability of people.

We are all going to have get new Social Security IDs before this is all over with...

... and probably thousands of government systems will probably have to built from the ground up again because we can't guarantee that they are secure.

But thank goodness we saved $0 because of DOGE

The objective was clearly dismantling institutions, not saving money.

Yes wasn't that explicitly written in the Project 2025 Handbook?

Yes, and we know this because they never did anything with the Pentagon.

> Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth set a goal in February for the Defense Department: shed 5 to 8 percent of the civilian workforce, or roughly 60,000 employees. To accomplish that goal, the Pentagon first instituted a hiring freeze and attempted to lay off hundreds of probationary employees. Then it offered a deferred resignation program that allowed employees to quit working but still be paid through September, while offering early retirement to longtime employees.

> We are all going to have get new Social Security IDs before this is all over with...

Just in time for the mark of the beast. Apocalypse…now?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_the_beast#Mark_of_th...

I remember finding an innocuous-looking .TXT file in a DOS game (probably something that got added by a BBS) which was going on for paragraphs about how barcodes are the number of the beast!

Please catch a verification fish. Rome insists you pay all applicable temple taxes as you leave.

> We are all going to have get new Social Security IDs before this is all over with...

I get that HN and the Web can be quite Amerigocentric but whenever I read lines like this throughout the day, I think, “phew, thank goodness I’m part of the other 96%.”

At this point I would just assume that everybody's SSN has been leaked at one time or another over the years. People need to stop using it for ID, it's not, and was never intended to be.

Letting imagination run wild here...

Naw, they'll be replaced with national citizen IDs or simply nothing and you must apply for a federal ID to see or get benefits.

Regarding such an ID, I bet it would not be technically required unless you want to receive some sort of federal benefit or participate in a federal election. They might not even call it a federal ID, something like "National Citizen Verification" (NCV)

I'm sure that incentives would strongly align for you to have one (or start more expensively starting to get one) if you participate in federal court, get arrested by a federal officer, or go to a federal prison. Also joining the military would likely result in you and your spouse getting a free one. If the draft is reintroduced at some point in the future, then it'll become common quickly.

Of course they'll still have the SSN format because of existing legacy misuse of the SSN as a national identifier. But maybe not. Every bank I've done business with wants my state driver's license number, of which a birth certificate is a requirement. Maybe it's someone's idea to simply give banks access to those databases.

[dupe] 3 days ago news:

Discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45026372

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