Is Congress Aiding Identity Theft?

July 10, 2009 – 1:36 pm

congress Most people have said, at some point, that government only exists to make their lives harder. While normally rhetoric, in this case, it may be true.

Congress recently passed legislation allowing the last four digits of your social security number to be published on public documents. Though this might not seem like a huge deal on its own, a recent findings by Carnegie Mellon University researchers’ paints this legislation in a extremely scary light. The CMU researchers were able to correctly guess the first five digits of a person’s SSN 40% of the time if they knew their birth date and hometown. As a person’s home town and birthday is so easily obtained due to social media sites, this legislation means that experiencing identity theft is that much closer of a certainty.

The equally great and horrible part of the internet is that once information is posted it is extremely hard to completely get rid of. There are no second changes on the web. So if you’ve ever even once slipped up and let your hometown and birthday be known then you’re at risk. If the identity thieves ever develop an algorithm similar to CMU’s then your chances go up even higher. And if there’s one thing identity thieves are working on since the CMU announcement it’s a way to discover those first five SSN digits.

Identity theft is evolving at such a high rate that in the next few years there will be no protection for it. The only option is to take on preventive means. Be proactive and find a way to protect yourself today.

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