this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2026
56 points (98.3% liked)

Technology

81621 readers
4696 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 6 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Triumph@fedia.io 6 points 1 hour ago

How exactly do you have "billions" of Soc Sec numbers when they're nine digits?

[–] solrize@lemmy.ml 13 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

If this is US social security numbers, they only have 9 digits so there can't be billions of them.

[–] treadful@lemmy.zip -2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

They get reused. Also:

About 52% of the records had unique SSNs

[–] solrize@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

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

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.

[–] treadful@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 hour ago

Weird, I was quite confident in that memory. Thanks for the link.

[–] hansolo@lemmy.today 9 points 3 hours ago

All Americans should have frozen their credit years ago.