Government-Aided Phishing

Anonymous writes "A Florida county is posting the Social Security numbers, bank account info and other sensitive data of hundreds of thousands of current and former residents on its public Web site, Computerworld is reporting. A county official says there's no problem, since the postings are in compliance with state law requiring public availability of records." From the article: "The breach stems from the county's failure to redact or remove sensitive data from images of public documents such as property records and family court documents, Hogman said. Included in the documents that are publicly available are dates of birth and Social Security numbers of minors, images of signatures. passport numbers, green card details and bank account information."

let's open some bank accounts

[yincrash]

i think it's time for me to head to the local bank.

what's going to convince them that this is a bad idea?

Hmmm

[SupremoMan]

This has "stupid" written all over it.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

They must do it!

[mi]

Editing out the SSNs and DOBs is not only not required by law, it, likely, is against the law.

This info was Public Records since, well, always :-)

Anybody could go to town hall and browse the registry of deeds and other repositories. It just became more convenient to do it, but it was always possible.

In a way, we always relied on "security through obscurity" keeping this information (kinda) private, and are now all upset at the obscurity withering out.

Re:let's open some bank accounts

[boog3r]

what's going to convince them that this is a bad idea?

maybe someone posting a link [205.166.161.12] to the broward county public records site...

The more SSN's out there the better?

[hsmith]

Look at it this way. SSN's aren't what they were meant to be. They are your "everything" number now. In some respects, is the value of the SSN being diminished because they are so easy to use and get a hold of now? It could possibly be a big plus because now we get into a situation where they just aren't worth using so everyone stops using them for important transactions. Lets hope...

This is good!

[Electrum]

The federal government needs to do this on a nationwide scale. The SSA should give a deadline, say one year, then publish all SSN data. SSN is not supposed to be used as an identifier, nor as a secret. Doing this will force organizations to change their procedures, thus hampering identity thefts and other security issues that result from treating a public, non-unique identifier as a secret.

Shocking: laws do NOT replace common sense

[suv4x4]

"A county official says there's no problem, since the postings are in compliance with state law requiring public availability of records."

If all things in compliance with the law are perfect, then what the hell we need politicians to change/update the laws for? Fire the bastards.

Re:This is good!

[ScrewMaster]

No it won't. Congress will have to do it by making use of the Social Security number for anything but governmental purposes illegal. If a corporation wants to assign me a unique I.D. number ... that's fine so long as that number exists only within that organization's database. The credit bureaus like the SSN as a sort of personal GUID that allows them to track us more easily. Tough, I say: they feel entitled to our personal financial data but they're not, and given how badly they're mismanaging it maybe it's time for some changes. The system as it stands is becoming more and more dangerous to individuals every day, and unfortunately we don't really have the option to opt out of it. If you have a bank account you're part of the system, like it or not.

Re:It's sorta obvious if you think about it..

[Wilson_6500]

Stupidity and corruption transcend petty human notions of party lines.

Re:bad year for boward

[Anonymous Coward]

These public servants are doing more to destroy America than anyone flying into a building could ever accomplish

SSN shouldn't be used

[Ardemus]

I agree, this is a good thing. Let the use of SSN collapse as a means of granting information. Trying to hide a small number from birth to death is ridiculous. It's equally aweful that companies can claim that you did something because that number was used for the transaction.

Re:Wanted Posters

[DoraLives]

were you really tempted to steal the identity of someone the police were looking for?

What better identity to commit a crime under could there possibly be?