09-24-2009, 03:54 PM
JoeH wrote:
[quote=Filliam H. Muffman]
[quote=JoeH]
[quote=Filliam H. Muffman]
SSN's are NOT unique numbers.
One of the reasons that credit companies sometimes will not tell you who is using your SSN is that it might just be a mistake on the name.
They are supposed to be unique, there have been very few duplicate numbers issued to two different individuals. So, sorry, your statement that they are not unique is mostly false. Also, none have been reissued once the original holder died. It will take several decades to exhaust the unused areas of the number sequence that remain.
So you don't really know how numbers are assigned, right?
Actually I do. The SS Administration publishes that information for any to read, and have for a long time. They picked an algorithm that was suited for the intended use, ID'ing a person paying into Social Security and possibly paying taxes on earnings. The intent is for the number to be unique, absent the occasional glitches in assigning them, the overwhelming majority are. They were not intended, and are not actually suited to be an universal identifier. Unfortunately they became a de facto one by businesses and other government organizations latching onto their use because they were ubiquitous and mostly unique.
So how many unique numbers are there in any region... 999,999? How many times must a number be reused when 5,000,000 people live in that region? The combination of a name and SSN makes a unique identifier but not the SSN alone.