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T-Mobile: Breach Exposed SSN/DOB of 40M+ People

krebsonsecurity.com

151–160 of 282 posts

Re: T-Mobile: Breach Exposed SSN/DOB of 40M+ People

#151
post #141
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God dammit it has nothing to do with religion. You're as ignorant as the people you mock.

There are plenty of people who use religion to decry this sort of thing. From the first page of results on a google search for "federal id mark of the beast": https://www.christianpost.com/news/the-national-biometric-id... https://www.fisherphillips.com/news-insights/don-t-give-your... http://archive.boston.com/news/local/maine/articles/2007/03/... I'm a Christian and I find most of those arguing that it's the mark o…

> I'm a Christian and I find most of those arguing that it's the mark of the beast (or the road there) to be disingenuous at it's root

Yes, using a 1st century AD apocalyptic book about the Romans to interpret contemporary government policy is by definition disingenuous.

Re: T-Mobile: Breach Exposed SSN/DOB of 40M+ People

#152
Is there a reason that these social security numbers are persisted? I can understand the need to do a credit check for a new customer but after? The only use case I can possibly come up with is for customers looking to add additional lines to the account than what was originally approved for and thus needing a credit check re-run. But at that point it would be a more secure process to just ask customers for them again.

Re: T-Mobile: Breach Exposed SSN/DOB of 40M+ People

#153

The EU has a federated public key cryptography based identity system. The member states recognize identities issued by other member states, but there is no central system. In any case, the private key is stored on a plastic ID, which acts as a smart card and can be hooked up to a smartphone/PC for identity verification and document signing online. The key is only released with a PIN, and the databases online only sto…

It is illegal for the US government to create a mandatory national identity system or coerce the States into creating one. The limits of this have been pretty thoroughly tested in the US Supreme Court. Every time things like this come up, everyone asks why don't we just thing that looks like a national identity system to fix the issue, as if that never occurred to anyone in Congress. This is why: it violates the Cons…

> It is illegal for the US government to create a mandatory national identity system

The system can be voluntary.

If you don't need an SSN today, you wouldn't need to use that system.

If some bank or health care provider only accepts such a system, just pick another one, or create your own bank / health care provider.

Re: T-Mobile: Breach Exposed SSN/DOB of 40M+ People

#154
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're significantly overestimating the amount of pull that type of person has in the US anymore, while simultaneously dramatically (I can only assume willfully) misquoting that bible verse.

"That type of person" accounts for some substantial fraction of the vaccine-hesitant population that accounts for freely available covid-19 vaccines for everyone age 12+ in the US but only 51% of the population being fully vaccinated[1]. So, even if you consider it absurd, this particular belief IS widely-enough held to influence behavior and public policy in the US. [1] https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vacc…

The vaccine-hesitant people I know are waiting for the live attenuated virus and/or FDA approval...

Please show me where it lists the reasons for not vaccinating on the page you linked, as I only see numbers on whether or not people are vaccinated. As it stands, your claim has zero statistical evidence to back it up. In fact, your link has zero relevance to your claim in any way.

Re: T-Mobile: Breach Exposed SSN/DOB of 40M+ People

#155

The EU has a federated public key cryptography based identity system. The member states recognize identities issued by other member states, but there is no central system. In any case, the private key is stored on a plastic ID, which acts as a smart card and can be hooked up to a smartphone/PC for identity verification and document signing online. The key is only released with a PIN, and the databases online only sto…

It is illegal for the US government to create a mandatory national identity system or coerce the States into creating one. The limits of this have been pretty thoroughly tested in the US Supreme Court. Every time things like this come up, everyone asks why don't we just thing that looks like a national identity system to fix the issue, as if that never occurred to anyone in Congress. This is why: it violates the Cons…

Things might magically change if we ever manage to shift the legal and financial burden of "identity theft" to the banks who made the actual mistake, and credit agencies who illegally spread false information about people.

Re: T-Mobile: Breach Exposed SSN/DOB of 40M+ People

#156
post #109

No, the US has far more religious fundamentalists than the EU. They believe that such a system is tantamount to taking the Mark of the Beast, quoting Revelation 13:16-17: > And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has…

I'm against it. Not for religious reasons but because of the potential to concentrate power.

The EU system is decentralized.

Re: T-Mobile: Breach Exposed SSN/DOB of 40M+ People

#157

With the frequency of these breaches, it feels like we are moving to a post-security world where SSNs and DOBs are simply public information. Would that really be such a bad thing? Both seem completely replaceable as authentication steps.

up till late 1990s SSN and DOB were public information, as they were printed on never-secured student IDs in American schools, for instance, and who knows where those unprotected lists went.

my email address at the university from 2000-2003 had the last 4 of my SSN in it.

Re: T-Mobile: Breach Exposed SSN/DOB of 40M+ People

#158

No, the US has far more religious fundamentalists than the EU. They believe that such a system is tantamount to taking the Mark of the Beast, quoting Revelation 13:16-17: > And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has…

Fun fact, the "beast" mentioned in this part of the Bible was code for Emperor Nero. The mark of the beast used for commerce in this verse refers to Nero's face on Roman coins at the time.

Much of Revelation was the early Christian community talking shit about Emperor Nero using code so they don't get killed. It's not meant to be a prophecy of a future dystopia.

Re: T-Mobile: Breach Exposed SSN/DOB of 40M+ People

#159

>Can we please have this in the US? No, because a significant amount of people in the USA think any kind of federal identification system is the "mark of the beast" from the biblical book of Revelation.

Are these the same people who want to vote without showing their ID?

Re: T-Mobile: Breach Exposed SSN/DOB of 40M+ People

#160

The EU has a federated public key cryptography based identity system. The member states recognize identities issued by other member states, but there is no central system. In any case, the private key is stored on a plastic ID, which acts as a smart card and can be hooked up to a smartphone/PC for identity verification and document signing online. The key is only released with a PIN, and the databases online only sto…

It is illegal for the US government to create a mandatory national identity system or coerce the States into creating one. The limits of this have been pretty thoroughly tested in the US Supreme Court. Every time things like this come up, everyone asks why don't we just thing that looks like a national identity system to fix the issue, as if that never occurred to anyone in Congress. This is why: it violates the Cons…

Citation needed. "It's against the constitution" - where? Cite an article, quote a paragraph, something. You say the Supreme Court has decided this; fine, quote a court case. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I have no idea what you're talking about.

We have plenty of de facto ID systems. But I'd argue they aren't mandatory because -there is no political will to make them mandatory-. What is achieved by doing so?

Hell, the same political party that would object most vociferously to making them mandatory (because of religious reasons and cost to the taxpayer) is also the one pushing for laws to require issued IDs to vote, a right that -is- guaranteed in the constitution.

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