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87% of the U.S. Population are uniquely identified by {DOB, gender, zip}

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Re: 87% of the U.S. Population are uniquely identified by {DOB, gender, zip}

#91

Post by edanm »

yuvadam wrote: post #55

I should run that on the Israeli population census - which has been illegally leaked several times [1]. The ZIP codes in Israel are per-street, not city. Given Israel's population of just under 8M, I believe a very high percentage (95% [1] - http://blog.y3xz.com/post/7846661044/data-mining-the-israeli...

You should definitely update us on that - it will be very interesting to see the results.

Great article, by the way. I especially like the idea of diff'ing the databases.

Re: 87% of the U.S. Population are uniquely identified by {DOB, gender, zip}

#92

Post by ganley »

throw_away wrote: post #88
caf wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note the group of high rankings from 8-Sep, tailing off in early October - all those NYE babies ;)

also interesting is looking at the next lowest frequency dates-- all of them are clustered around major holidays: 365 12 25 364 1 1 363 12 24 362 1 2 361 7 4 360 12 26 359 11 28 358 11 27 357 11 26 356 1 3 355 10 31 354 12 23 353 11 25 352 11 24

Not sure if this is the (whole) reason, but obviously no one is going to have a scheduled induction or C-section on a holiday.

Re: 87% of the U.S. Population are uniquely identified by {DOB, gender, zip}

#93

Post by stonemetal »

throw_away wrote: post #88
caf wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note the group of high rankings from 8-Sep, tailing off in early October - all those NYE babies ;)

also interesting is looking at the next lowest frequency dates-- all of them are clustered around major holidays: 365 12 25 364 1 1 363 12 24 362 1 2 361 7 4 360 12 26 359 11 28 358 11 27 357 11 26 356 1 3 355 10 31 354 12 23 353 11 25 352 11 24

These days it doesn't surprise me, it seems like doctors are willing to induce at the drop of the hat these days. So why not to keep their holiday clear.

Re: 87% of the U.S. Population are uniquely identified by {DOB, gender, zip}

#94

Post by robk »

blahedo wrote: post #49
russell wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to deal with the converse of the problem when I was working for a company that ran the vehicle smog checking for the state of Illinois. A driver's license id was composed of birthdate, sex, and some location information (I dont remember exactly what) for the reasons mentioned by jdp23 it worked quite well, except for identical twins, who had the same driver's license id. (Registrations ofter were processed by h…

> ...for the state of Illinois. A driver's license id was composed of birthdate, sex, and some location information.... It's worse than that: in Illinois the first four characters of your DL ID are your last name's soundex code.

What's the harm of just a soundex? If you name is on the card anyways, it's not that secretive.

Re: 87% of the U.S. Population are uniquely identified by {DOB, gender, zip}

#96

Post by joshuaheard »

This might work well in a fixed database, but it would not work in real life since people change zip codes when they move every couple of years, or have more than one zip code (home, office).

The only way to identify people in real life is to issue them a public ID number that can be used in conjunction with a private ID number (SS#).

Re: 87% of the U.S. Population are uniquely identified by {DOB, gender, zip}

#97

Post by Peaker »

jeffreymcmanus wrote: post #45

True unique identifiers are immutable. At least two of those three things can be changed.

"True unique identifiers"? Is it anything like a true Scotsman? :-)

Something can be a unique identifier of someone in a given time point, and later become non-unique, or stop identifying that person.

Re: 87% of the U.S. Population are uniquely identified by {DOB, gender, zip}

#98

Post by huherto »

Zimahl wrote: post #18
kingkilr wrote: post #7

There were no other males, born on october 8th 1990, in Lakeview, Chicago. I'm a little flabbergasted, to be frank.

October 8th is an odd date. Since it's my birthday as well (long before 1990 though) I have taken note that I run across very few with that birthday, let alone early October birthdays. Is it statistically a low-birth month? I'd love to know. On a side note, Happy 21st Birthday in just over a month!

That was my dad's bd. His best friend was also born in the day.

Re: 87% of the U.S. Population are uniquely identified by {DOB, gender, zip}

#99

Post by huherto »

jeffreymcmanus wrote: post #45

True unique identifiers are immutable. At least two of those three things can be changed.

It is hard to find good natural keys (that are immutable and unique). That is why many people recommend using artificial keys.

Re: 87% of the U.S. Population are uniquely identified by {DOB, gender, zip}

#100

Post by ichc-werker »

robk wrote: post #94
blahedo wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...for the state of Illinois. A driver's license id was composed of birthdate, sex, and some location information.... It's worse than that: in Illinois the first four characters of your DL ID are your last name's soundex code.

What's the harm of just a soundex? If you name is on the card anyways, it's not that secretive.

If I know your name, this makes it much more easy to deduce your drivers license number.
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