I thought I read somewhere that your social security card wasn’t initially at all meant for proof of identity and shit that we use it for today, which is why it’s made of fragile paper. But I didn’t actually look that up to verify so idk.
It stems from a conflict of need and want from what I understand.
The need for a national id and the refusal of the citizens for a national id. There was a lot of controversy about the SSN because it could be used as an id and the people didn’t want that being so privacy conscious, so they made the numbering system simple and that card fragile to show and dissuade that it isn’t a good id to get the SS passed.
But of course, there’s still a want/need for some kind of unified id across the nation - so it was used anyway
And thus we have a terrible id system: flimsy, deterministic, and mostly-unchangable
If you know the social security number of someone born in your hospital in the same day, it’s likely your ssn’s are right next to each other and could be guessed
At this point, I don’t think there would be much resistance to a national id, and it would be great for an update that is both securely random, and changeable so that leaking your SSN isn’t such a crazy risk, having it in a laminated card with a chip and electronic signature even better.
I get SO frustrated when I see a date like 4/3/2024 and have to spend time trying to figure out if it’s the 4th of March, or if some US company wrote the software I’m using and it has defaulted to silly format.
Try working for an American company while not living in America. I have spent years trying to convince my US colleagues to please use unambiguous date formats when sending email to a global audience. But no… they just can’t see why it would be necessary or even helpful to do that.
I tried something similar as a child to send my friend a letter. I wrote their address as the return address and dropped it off at the post office… They sent it to me anyways.
I also looked for it but no luck. There is an interesting list on Wikipedia of unusual articles though, which is a fun rabbit hole if you want to waste the rest of your day.
the down in this jacket is sustainably and ethically sourced: the geese are shaken vigorously to dislodge loose feathers on a daily basis.
The goose of course hate this, but being canada geese they deserve the punishment and when they’re released as adults they’re too dizzy to ever pose a threat to anyone.
lemmyshitpost
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