According to a protected disclosure filed with the Office of Special Counsel, Borges told the Government Accountability Project that DOGE officials working at Social Security created a “live copy” of the country’s Social Security records in a separate cloud environment that sidestepped usual security checks.
The group says those lapses put the Social Security information of more than 300 million Americans at risk.
Thanks a lot DOGE. So clearly Elon Musk gives every American compensation, we get new numbers and have all of our credit history wiped clean to start new right? Bc otherwise this just means we’ve all been massively fucked by Trump and his band of idiots
His wealth spread across everyone living in the U.S. is ~ $2500 a person
Not adult, not citizen, not household,…
Person
I could use an extra $2500.
Life in prison would be nice too. Fuck him and his ketamine bender
I feel like he would just buy his luxury in prison like Pablo Escobar.
I think the worst punishment for people like Thiel and Musk would be to have their assets seized and any future wages garnished to be paid to the victims of their crimes, while they’re forced to attempt to survive in the society they’ve helped create.
The consequences they face will serve as an example and deterrent for others like them and one of two things would happen. Billionaires suddenly experience empathy/gain a conscience and conditions improve for all of society, or, billionaires continue to maintain the conditions they’ve created while one by one falling victim to their own creations. Most likely they check themselves out very quickly rather than attempt to survive the nightmare they had no problems inflicting on others. Either way equals a net gain for society.
Totally. I meant life in prison in addition to having all of their assets seized. They deserve to rot.
Thanks DOGE! Jesus, trump, how could you be so fucking stupid and uncaring? You have done nothing more than shove the monopoly board of america off of the table in a big tantrum because you were losing. Don’t forget, America made you, America can bring you down.
Two words: malignant narcissist.
I’d add pedophile to the list.
Say it with me!
A 👏 social 👏 security 👏 number 👏 is 👏 NOT 👏 a 👏 valid 👏 identity 👏 verification 👏 method.
The idea that all SSNs should be changed is dumb.
The fix is to get dumb people to stop using it as an identity verification method.
This is how Americans are going to lose their right to vote. The process will be “slow” for specific states and regions, just long enough to miss the midterms.
Y’all won your right to vote once, you can do it again.
Yep - I’ve already been bugging my grandma to get a passport so that she will be able to vote if SAVE act passes (she changed her name when she married, but doesn’t have a passport since she’s never left the country). Gotta avoid doomerism and make the fascists fight for every inch we can.
Instead of new SSNs, how about we maybe the number less risky in general?
It should never have served as a “secret”. Authenticating someone needs more than some account number. SSN should be more of a “username”, not a password.
It was never meant to part of any kind of database, but banks and businesses found a loophole to that a long ass time ago and now we’re here.
What do you think it’s meant for? It’s a perfect fit for any database that needs to uniquely identify a person.
The problem is using it as authorization without any other checks.
It’s not a perfect fit for anything that requires security. It was never meant to be a SECURE identifier. Just AN identifier.
CGP Grey’s video - the worst ID system in america
American government is again a laughingstock. Another comedy episode for the plutocrats in Moscow.
Thanks Doge. Daily reminder. Fuck Elon.
Honestly, having SSNs as identification in the first place is the main problem
Another victory for Small Government and the Private Sector, puh-raise JEE-zuz-ah!
I need to move
The onus is put on me to protect my info and identity but it’s never my fault when these breaches happen. It’s always a third party or a govt org that drops the ball. It’s so frustrating.
And now you have keyed in on why it never changes…the people responsible are never held accountable, so why would they do anything differently?
All U.S. Social Security numbers may need to be changed
Yeah, sure, and winged monkeys may fly out of my ass. But I doubt it’ll happen.
Yeah, honestly they have needed to be changed for years now, what with all the data breaches and stuff… Pretty sure everyone’s info was leaked ages ago. Nothing has been done because this is how the people in charge want it.
We’re the unwashed masses. Changing our social security numbers would mean considering us people worth more than a means of exploitation, and the ruling class couldn’t possibly burden themselves with the mere thought.
Yeah, thanks for that Equifax.
they dont want to spend the effor to do it unfortunately
For sure. They were fine invalidating mine and everybody else’s Puerto Rican birth certificate but they’ll never put this sort of administrative burden in action.
It would have happened after Experian if it was ever possible for it to happen.
EDIT: I was thinking of Equifax but Experian is not clean either
it was equifax, and it was quickly swept under the rug, conveniently around the time trumps 1st tax cuts occured.
Wait, Experian or Equifax?
Cripes, did I miss another one?
Oh you’re right. You didn’t miss another one, I lost another brain cell.
It was both within the last 5 years, and transunion recently. They all gave free monitoring for those affected.
Jim Carrey’s got you covered. https://youtu.be/_yRJOX1fppQ
They actually need to publicly release everyone’s SSNs so that they can’t be used for authentication anymore, which they never should have been
I’ve been saying this for literal years now. They should release a publicly searchable database of every single SSN, name, and DOB. Force organizations to stop using those as a form of ID, because they’re not secure and never have been.
Give it like a year of lead time. Like announce “March 1 2027, we’ll post the database” and then that gives institutions a full year to figure something new out.
This is the reality in some other countries. In Sweden, our “SSN” is our date of birth followed by four numbers that have different meanings depending on when you were born. During the period I was born it was an area code, and a binary of male/female and a control number. This has changed over time to not be exactly the same for newer generations. All of this information is available publicly to search for through our version of the IRS that then trickles out to various private companies that just publish it out right.
I personally have a dislike for this system, as I am a major privacy enjoyer. But people can’t really do anything with the information if they had it. If someone looks up my name and SSN, they have it, but can’t bring me harm.
Why not photos too? jfc.
And your mother’s maiden name
All this data and more is publicly available in many countries.
SSNs are generally considered public information but how the SSN is linked to other information is usually the more difficult bit to find and it’s generally pay-walled. (Any jackass with a business license and a credit card can usually buy background check information for ‘hiring’.)
But no, it shouldn’t be solely used for authentication. That is just dumb. However, it can be used as part of a larger verification and validation scheme while building authentication/authorization profiles. In most systems that I have seen that use full or partial SSNs, it is always linked to several other identifiers that need to match.
They are definitely not. People consider it increased risk for identity theft if they hear their SSN was stolen and you just cited how people are still using them in part for authentication. They need to be completely useless for authentication
I am making a slightly different point and have a bias to this perspective: https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/publications/SD/19230.pdf
I am saying that an SSN can be part of a larger validation scheme, not the only key to the castle. Specifically for government sites, SSNs can be linked to IRS data to verify places of last residence. A person generally needs to verify multiple items that are referenced by the SSN before basic authentication can be established and set by the user. (This is part of the full Authentication, Authorization and Access Control triad.)
An SSN is just a broad level identifier. If you look at many laws around the release of SSNs, the redaction is usually in place to prevent the linking of different documents and other data points.
If I released my SSN in this chat, I could be fully doxxed in a matter of seconds. It’s mainly because there are many legal systems in place that use an SSN as a primary key, of sorts. (It’s a bit more than that, as SSNs can be duplicated in some circumstances.)
So to say, at a high level, an SSN is considered private is absolutely correct. However, it’s so easily referenced and obtainable it really isn’t fully private either.
If I was to generate a full list of every possible SSN in the US (which I have done, multiple times), that list is effectively useless to anyone who obtains a copy of it. So, by itself, an SSN is effectively public.
If I released my SSN in this chat, I could be fully doxxed in a matter of seconds.
000-00-0002
000, 666 and 900-999 are invalid area numbers and any digit group of all zeros is also invalid. Thanks for playing!
Borges alleges that a little-known federal tech team called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, copied the government’s master Social Security database into a cloud system that lacked normal oversight.
I don’t know if I’d call them a little-known team (they’re infamous for basically fraud), but point taken.
Regardless of whether or not they are breached, the social security numbering system needs to be changed because it is far from a secure number.
because it is far from a secure number.
It is only the American obsession with using it as a unique identifier for everything in their lives that has caused this issue.
The problem is they are using Identification for authentication.
It is not even identification, it is literally just a number that anyone can use.
The original idea is exactly for identification (just not secure ones). Think of it like writing your name on the inside of your jacket or have a name tag on your luggage.
That’s true of all names. Names are still a form of identification. But it doesn’t authenticate that you are a specific person.
It would be less expensive to simply trust everyone. Administering a numbering system and trying to prevent fraud costs more than the actual fraud it prevents, and does nothing to prevent the larger frauds.
It’s like having a chain on the pen at the bank, with a security guard watching the chain, and three managers making aure the secuirty guard is watching the chain all day, but the cash drawers are open and the three managers simply help themselves to as much cash as they like.
You say that like we had any part in every single service asking for our SSN lmfao
Changing the system do not make it more secure by default. Here the SSN equivalent is calculated with your name, surname, date and place of birth and a check code, and it is not a secret how to calculate it (it was the very first program you write if you study IT at school for example).
The problem is not SSN number itself, but the fact that you need only it to do everything.
Let me guess… just in time for a 2028 election where we all suddenly need our valid SSN?
The Trump administration is building a computer system so that States can ‘verify’ a person’s citizenship prior to allowing them to vote.
This system has failed in many, many ways. That makes me think that they would use the SSN database and other intelligence sources in order to setup the system to fail at a much higher rate for everyone but likely MAGA voters.
This is a conspiracy I can get behind!
This is a conspiracy I can get behind!
Oh yeah this part is 100% my personal inference:
That makes me think that they would use the SSN database and other intelligence sources in order to setup the system to fail at a much higher rate for everyone but likely MAGA voters.
It isn’t completely baseless, the DHS has created a tool called Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE. The push on the right is to make it so that everyone has to prove their citizenship in order to vote. So a system like this SAVE system is what they would want to put in place to make it easy to ‘verify citizenship’ at polling places.
Having an electronic tool who’s underlying system is a complete black box and exclusively controlled by the executive branch which has been shown to incorrectly identify people’s citizenship status would allow a group acting in bad faith to surreptitiously introduce ‘errors’ that affect voters who have been identified (by the domestic spy network that is Google and Co.) as being likely opposition voters.
I’m not saying that this is what IS happening. I’m saying that this system is exactly the kind of system that you would design if you were trying to do what I’m suggesting.
Here’s a source about the system, because you shouldn’t just trust ‘people’ on the Internet:
https://www.propublica.org/article/save-voter-citizenship-tool-mistakes-confusion
The Trump administration is building a computer system so that States can ‘verify’ a person’s citizenship prior to allowing them to vote.
As an Italian (but think most of EU citizens) who need to show my id card to vote, I don’t really see where is the problem if there is a check if the person could vote or not. I can agree that using the SSN maybe is not the right way but why should people who are not citizes allowed to vote ? For context, in Italy if I have my legal address (residenza) in Milan I cannot vote for the mayor of Rome, and btw, why should I ?
The check in the US is done when you register to vote. Once you are registered, a variety of proofs of ID can be used to vote at your polling location.
Requiring a passport and birth cert or some other strong ID are unnecessary at the actual voting site. The main reason for doing this is to make voting take longer, and be more strenuous, which means that you can have a greater effect on election results by manipulating the number of polling stations for an area.
The check in the US is done when you register to vote. Once you are registered, a variety of proofs of ID can be used to vote at your polling location.
And why the double check ? It would not be better to just go to the polling station, show your id and then vote ?
(I undestand that it is a simplification, in the US people move way more often that here and this add some other problems)Requiring a passport and birth cert or some other strong ID are unnecessary at the actual voting site. The main reason for doing this is to make voting take longer,
Considering that if I have no one before me to vote, it take about 30 seconds from the moment I enter the polling station and the moment I am handed the cards to cast the vote I would argue that saying that this way it will take longer is not really true.
And, btw, we do the check of the document against a printed list who containt all the names of the people who can vote at a polling station, splitted between man and women.and be more strenuous, which means that you can have a greater effect on election results by manipulating the number of polling stations for an area.
Every difficulty you build to try to make harder for your enemy voters to cast their vote is a difficulty you set up also for your voters.
And simply manipulating the number of polling station in a certain area give you nothing: people who want to vote against you will come anyway and you cannot know if they will come before your voters of after and which voters eventually will lose their patience and just go home without casting a voteIt’s not a double check at the polling station. They simply need to confirm that you showed up and voted today, and have a way to ID you. The actual check, that you are legally allowed to vote, and that you are actually who you say you are, and that you aren’t allowed to vote anywhere else, all happened when you register to vote. That is a long process, and that’s why it is done before you actually need to go vote.
Every difficulty you build to try to make harder for your enemy voters to cast their vote is a difficulty you set up also for your voters.
Elections are run by the individual states (unless something egregiously unconstitutional is going on) which allows the governor and even local election officials to make decisions that affect how hard it is to vote almost down to a street level basis. If you don’t want people from blue areas to vote, you just put in fewer polling stations, and make them in less convenient places for areas that skew blue on the map. So adding 30 seconds to the voting time doesn’t really matter for a rural station that might need to service 100 people in a day, but for an inner city location that might need to service 100 people a minute those 30 seconds per person really add up.
Elections are run by the individual states (unless something egregiously unconstitutional is going on) which allows the governor and even local election officials to make decisions that affect how hard it is to vote almost down to a street level basis.
Same here, it does not seems to be a problem.
If you don’t want people from blue areas to vote, you just put in fewer polling stations, and make them in less convenient places for areas that skew blue on the map.
That assumes that you already know how people would vote. Yes, historical data could give a hint but not a certainty. It is some times that polls are spectacularly wrong.
So adding 30 seconds to the voting time doesn’t really matter for a rural station that might need to service 100 people in a day, but for an inner city location that might need to service 100 people a minute those 30 seconds per person really add up.
True, but think about who could spare more time when voting (hint, probably not the people you want to vote) and you will realize that it is a stupid idea.
Like most things the GOP says, they’re lying or exaggerating.
You need to show proof of identity/citizenship to register to vote. As one piece of this process, you may choose to use your SS card. You must vote at your local polling place (or by mail). You can not travel to some other city to vote.
Organized vote fraud would be hard to do and hard to hide. The only cases were MAGA people trying to “balance out the vote fraud” from the other guys. And they were caught.
I agree with you in principal, verifying your identity before voting is important because elections are important. We should be having a conversation about creating a system that is both comprehensive and also doesn’t impose a burden on people without means. For example, a lot of people don’t have an ID to satisfy the proposed requirements and would have a difficult time getting these credentials before election day.
In addition, in order to get these documents a person would have to jump through a lot of bureaucratic loopholes and pay fees. Many of these people are poorer and are more affected by the dire economic situation. The systems are complicated and despite being involved in this sphere for a few years I couldn’t tell you the steps and fees required to get all of the documents. This isn’t a simple system where a person can just walk into a government office and walk out with a working ID.
If we’re going to have a system requiring Secure IDs (I’m not sure the EU analog, but you guys have a similar secure identity scheme being pushed) then we need to make getting Secure IDs dead simple because the average citizen needs to be able to vote and also shouldn’t be subjected to heavy administrative burden in order to participate in the democratic system.
In this case, this isn’t even about showing an ID. There is an electronic system being created by the DHS, at the whim of Donald Trump, which is implementing a project that is not authorized or funded by laws passed by Congress (so, its already an illegal expenditure of funds). This project is intended to be given to the States so that on election day a person’s information can be entered into the system and the system will say if they are a valid citizen or not. If the system says that they are not a citizen, then they cannot vote.
One of the, many, many, problems with this system is that we have no idea how it works internally. The proposal is to allow a black box system that is controlled entirely by Donald Trump be responsible for determining who is and isn’t allowed to vote. Any errors of this system that occur on election day and disqualify people from voting will result in people being unable to vote and also unable to meaningfully challenge their disqualification in court (because they have until midnight to vote and no courts work that fast).
Even if you trusted Donald Trump to fairly and impartially administer elections (and if you do then you are probably a crazy person in the thrall of the US alt-right propaganda campaign), the system has objectively failed on simple tests and has rejected actual US Citizens. We have no idea how this system works and why it is rejecting US Citizen.
On top of all of that. The entire premise that this system was created to solve was the idea that the outcome of US elections have been altered by non-citizens voting. There is no evidence that non-citizens are voting and the actual cases of voter fraud that are brought by State and Federal law enforcement are nowhere close to the scale required to actually change election outcomes (there may be 100-200 election fraud cases across the entire US in any given election year).
So, it’s a system which unilaterally gets to determine who can vote. It exists to solve a problem that isn’t happening, it is not authorized by law, and is controlled by a person who has shown both the intention and immorality to subvert democratic outcomes up to and including using mob violence, witness intimidation and political pressure against his enemies.
You’re right that having secure, fair and free elections are important. In my opinion, this system doesn’t solve any problems and exists completely to allow for Donald Trump to disqualify people at scale using external data which allows for them to determine which way a person is likely to vote. We don’t know how the system works and it could be as simple as If Democrat Voter -> Disqualify 30% of the time.
It’s illegal, created for criminal purposes and will likely be an exhibit in the Conspiracy Against Rights/Treason cases against Trump, his minions and his financial backers once they’re swept from power in the midterms and then impeached and removed from office.
I agree with you in principal, verifying your identity before voting is important because elections are important. We should be having a conversation about creating a system that is both comprehensive and also doesn’t impose a burden on people without means. For example, a lot of people don’t have an ID to satisfy the proposed requirements and would have a difficult time getting these credentials before election day.
That is your problem number 2…
In addition, in order to get these documents a person would have to jump through a lot of bureaucratic loopholes and pay fees. Many of these people are poorer and are more affected by the dire economic situation. The systems are complicated and despite being involved in this sphere for a few years I couldn’t tell you the steps and fees required to get all of the documents. This isn’t a simple system where a person can just walk into a government office and walk out with a working ID.
and that is you problem number 1.
It is inconceivable to me that a situation like this could even exist in the US.
I get that many US people would start crying about “freedom” and everything else but the basic line is that a ID should be mandated by law for everyone. And it should be easy to obtain, I mean how difficult could be to do it ? Seriously.It seems to me that these are not real problem, other countries solved them dozens of years ago, it is just that you people (assuming you are from US) don’t want to solve them.
If we’re going to have a system requiring Secure IDs (I’m not sure the EU analog, but you guys have a similar secure identity scheme being pushed) then we need to make getting Secure IDs dead simple because the average citizen needs to be able to vote and also shouldn’t be subjected to heavy administrative burden in order to participate in the democratic system.
A card with a chip and all the information in that chip, to read it you need just a reader.
Or a qrcode with all the information encoded ?
Even the old Italian ID (made of paper) was secure, it does not seems to be a problem without solutions, just copy from someone who already did it.As for the problem with electronic black box voting stations, yes, they are a problem per se irregardless of who propose or built them. They would be a problem for the exact same reasons if they were proposed by Biden. But I still belive that a selection of who can vote done as you suggest is impraticable, you have no way of knowing who vote what before. A massive refusal to allow a certain population to vote would be noted in the end.
It seems to me that these are not real problem, other countries solved them dozens of years ago, it is just that you people (assuming you are from US) don’t want to solve them.
I’m aware of the problems and I donate a large portion of my time towards working to fix these issues which were put into place long before I was born. These systems exist as they do for a lot of reasons, many of which are bad. Fixing them will take time and political willpower which, prior to ID being weaponized as a means of cutting off voters, did not exist in the US.
It isn’t as simple as printing out a QR code or loading personal documents onto an ISO 14443-compliant smartcard. It will require infrastructure, staffing and public education. This isn’t something that can be done by election day (in November '26).
They would be a problem for the exact same reasons if they were proposed by Biden. But I still belive that a selection of who can vote done as you suggest is impraticable, you have no way of knowing who vote what before. A massive refusal to allow a certain population to vote would be noted in the end.
It’s bad idea no matter who is in charge. All of our voting systems are open to observers and there are multiple observers at all critical points of voting.
Circumventing all of those checks by having a single system who can simply deny a person the ability to vote with no recourse is a bad idea, it would have been a bad idea under Biden and it is a bad idea now.
A massive refusal to allow a certain population to vote would be noted in the end.
It doesn’t need to be massive to affect outcomes. A few thousand votes can swing close elections.
Even if someone notices something strange. Do you imagine that Donald Trump would allow for the Department of Homeland Security to investigate the Department of Homeland Security’s handling of claimed election interference? Would the newly elected Republican Congress vote to impeach him if he didn’t?
If someone notices vote interference, should they call Donald Trump’s FBI, Donald Trump’s DHS or Donald Trump’s CIA? How do you imagine that conversation would go once it made it to the attention of Pattel, Noem or Gabbard?
