Just watched Colbert, again, from two nights ago

[question everything]

(I was interrupted by a phone call) and it was amazing again. Amazing that Orly Taitz was willing to appear there. His SS # is of a man from CT who is 109 years old? Where does that come from?

It would be hilarious if it were not so scary.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/85993/the-colbert-report-tue-jul-28-2009

[FLyellowdog]

1. Wondered about that myself.

:crazy:

[waiting for hope]

2. Before when the population wasn't as large

as it is now, numbers where designated by state - if it started with a 2, you were born in VA or NC, 4 was Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi. I used to do payroll for a big restaurant chain in New Orleans and saw the pattern...

Information from (from http://www.socialsecurity.gov/history/ssn/geocard.html)

The Social Security number is a nine-digit number in the format "AAA-GG-SSSS". The number is divided into three parts.

The Area Number, the first three digits, is assigned by the geographical region. Prior to 1973, cards were issued in local Social Security offices around the country and the Area Number represented the office code in which the card was issued. This did not necessarily have to be in the area where the applicant lived, since a person could apply for their card in any Social Security office. Since 1973, when SSA began assigning SSNs and issuing cards centrally from Baltimore, the area number assigned has been based on the ZIP code in the mailing address provided on the application for the original Social Security card. The applicant's mailing address does not have to be the same as their place of residence. Thus, the Area Number does not necessarily represent the State of residence of the applicant, neither prior to 1973, nor since.

Generally, numbers were assigned beginning in the northeast and moving south and westward, so that people on the east coast had the lowest numbers and those on the west coast had the highest numbers. As the areas assigned to a locality are exhausted, new areas from the pool are assigned, so some states have noncontiguous groups of numbers.

Complete list of area number groups from the Social Security Administration

The middle two digits are the group number. The group numbers range from 01 to 99. However, they are not assigned in consecutive order. For administrative reasons, group numbers are issued in the following order:

1. ODD numbers from 01 through 09
2. EVEN numbers from 10 through 98
3. EVEN numbers from 02 through 08
4. ODD numbers from 11 through 99

As an example, group number 98 will be issued before 11.

* The last four digits are serial numbers. They represent a straight numerical sequence of digits from 0001-9999 within the group.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_number#Structure

http://www.socialsecurity.gov/employer/stateweb.htm

After 1973, they stopped doing that. It's very possible that Obama got his SS number after 1973 - back then it wasn't automatically issued at time of birth like it is now.

[question everything]

4. Several weeks ago there was a report about an Italian mathematician

who, knowing your date of birth and where you were born could guess your SS number. It seems that recently numbers were issued in consecutive orders - the last 6 - so if he could find people who died and who were born in a proximate date, he could make a good estimate.

The SS administration said it would start assigning random numbers.

Found the link

http://redtape.msnbc.com/2009/07/theres-a-new-reason-to-worry-about-the-security-of-your-social-security-number-turns-out-theyre-easy-to-guess--a-gro.html

The SSN is actually broken up into three parts - the first three digits are the “area number,” the second two are "group number" and the last four are the “serial number.” The Social Security Administration already offers considerable information about the first part of the number. The area number is based on the zip code used in the application for an SSN. High population states have many area numbers -- New York has 85, for instance – but many others, like Delaware, have only one.

The other two parts the number, however, are assigned in a way that the Social Security Administration believes it nearly impossible for someone to guess. But the Carnegie Mellon work shows they are not.

He took the largest publicly available list of SSNs -- the agency's master death file, which publishes numbers of the deceased to make them hard to use by imposters -- and sorted the list by state and date of birth. Immediately, it became clear that the second portion -- the group number -- was sequentially issued and also trivial to guess. For example, every SSN issued in Pennsylvania during 1996 contains the middle two numbers 76.

[waiting for hope]

5. That's scary ...

Knowing what people can do with SS numbers these days .... and how did this whack job get Obama's SS number to begin with?

[havocmom]

6. Got mine in California at age 15 (a loooong time ago)

Born in Missouri.

Did SS give # based on birth state or where you apply?

[question everything]

7. No, it was based on where you lived when you applied.

I think that only in the 80s, when every new born had to get a SS# you got it where you were born.

[havocmom]

8. Thanks, that's what I thought.

So nutcase dentist/lawyer off deep end. Yet again.

[liberal N proud]

3. More revealing that amazing

She is as clueless as bat shit crazy.

I doubt she is yet to figure out she was played.