[HN Gopher] Giant leak exposes data from almost all Brazilians
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Giant leak exposes data from almost all Brazilians
        
       Author : JeanMarcS
       Score  : 230 points
       Date   : 2021-01-25 16:01 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.somagnews.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.somagnews.com)
        
       | Xunjin wrote:
       | I'm so proud of my country, we just got the goal, time to double
       | it.
       | 
       | And If you ask the politicians to improve security, they will
       | probably say "put 2 more security guard outside the building".
        
       | pelasaco wrote:
       | I don't see how it can be new. When I lived some years in Brazil
       | (around 1999-2001), and you could buy at a specific street in Sao
       | Paulo, a CD with all the taxes information from every brazilian
       | citizen.
        
         | FalconSensei wrote:
         | I remember seeing the news, years ago, that a guy was trying to
         | discover were spammers were getting his email. So he created a
         | bunch of emails for different things.
         | 
         | Guess which email started receiving spam very quickly? Yeah,
         | the one he used for taxes
        
           | Consultant32452 wrote:
           | I remember in the 90s when we thought it was funny to sign
           | people up for every newsletter we could find. You could
           | basically destroy someone's email address making it forever
           | unusable by spending an hour signing up for junk.
        
       | dang wrote:
       | Url changed from https://www.databreaches.net/giant-leak-exposes-
       | data-from-al..., which points to this.
        
       | EGreg wrote:
       | We should literally start making a parody of this article, but on
       | our blog:
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27No_Way_To_Prevent_This,%27_...
       | 
       | EDIT: I wrote it
       | 
       | https://qbix.com/blog/2021/01/25/no-way-to-prevent-this-says...
        
       | diego_moita wrote:
       | > vulnerable to 220 million people.
       | 
       | In a country with 207 million people. This means that even the
       | dead can't rest in peace.
       | 
       | On the bright side, we'll not have any data leaks anymore because
       | there will be no more secrets to leak. :)
        
         | Chico75 wrote:
         | Probably concerns citizens living abroad as well
        
           | cuca_de_chumbo wrote:
           | I was born dual US/Brazil and left Brazil just after turning
           | 18 about 36 years ago, wondering wondering whether I'm in the
           | leak and whether anyone could use my info to open illicit
           | bank accounts, etc. I don't want to be associated with money-
           | laundering, and am too far in headspace from financial-
           | institutions/credit-bureaus to check it out.
        
             | FalconSensei wrote:
             | If you declared permanent out-of-country move, you (or an
             | impersonator) shouldn't be able to open accounts/buy things
             | - as far as I know.
        
               | kinow wrote:
               | I think there are extra fees as a foreigner. You are not
               | prohibited of having a bank account, insurance, using
               | credit, etc. But most systems will prevent the CPF of
               | being used without some sort of special approval.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | atbpaca wrote:
       | Another embarrassment for Bolsonaro and his minions. #impeachment
        
         | andersonvieira wrote:
         | I don't see how your comment is anything more than FUD.
         | 
         | The leaked information suggests it may have come from Serasa
         | Experian [1], although they deny it, or some third-party that
         | provides services to them. I haven't seen any evidence the
         | government has anything to do with this.
         | 
         | [1] https://tecnoblog.net/405077/especialistas-alertam-para-
         | risc...
        
         | rapfaria wrote:
         | How is this directly related to Bolsonaro? Because it happened
         | in the country he is president of?
        
           | gcblkjaidfj wrote:
           | The original comment is likely a troll, but the current
           | goverment did place a bunch of amateur hacks on the highest
           | positions of power, which led to things like the minister of
           | culture asserting to the public that woman belongs in the
           | kitchen, or that the minister of education asserting in
           | public that the humanities like sociology and history must
           | disappear from the face of earth, and the ministry of
           | environment saying in a leaked video of a presidential
           | meeting that thanks to covid they now had the distraction
           | they needed to kill indians and give the land to soy farmers.
           | 
           | So, even if trollish comment, it is not too removed from
           | truth. I can see how incompetence, cost cuts, corruption and
           | favoritism (he did place all his sons in a trump-like fashion
           | in his cabinet) might have led to this. Not to mention
           | relaxing of oversight and the rule of law which allowed for
           | even more departments (and the private companies working for
           | those) to hold and share this information without concerns.
           | 
           | The previous government (removed illegitimacy in a coup) did
           | place emphasis on digital security. Brazil have safe
           | electronic voting for decades and Brazilians receive a java
           | application by the gov to do their taxes since the 90s. The
           | current gov was elected on the basis of "we will undo
           | everything the last <<corrupt>> government did"
        
             | Natsu wrote:
             | > The previous government (removed illegitimacy in a coup)
             | 
             | Dilma was impeached and removed, Temer finished her term,
             | then Bolsonaro won the election after getting stabbed, and
             | nearly killed, by opposition supporters. I know he's highly
             | controversial, but he did win the election.
             | 
             | The removal of Dilma is not normally what one would
             | describe as a "coup." The military junta from 1969,
             | however, is.
        
               | marcodiego wrote:
               | Not very important, but Temer himself called it a
               | "golpe": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiW84yYAkQ8
        
               | oscargrouch wrote:
               | What you are describing is a "hard coup", while in the
               | case of Dilma it was what can be described as a "soft
               | coup"..
               | 
               | Yes the congress followed all the legal proceedings, but
               | in the end they did not proved that the accounting
               | maneuver her government did was illegal and therefore
               | unfit to what could be called as a legal impeachment
               | proceeding.
               | 
               | If you add this to everything that was happening behind
               | the curtains, and history will make this even more clear,
               | yes it was a coup, just that, this is of a different
               | sort. (BTW a lot of important players of the time are
               | starting to confess everything they did, and how dirty it
               | was)
               | 
               | Imagine that without any legal proof, the legislative
               | chamber can throw out any legitimate president basically
               | nullifying the people wish and therefore, the democracy.
               | Also this will make the legislative power, the most
               | powerful one over the two others, going against the three
               | power(separation of powers) concept of Montesquieu.
               | 
               | That's why the impeachment proceeding cannot be only
               | based in political grounds, but also need a clear legal
               | basis on the government doing something wrong based on
               | the current legal framework.
               | 
               | In the case of Dilma, only the political axis was at
               | play, and a dirty one i must say, where they didn't
               | respect the legal grounds and in the end there was no
               | proof of her wrongdoing's.
        
               | virgulino wrote:
               | > What you are describing is a "hard coup", while in the
               | case of Dilma it was what can be described as a "soft
               | coup"..
               | 
               | That is inventing new words and definitions for your
               | convenience. It cuts both ways, one can say it was a
               | "democratic coup", a "constitutional coup", a "popular
               | coup" (more than 60% of the population in favour), a
               | "coup against tyranny and poverty" (worst reduction in
               | GDP in 120 years), etc.
               | 
               | Listen to one of our most respected historians,
               | https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Aar%C3%A3o_Reis , an
               | academic awarded for his work on dictatorship and
               | democracy, who also fought against our dictatorship in a
               | guerrilla war, founded the PT, Dilma's party, and worked
               | in many of the PT governments: it was not a coup.
               | 
               | https://oglobo.globo.com/brasil/artigo-impeachment-golpe-
               | dem...
               | 
               | Lula, Dilma and her party tried to impeach Social
               | Democrat President Fernando Henrique 45 (forty five!)
               | times.
               | 
               | By your own definition, they tried 45 coups, making them
               | the biggest coupists in Brasil's history.
        
               | Natsu wrote:
               | Even if you say the ouster of Dilma was illegitimate,
               | there's the fact that her VP served out the rest of her
               | term, then the party lost the next election. There's no
               | "coup" because there was no loss of power by anything
               | other than the democratic process.
               | 
               | Now of course there have been all sorts of dirty
               | political dealings, those just aren't described by the
               | word "coup." That said, if some day Bolsonaro or others
               | forms a new junta, then I will agree with you at that
               | later time. But that day is not today, unless I am slow
               | in receiving news of a newly formed junta.
        
               | gcblkjaidfj wrote:
               | Does brazil have a 50c army like china now?
               | 
               | > then the party lost the next election.
               | 
               | with the running candidate jailed with obviously
               | fabricated evidence and released last year with no
               | conviction. All the while with whatsapp campaigns
               | promoting pizza-gate like conspiracies.
               | 
               | > her VP served out the rest of her term
               | 
               | that I fully blame on the party picking an extremely
               | right wing to be able to get elected. But don't make the
               | soft coup less of a coup. The VP was choose to get
               | support from the farmers and religious groups that
               | control most of the interior of the country, and they
               | payed the price for that.
        
               | virgulino wrote:
               | > with the running candidate jailed with obviously
               | fabricated evidence and released last year with no
               | conviction
               | 
               | That is factually false, and very very easy to fact
               | check.
        
               | Natsu wrote:
               | I guess when they said "Lula e Haddad, Haddad e Lula"
               | people took it a bit too literally? :)
        
               | Natsu wrote:
               | > Does brazil have a 50c army like china now?
               | 
               | If it does, I didn't get my 50 Mao cents for posting. And
               | you'd think China would support the Partido dos
               | Trabalhadores (Worker's Party) ideologically, but it's
               | their Mao cents, not mine.
               | 
               | Lula was convicted twice, he only got freed from jail
               | because of a new legal ruling that said that you can't be
               | jailed until all appeals have been heard. That's... not
               | the same as "no convictions" even if you want to claim
               | the judges were both biased.
               | 
               | And I'm not aware of anyone accusing Lula of being a
               | pedophile, though maybe someone did? Everything I
               | remember hearing blamed him for robbing Petrobras. You
               | sure you're not getting Lula confused with "Joao de
               | Deus"? I thought he was the one who was raping people.
        
               | marcodiego wrote:
               | > he only got freed from jail because of a new legal
               | ruling that said that you can't be jailed until all
               | appeals have been heard
               | 
               | Actually Lula deliberately chose to stay imprisoned:
               | https://veja.abril.com.br/politica/lula-nao-quer-cumprir-
               | pen...
        
             | eznzt wrote:
             | They are not that far off on sociology lol
        
       | afrcnc wrote:
       | Another one?
       | 
       | Didn't this also happen last month?
       | (https://www.zdnet.com/article/data-of-243-million-brazilians...)
        
         | rafaelturk wrote:
         | Brazilian here. Same leak. New info suggest that the files
         | contained far more info than previously thought.
        
         | hezag wrote:
         | Yep, another one. This time it's from a Credit bureau.
        
       | hi5eyes wrote:
       | https://www.somagnews.com/giant-leak-exposes-data-from-almos...
       | links to the source of the snippet
       | 
       | > According to the experts, who use artificial intelligence
       | techniques to identify malicious links and fake news, the leaked
       | data contains detailed information on 104 million vehicles and
       | about 40 million companies, potentially vulnerable to 220 million
       | people.
        
         | dang wrote:
         | Ok, we've changed to that from
         | https://www.databreaches.net/giant-leak-exposes-data-from-
         | al.... Thanks!
        
         | marcosdumay wrote:
         | Thanks, finally somebody telling what data is on the leak.
         | 
         | > Information on the more than 104 million vehicles reveals
         | important details, such as chassis number, license plate,
         | municipality, color, make, model, year of manufacture, engine
         | capacity and even the type of fuel used. In the case of legal
         | entities, the following were leaked: CNPJ, corporate name,
         | trade name and date of foundation.
         | 
         | Every piece of information on this list is either plainly
         | visible (for cars) or published by the government.
         | 
         | The article talks about data of real people (not companies),
         | but doesn't say what leaked about them.
        
           | Fabricio20 wrote:
           | This link [0] may have the information you are looking for.
           | 
           | The link above seems to be from an unrelated breach, the one
           | discussed in the OP affects pretty much everything, not even
           | your LinkedIn profile managed to escape.
           | 
           | [0]: https://tecnoblog.net/404838/exclusivo-vazamento-que-
           | expos-2...
        
             | marcosdumay wrote:
             | Wow, yes, that has the information. That's a really broad
             | leak.
        
           | diegoholiveira wrote:
           | > The article talks about data of real people (not
           | companies), but doesn't say what leaked about them.
           | 
           | Personal data (CPF, Birth day and so on), credit scores,
           | social class, acquisitive power, and other informations that
           | a company specialised in credit score have. (the leak is
           | probably from a credit score company).
        
       | geek_at wrote:
       | Has anyone calculated at the current rate of leaks how long would
       | it take for every human on earth to be in some of these lists?
        
         | xiphias2 wrote:
         | I treat my face, name, birthday and numbers as open data.
         | 
         | Maybe companies should stop using these things for verification
         | and start allowing people to use cryptography more efficiently.
        
           | reaperducer wrote:
           | _I treat my face, name, birthday and numbers as open data._
           | 
           | So because you don't value privacy and choose not to control
           | you personal data, nobody else deserves privacy or to control
           | their personal data?
        
             | danilocesar wrote:
             | He will change his mind when he realize that the
             | information his bank uses to verify his identify is part of
             | his open data now...
        
             | dudeman13 wrote:
             | I don't think he meant it as nobody deserves privacy and to
             | control their personal data.
             | 
             | I took it as a "it's there anyway and there's no point for
             | me to pretend that it is not".
        
           | Shivetya wrote:
           | Companies? How about your government? I have a coworker who
           | had returns filed against them by someone in prison! If that
           | does not startle people how about that in some states
           | absentee votes are merely verified against a signature on
           | file.
           | 
           | What we need is a means that others can be sure it really is
           | us and we can sure that actions we have taken are credited to
           | us and those we did not are not.
           | 
           | In effect we will need a system by which we have instant
           | notification; similar to how some CC providers mail or text
           | you each transaction; and historical tracking so that we can
           | prove when we did or did not.
           | 
           | However there are not many unique methods to physically
           | identify people short of dna transfer. I know that people
           | bring up Minority Report whenever facial recognition comes up
           | but that wasn't the tech they used, they used iris
           | recognition.
           | 
           | So we break down each action and assign a value to how secure
           | and verified it must be and work our way up from there.
           | Similar to how self driving cars are defined, on a level of
           | one to five how secure must an action be before its accepted
        
             | xiphias2 wrote:
             | I don't see much difference between companies and
             | governments, that's why having an authentication standard
             | that is accepted by all of them (and users as well) is
             | important.
        
           | nkrisc wrote:
           | That won't happen until companies are held liable for damages
           | caused by inadequate authentication processes.
           | 
           | If a bank gives a credit card to someone who says they're me,
           | based on only on my SSN, I don't see why that should be my
           | problem. It's between the bank and whomever they gave the
           | card to. If they don't know who they actually gave it, well
           | then it sounds like they need to improve their process.
           | 
           | But it becomes my problem because it's my credit score that
           | gets ruined.
        
             | lotsofpulp wrote:
             | Everyone has cameras. How a photo of yourself with thumbs
             | up isn't required is beyond me. It's extremely easy, and
             | would cut down on a lot of fraud.
        
               | Pxtl wrote:
               | Which would mean you're constantly sending a photo of
               | yourself with your thumbs up to people, and it becomes
               | trivial to fake.
               | 
               | I guess it could be "we need a selfie video of you
               | reading this 6 digit number aloud".
        
               | xiphias2 wrote:
               | Video verification is completely normal at this point
        
               | fastball wrote:
               | Deepfakes.
        
               | xiphias2 wrote:
               | Deepfakes are not yet that good for live video, but you
               | are right, using an open authentication standard that can
               | be transferred between devices would be the only good
               | solution at this point.
               | 
               | Companies and governments could verify me live to
               | authenticate my public keys.
        
           | randerson wrote:
           | I can just imagine the future: Instead of reading stories of
           | Identity Theft, we'll read about people getting locked out of
           | their identity .. like the folks today who lose their Bitcoin
           | keys.
        
             | rudyfink wrote:
             | "Of course, you can always pay a recovery company to get
             | your identity back. But, that's expensive--more than most
             | people have. The company will do it on credit (if they like
             | your prospects), but then they have title to your identity
             | until you pay them back, which, for many, is a day that
             | never comes. The charges, service fees, garnishments, and
             | interest on the above just add up and up."
        
               | r00fus wrote:
               | Where is this from?
        
         | Lammy wrote:
         | I would guess "some time around 2012".
        
         | Yizahi wrote:
         | Any day now. I guess we will have a global info system a-la
         | Hyperion with zero privacy. It will be suspicious to be absent
         | from such a system instead.
        
         | nicoburns wrote:
         | It doesn't really work like that. Some humans are likely
         | completely off grid and not on record anywhere.
        
           | reaperducer wrote:
           | _Some humans are likely completely off grid and not on record
           | anywhere._
           | 
           | Quite a few, including a good percentage of my relatives.
           | 
           | One is particularly good at it. Aside from the wages his
           | employer reports to the federal government, property
           | ownership records, and an SSN, he simply doesn't exist.
           | 
           | His get paid each week in cash. Doesn't have a bank account
           | or credit card. Because of his lifestyle and the type of
           | vehicle he uses, he doesn't need a driver's license,
           | registration, or insurance. His home has solar panels, a
           | propane generator, and a well, so no utilities. I don't know
           | what he does about trash service, but having seen the town, I
           | wouldn't be surprised if it's still legal to burn your
           | garbage on your property.
           | 
           | He's happy. Not paranoid that I can tell. He just lives a
           | simple life where satisfaction comes from reading books and
           | improving his mind, and not from hoarding electronic gadgets
           | and social media thumbs to prove his worth.
        
             | fmntf wrote:
             | Please, do not misunderstand my question as a judgment or
             | whatever. May I ask the (approximate, country/continent)
             | location where your relative lives?
        
               | kroltan wrote:
               | A "SSN" was mentioned, so likely U.S.
        
       | danilocesar wrote:
       | Even tough it's sound pretty bad and big (and it is), this is not
       | new to brazilians. It's a known thing that you can buy DVDs (yes,
       | DVDs) with personal data from millions of Brazilians customers on
       | the streets of Sao Paulo. Daylight market (called Camelo's).
       | 
       | There was some news articles about it a few years ago. Even the
       | former president data was there. Social Security Number (not as
       | secret as it is in the US and Canada), address, name, phone
       | number. Even some family relations. It was pretty cheap.
        
       | doubleclutch wrote:
       | So, CPF is not really a big deal, but I think here you can map
       | cars based on license plates to persons and companies. Think
       | about it.
        
       | jbotz wrote:
       | The Brazilian blog "Tecnoblog" has the full details here[1], with
       | a list of all the information allegedly included in this data. If
       | they are correct that's pretty much everything about everybody...
       | I mean personal info (like addresses and phones, family,
       | education, employer), financial info (like bank accounts, salary,
       | credit score, creditors, bounced checks, whether receiving
       | government assistance), other background info... for some entries
       | (over a million) there even mugshots!
       | 
       | [1] https://tecnoblog.net/404838/exclusivo-vazamento-que-
       | expos-2...
        
         | malandrew wrote:
         | Is there a way for someone to look up what leaked about them so
         | they can determine how problematic this could be?
        
           | slig wrote:
           | Yes. The hacker has a contact email where you can send
           | queries using the CPF (unique for each Brazilian) of whoever
           | you want. He'll then send you a bitcoin address for payment
           | and send you back the info.
        
             | ObscureScience wrote:
             | It would be pretty short-sighted to reward such an
             | individual.
        
       | aww_dang wrote:
       | Articles about breaches rarely if ever contain a link to the
       | actual data. I'm left trusting the journalist, who may or may not
       | be tech literate. Even a random sampling of the records would be
       | more illustrative than anything these bloggers post about.
        
       | doubleclutch wrote:
       | CPF is not a big deal, but if I read it correctly, you can
       | basically search people/companies based on license plates, which
       | is a big deal.
        
       | iandanforth wrote:
       | Man, why can't we get some useful data leaks? Like all the
       | records from companies incorporated in DE, or all the tax records
       | from companies and rich people or another one from offshore
       | account havens.
        
         | rightbyte wrote:
         | Ever heard of the Panama Papers?
        
       | dyingkneepad wrote:
       | > "No, we have bigger problems than that to worry about."
       | 
       | Pretty much that. In the "Maslow's pyramid of government-related
       | needs", the doxxing is near the top. People are much more worried
       | with stuff like not dying to covid, not being kidnapped, not
       | dying in traffic, paying the dreaded Boletos (bills), etc.
       | Internet doxxing is dwarfed by the more urgent needs. Brazilians
       | are also sure that exactly zero things are going to be done about
       | these leaks. Some government representative is going to say
       | "we're going to investigate" and that's as much as we're going to
       | get.
       | 
       | I would love to be wrong here, by the way.
        
         | Kaze404 wrote:
         | We must live in very different parts of Brazil because around
         | these parts no one seems to care about Covid, which doesn't
         | surprise me considering the message we get from the federal
         | government.
        
         | lukasdanin wrote:
         | Unfortunately, you're not wrong.
        
         | kurthr wrote:
         | Oh, no. It seems much more useful than that. By knowing credit,
         | salary, age, and address... it's much easier to target high
         | "value" targets for for on-line, or more likely in Brazil in
         | person burglary or home invasion. This also gives cover to
         | individuals banks and other organizations to drain large
         | accounts by "guessing" passwords, since now it could be
         | "anyone".
         | 
         | Like Covid, this is likely to be another generational wealth
         | transfer event. It will be interesting to see how much stays in
         | the country, but I expect most of it will.
        
         | Natsu wrote:
         | This says that it leaked Brazilians' name & CPF numbers.
         | 
         | CPF being the number that people give to _every random
         | shopkeeper_ to enter that tax lottery. So, it 's... not exactly
         | a big secret. To do most official-type things you have to go
         | down to the cartorio with your actual ID, not just enter the
         | number.
         | 
         | Heck, I've been to places where you had to use one to use the
         | free wifi. Granted, in that particular case, it didn't care if
         | you used someone else's. I wouldn't be surprised if that was
         | also true, elsewhere, honestly.
         | 
         | I'm sure someone will find ways to misuse this but Brazil has
         | bigger problems. Also, this doesn't seem to be a leak of
         | government data, it looks like it came from Serasa Experian or
         | one of its contractors.
         | 
         | So yeah, I tend to agree with you. If the government does
         | something, it will probably be like that law posted on every
         | elevator warning you to check that there's an actual elevator
         | there, instead of just walking into the empty shaft. For those
         | curious, that'd be lei estadual n^o 9.502 de 11/03/1997 -
         | https://www.al.sp.gov.br/norma/?id=9419
        
           | ascorbic wrote:
           | The CPF is quite annoying as a tourist. Mostly there are
           | workarounds, but it is ridiculous how many things assume you
           | have one. Yes, fake ones usually work. It was a few years
           | back when I visited, but the hoops I had to jump through to
           | buy an internal flight was unbelievable. I mean, the idea
           | that a non-resident might want to travel within the country
           | on a budget airline right??
        
             | Natsu wrote:
             | Yeah, I hear you. Technically, anyone can get one, though I
             | believe it comes with some annoying tax obligations, so
             | it's not really something one would do as a tourist.
        
           | brwolfgang wrote:
           | Not just CPF and names were leaked, lots of correlated
           | information was leaked too, such as credit scores, civil
           | status (married, single, etc), gender, birth date, e-mail,
           | phone number, home and work addresses, education level, job,
           | salary, net income, tons of data about bank accounts, even
           | face pictures!
           | 
           | All that data, just available for anyone to dig in and do
           | their worst.
           | 
           | Source (pt-br) https://tecnoblog.net/404838/exclusivo-
           | vazamento-que-expos-2...
        
             | rodolphoarruda wrote:
             | Yes, plenty of data for anyone wanting to impersonate you
             | and do social engineering virtually everwhere in the
             | Brazilian territory.
        
           | Swizec wrote:
           | Reminds me of the American SSN.
           | 
           |  _"This number is super secret and you must guard it with
           | your life and never share! Oh also write it down on every
           | semi-official form, send by paper mail, and enter into all
           | sorts of webapps"_
        
             | crazygringo wrote:
             | But the American SSN, while abused, is still _supposed_ to
             | be a secret.
             | 
             | I don't believe the Brazilian CPN is meant to be a secret
             | at all. It's used for literally everything.
             | 
             | In America, you don't give your SSN to your utility company
             | or when signing up for an online subscription. But in
             | Brazil, you use your CPF to do that.
        
               | throwawayboise wrote:
               | > In America, you don't give your SSN to your utility
               | company
               | 
               | You do where I am, because they run a credit check to
               | determine whether you need to pay a deposit.
               | 
               | Legally is not supposed to be used for identity at all,
               | except for Social Security (and IRS) purposes. But in
               | practice that doesn't happen and it's not particularly
               | secret. Used to be pretty common for people to include it
               | on their pre-printed checks. When I was in college it was
               | used as the student ID number. This was all before
               | "identity theft" was really a thing people worried about.
        
             | vmception wrote:
             | I dont bother being secretive about SSN, its security
             | theatre. The person in earshot has a lower likelihood of
             | bothering with it when every service provider that also has
             | it will get mass hacked and are the primary targets.
             | 
             | I use a separate TIN or EIN (Tax/Employer Identification
             | Number) where I can. All my businesses have one, even a
             | sole proprietorship that exists purely in your head can
             | obtain one, and this can go on many forms.
        
               | mixmastamyk wrote:
               | Interesting, if you get paid on another TIN does it
               | effectively become your main SSN? What about at
               | retirement time? Would like to hear more about this.
        
               | vmception wrote:
               | "Effectively become your main SSN" no but loaded
               | question. less places would have your ssn or tin. the
               | only difference it really makes is peace of mind and
               | relying on the current reality that hackers aren't
               | targeting you or anyone specifically and you will have an
               | additional way to verify yourself if someone did try to
               | do identity theft or whatever you're worried about.
               | Online People databases will still be reporting pieces of
               | your older SSN while you have been primarily giving
               | services a different number.
               | 
               | retirement time isnt a problem. if your business is
               | getting paid and the person that pays needs your tin/ein
               | then thats what they get instead of your ssn. You are
               | still paying self employment taxes contributing to
               | retirement.
        
               | jccooper wrote:
               | EINs don't accumulate Social Security, but when you file
               | taxes you'll pay "self-employment tax" on earnings from
               | that "business" and those go to your personal SS account.
               | 
               | When you use an EIN you're basically claiming to act as a
               | business. For some cases, you can do that just fine. But
               | a lot of SSN requests for identification or credit checks
               | it won't work. And anyone who cares that it's a SSN vs a
               | TIN can figure that out easily.
        
             | Tagbert wrote:
             | But SSN should not really intended to be secret. It is not
             | designed to be a proof of identity, but so many companies
             | have treated it that way that it gives more access than it
             | should. If we could prevent companies from using it like a
             | password, it would no longer be a major risk to have it
             | exposed.
        
             | Wowfunhappy wrote:
             | SSN's aren't really secret--you can find someone's pretty
             | easily by going to a data broker.
        
             | ledialated wrote:
             | I love being asked to verify my SSN just to access my own
             | information through an unknown entity that will not
             | disclose who they are.
        
             | Natsu wrote:
             | Sure, the SSN is used a lot but it's normally more for
             | things on the level of bank accounts or signing up with a
             | new employer, where there's some serious investment and
             | need to validate your identity. When you enter it into a
             | website, it'd better be for an important reason.
             | 
             | The CPF is something you might use at the grocery store
             | when buying a piece of fruit in the hopes of winning 1000
             | BRL from the government for helping the store prove that
             | it's paying its taxes. Go to SP and _every shop_ will ask
             | "CPF na nota?" True, you can just answer "nao
             | obrigado/obrigada" but from what I saw, most people give it
             | out.
             | 
             | You just don't see that same level of usage in the USA.
             | You're not going to wander into some store and have the
             | shopkeeper ask for your SSN as soon as you get to the
             | counter.
        
       | EGreg wrote:
       | Another month another set of news that can be solved by NOT
       | storing all the data in one place by one company. But for that we
       | need better software. This article is literally like The Onion
       | article about guns. Maybe we should put it with names changed
       | every few months:
       | 
       | https://qbix.com/blog
        
       | geoffbp wrote:
       | Sheesh!
        
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