Social Security Numbers Should Go [Archive] - Debate Policy

jimnyc

10-03-2017, 04:20 PM

If they could do so overnight, that would be great! Any ideas from here - what type of system can be used instead?

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White House and Equifax Agree: Social Security Numbers Should Go

The Trump administration is exploring ways to replace the use of Social Security numbers as the main method of assuring people’s identities in the wake of consumer credit agency Equifax Inc.’s massive data breach.

The administration has called on federal departments and agencies to look into the vulnerabilities of employing the identifier tied to retirement benefits, as well as how to replace the existing system, according to Rob Joyce, special assistant to the president and White House cybersecurity coordinator.

“I feel very strongly that the Social Security number has outlived its usefulness,” Joyce said Tuesday at a cyber conference in Washington organized by the Washington Post. “Every time we use the Social Security number you put it at risk.”

Rest - http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/equifax-white-house-social/2017/10/03/id/817427/

pete311

10-03-2017, 04:21 PM

They were never meant to be a universal identifier

jimnyc

10-03-2017, 04:28 PM

They were never meant to be a universal identifier

That doesn't answer the question, doofus :poke:

What do you think, what type of system can you see as a replacement? This isn't a political question, nor do I disagree with the decision. I'm just curious what might replace it is all.

aboutime

10-03-2017, 07:18 PM

E-VERIFY https://www.uscis.gov/e-verify

U.S. law requires companies to employ only individuals who may legally work in the United States – either U.S. citizens, or foreign citizens who have the necessary authorization. This diverse workforce contributes greatly to the vibrancy and strength of our economy, but that same strength also attracts unauthorized employment.
E-Verify is an Internet-based system that allows businesses to determine the eligibility of their employees to work in the United States. E-Verify is fast, free and easy to use – and it’s the best way employers can ensure a legal workforce.

Actually better than Social Security.

tailfins

10-03-2017, 07:51 PM

I'm looking at my grandpa's Social Security card right now. I believe he got it around 1958. At the bottom, it plainly says on both sides "FOR SOCIAL SECURITY AND TAX PURPOSES - NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION", in plain capital letters. When Social Security as passed in the 1930s it was promised that the Social Security number would not be used for identification. It's never too late for the government to return to keeping its promise.

We must be careful about government provided solutions to these problems. How would you like a chip embedded in people like is done to dogs? Retina scan codes? I attended a Data Science user group meeting where something called "Eigenfaces", based on matrix theory Eigenvalues. Every person could be assigned an Eigenface matrix as identification. See the link below.

http://blog.manfredas.com/eigenfaces-tutorial/

3. Establishing the Eigenface Basis

First of all, we have to obtain a training set of M grayscale face images I1,I2,...,IM. They should be:

face-wise aligned, with eyes in the same level and faces of the same scale,
normalized so that every pixel has a value between 0 and 255 (i.e. one byte per pixel encoding), and
of the same N×N size.

So just capturing everything formally, we want to obtain a set {I1,I2,...,IM}, where

Ik=⎡⎣⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢pk1,1pk2,1⋮pkN,1pk1,2pk2,2pkN,2........ .pk1,Npk2,NpkN,N⎤⎦⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥N×N
and 0≤pki,j≤255.Once we have that, we should change the representation of a face image Ik from a N×N matrix, to a Γk point in N2-dimensional space. Now here is how we do it: we concatenate all the rows of the matrix Ik into one big vector of dimension N2. Can it get any more simpler than that?
This is how it looks formally:
<center style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18px;">
Γk=⎡⎣⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢pk1,1pk1,2 ⋮pk1,Npk2,1pk2,2⋮pk2,N⋮pkN,1pkN,2⋮pkN,N⎤⎦⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥ ⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥N×1
, where
k=1,...,M
and
pki,j∈Ik
</center>Since we are much more interested in the characteristic features of those faces, let's subtract everything what is common between them, i.e. the average face.
The average face of the previous mean-adjusted images can be defined as Ψ=1M∑Mi=1Γi, then each face differs from the average by the vector Φi=Γi−Ψ.
Now we should attempt to find a set of orthonormal vectors which best describe the distribution of our data. The necessary steps in this at a first glance daunting task would seem to be:

Obtain a covariance matrix (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covariance_matrix)
C=1M∑Mi=1ΦiΦTi=AAT, where A=[Φ1Φ2...ΦM].
Find the eigenvectors uk and eigenvalues λk of C.

However, note two things here: A is of the size N2×M and hence the matrix C is of the size N2×N2. To put things into perspective - if your image size is 128×128, then the size of the matrix C would be 16384×16384. Determining eigenvectors and eigenvalues for a matrix this size would be an absolutely intractable task!
So how do we go about it? A simple mathematical trick: first let's calculate the inner product matrix L=ATA, of the size M×M. Then let's find it's eigenvectors vi,i=1,...,M of L (of the M-th dimension). Now observe, that if Lvi=λivi, then
<center style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18px;">ALviAATAviCAvi===λiAvi⇒λiAvi⇒λiAvi,
</center>and hence ui=Avi and λi are respectively the M eigenvectors (of N2-th dimension) and eigenvalues of C. Make sure to normalize ui, such that ∥ui∥=1.
We will call these eigenvectors ui the eigenfaces. Scale them to 255 and render on the screen, to see why.
It turns out that quite a few eigenfaces with the smallest eigenvalues can be discarded, so leave only the R≤M ones with the largest eigenvalues (i.e. only the ones making the greatest contribution to the variance of the original image set) and chuck them into the matrix U=[u1u2...uR]N2×R
After you have done that - congratulations! We won't need anything else, but the matrix U
for the next steps - face detection and classification.

Abbey Marie

10-03-2017, 09:01 PM

I'm afraid of where this is going...

Tyr-Ziu Saxnot

10-04-2017, 06:15 AM

I'm afraid of where this is going...
Here is where this is going-- the call for all of us to be chipped..
Chipped, 666, (mark of the beast)-- as in the number of the Beast..
They will also use the claim being chipped allows one to do away with paper money--thus you can not be easily robbed.
All buying and selling will be through your chip and the great monster(great computer system-controlled by government).
Thus government actually owns you as it can make any demand of you and your family -if you refuse it deletes your stored digital credits and makes you a pauper..

It is a near perfect system to set up total control over billions of subjects and that is why it is the plan coming from the globalists.This is not some outlandish conspiracy theory.
We now have the technology to do this-- and the total control gained if/when this is forced upon us is real.
Take away our means to be financially independent of government and government becomes our unyielding and absolute master!!!

Very wise to fear this, but it is coming our way--sooner or later.
I predict that - it will be after an engineered worldwide monetary system crash, one engineered by the globalists(one world government entity).--
People will scoff at this truth but truth it is.. Tyr

tailfins

10-04-2017, 09:37 AM

Here is where this is going-- the call for all of us to be chipped..
Chipped, 666, (mark of the beast)-- as in the number of the Beast..
They will also use the claim being chipped allows one to do away with paper money--thus you can not be easily robbed.
All buying and selling will be through your chip and the great monster(great computer system-controlled by government).
Thus government actually owns you as it can make any demand of you and your family -if you refuse it deletes your stored digital credits and makes you a pauper..

It is a near perfect system to set up total control over billions of subjects and that is why it is the plan coming from the globalists.This is not some outlandish conspiracy theory.
We now have the technology to do this-- and the total control gained if/when this is forced upon us is real.
Take away our means to be financially independent of government and government becomes our unyielding and absolute master!!!

Very wise to fear this, but it is coming our way--sooner or later.
I predict that - it will be after an engineered worldwide monetary system crash, one engineered by the globalists(one world government entity).--
People will scoff at this truth but truth it is.. Tyr

No chip will be necessary if Eigenfaces is implemented. The purpose of the above mentioned user group meeting was to teach as many people as possible about it so that it can be contested when misused. A Florida Sheriff's office asked for assistance to implement this so they can be alerted when controversial people are in the area to prevent another Charlottesville, VA type incident.

mundame

10-04-2017, 09:37 AM

Good point about social security numbers being so compromised by now that they are useless. I don't think people ought to be chipped (!!) but I'd like to see universal identifiers based on DNA cataloged at birth.

Then we'd know if they were here illegally and out they go. Then people couldn't steal our identities and open credit lines and steal money from our bank accounts as happens constantly now. And serial killers could be easily identified, most criminals could by any DNA left at the scene.

High_Plains_Drifter

10-04-2017, 10:01 AM

Even if people were chipped, chips can be scanned by the wrong people.

The problem is, ANYTHING can be hacked. Any security system is only as good as the people administering it, and it's people that usually always the weakest link and reason systems get hacked.

I highly doubt there's anything that could be used as a personal identifier that would be 100% secure... just ain't gonna happen. I do agree thought that SSN's are approaching being obsolete. I have no clue what could replace though. Not my forte.

High_Plains_Drifter

10-04-2017, 11:00 AM

And Equifax should be shut down. Why do we need THREE credit reporting agencies?

pete311

10-04-2017, 11:11 AM

And Equifax should be shut down. Why do we need THREE credit reporting agencies?
Equifax was just given a contract from the feds to help with fraud.