Social security numbers: why it's easier than ever to steal them
Once upon a time, social security numbers were almost impossible to guess.
Now, they're easier than ever for thieves to steal.
With the knowledge of your date of birth where you were born -- easily culled from a social networking site -- a thief can walk away with your identity.
And now that social security numbers are used as the keys for access to countless personal documents, you could be at risk.
So what should you do? And what do the nine digits of a social security number actually mean?
ZDNet sister site SmartPlanet sat down with Alessandro Acquisti, a Carnegie Mellon University professor who is leading the charge in understanding the weak links in our identity infrastructure, to find out.
Read the interview on SmartPlanet's Pure Genius blog.