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- If you have comments on the following, please send them to me at
- hibbert@netcom.com. A description of how to retrieve the most recent
- version of this and related documents appears at the end.
-
-
-
- What to do when they ask for your Social Security Number
-
- by Chris Hibbert
-
- Computer Professionals
- for Social Responsibility
-
-
- Many people are concerned about the number of organizations asking for their
- Social Security Numbers. They worry about invasions of privacy and the
- oppressive feeling of being treated as just a number. Unfortunately, I can't
- offer any hope about the dehumanizing effects of identifying you with your
- numbers. I *can* try to help you keep your Social Security Number from being
- used as a tool in the invasion of your privacy.
-
-
- Dealing with Government Organizations
-
- Surprisingly, government agencies are reasonably easy to deal with; private
- organizations are much more troublesome. Federal law restricts the agencies
- at all levels of government that can demand your number and a fairly complete
- disclosure is required even if the disclosure is voluntary. There are no
- comparable Federal laws either restricting the uses non-government
- organizations can make of it, or compelling them to tell you anything about
- their plans. Some states have recently enacted regulations on collection of
- SSNs by private entities. With private institutions, your main recourse is
- refusing to do business with anyone whose terms you don't like. They, in
- turn, are allowed to refuse to deal with you on those terms.
-
- Universities and Colleges
-
- Universities that accept federal funds are subject to the Family Educational
- Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (the "Buckley Amendment"), which prohibits
- them from giving out personal information on students without permission.
- There is an exception for directory information, which is limited to names,
- addresses, and phone numbers, and another exception for release of
- information to the parents of minors. There is no exception for Social
- Security Numbers, so covered Universities aren't allowed to reveal students'
- numbers without their permission. In addition, state universities are bound
- by the requirements of the Privacy Act, (so they have to give a Privacy Act
- notice if they ask for a SSN). If they make uses of the SSN which aren't
- covered by the disclosure they are in violation.
-
- US Passports
-
- The application for US Passports (DSP-11 12/87) requests a Social Security
- Number, but doesn't give enough information in its Privacy Act notice to
- verify that the Passport office has the authority to request it. There is a
- reference to "Federal Tax Law" and a misquotation of Section 6039E of the
- 1986 Internal Revenue Code, claiming that that section requires that you
- provide your name, mailing address, date of birth, and Social Security
- Number. The referenced section only requires TIN (SSN), and it only requires
- that it be sent to the IRS (not to the Passport office). It appears that
- when you apply for a passport, you can refuse to reveal your SSN to the
- passport office, and instead mail a notice to the IRS, give only your SSN
- (other identifying info optional) and notify them that you are applying for a
- passport. [Copies (in postscript) of the letter that was used by one
- contributor (The measure of his success is that he didn't hear back from
- anyone with complaints.) are available by anonymous ftp from cpsr.org in
- /cpsr/privacy/ssn/passport.ps.Z. I'd be interested in hearing how the State
- department and the Post Office (which accepts passport applications) react.]
-
- Health Plans requiring SSNs for covered minors
-
- I have recently gotten several reports of a new Federal requirement that
- employer-provided health plans must get employees to provide the SSNs of all
- covered dependents, including minor children. I don't have complete or
- authoritative information on this yet, but it seems that the Omnibus Budget
- Reconciliation Act of 1993 required employers to collect social security
- numbers for each plan participant, including dependents. The part that
- bureaucrats haven't been reporting is that
- ** this requirement isn't supposed to go into effect until January, 1995.**
-
- Fighting the requirement in your company
-
- According to a note in the Federal Register on May 10, 1994, the department
- of Health and Human Services requested that the requirements be delayed for
- 18 months in order that the requirements could be made more consistent with
- (then impending) health care reform legislation. I don't know whether
- the delay was ever implemented, but you can probably keep your HR department
- busy by telling them that HHS wanted a delay. You can also point them at the
- compliance requirements in HHS' proposed regulations; they require only a
- good faith effort on the employer's part, and even define what that is.
-
- "An employer is deemed to have made a reasonable good faith
- effort to provide the information with respect to the name and
- TIN of each other individual covered by the group health plan
- with respect to the reports for a specific calendar year if the
- employer can prove that it has established a systematic method
- to obtain the necessary information that includes both (i) a
- documented initial effort to obtain the necessary information
- from the electing individual and (ii) a documented follow-up
- effort if the electing individual does not respond to the
- initial effort."
-
- In any case, when the federal government requires your employer to collect
- SSNs from you, it has to provide a form with a Privacy Act notice. If your
- personnel department asks you to give them your dependents' SSNs, ask to see
- a Privacy Act notice. If necessary, ask them to look at the statement on W-4
- forms and tell them that they need a statement like it in order for the
- request to be legal.
-
- Children
-
- The Family Support Act of 1988 (Pub. L. 100-485) requires states to require
- parents to give their Social Security Numbers in order to get a birth
- certificate issued for a newborn. The law allows the requirement to be
- waived for "good cause", but there's no indication of what may qualify.
-
- The IRS requires taxpayers to report SSNs for dependents over one year of age
- when you claim them as a deduction, but the requirement can be avoided if
- you're prepared to document the existence of the child by other means if the
- IRS challenges you. The law on this can be found at 26 USC 6109. The
- penalty for not giving a dependent's number is only $5. Several people have
- reported that they haven't provided SSNs for their dependents for several
- years, and haven't been challenged by the IRS.
-
-
- Private Organizations
-
- The guidelines for dealing with non-governmental institutions are much more
- tenuous. Most of the time private organizations that request your Social
- Security Number can get by quite well without your number, and if you can
- find the right person to negotiate with, they'll willingly admit it. The
- problem is finding that right person. The person behind the counter is often
- told no more than "get the customers to fill out the form completely."
-
- Most of the time, you can convince them to use some other number. Usually
- the simplest way to refuse to give your Social Security Number is simply to
- leave the appropriate space blank. One of the times when this isn't a strong
- enough statement of your desire to conceal your number is when dealing with
- institutions which have direct contact with your employer. Most employers
- have no policy against revealing your Social Security Number; they apparently
- believe that it must be an unintentional slip when an employee doesn't
- provide an SSN to everyone who asks.
-
- Public utilities (gas, electric, phone, etc.) are considered to be private
- organizations under the laws regulating SSNs. Most of the time they ask for
- an SSN, and aren't prohibited from asking for it, but they'll usually relent
- if you insist. See the other suggestions below under "What you can do to
- protect your number" for more ideas.
-
- Lenders and Borrowers
- (those who send reports to the IRS)
-
- Banks and credit card issuers and various others are required by the IRS to
- report the SSNs of account holders to whom they pay interest or from whom
- they collect it. If you don't tell them your number you will probably either
- be refused an account or be charged a penalty such as withholding of taxes on
- your interest.
-
- Most banks send your name, address, and SSN to a company called ChexSystem
- when you open an account. ChexSystem keeps a database of people whose
- accounts have been terminated for fraud or chronic insufficient funds in the
- past 5 years. ChexSystems is covered by the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and
- the bank is required to let you know if it refuses to open your account and a
- report from ChexSystems was a factor. You can also send a letter to
- ChexSystems directly (Consumer Relations, 1550 E. 79th Street, Suite 700,
- Minneapolis, MN 55425) and request a copy of their report on you.
-
- Many Banks, Brokerages, and other financial institutions have started
- implementing automated systems to let you check your balance. All too often,
- they are using SSNs as the PIN that lets you get access to your personal
- account information. If your bank does this to you, write them a letter
- pointing out how common it is for the people with whom you have financial
- business to know your SSN. Ask them to change your PIN, and if you feel like
- doing a good deed, ask them to stop using the SSN as a default identifier for
- their other customers. Some customers will believe that there's some
- security in it, and be insufficiently protective of their account numbers.
-
- Sometimes banks provide for a customer-supplied password, but are reluctant
- to advertise it. The only way to find out is to ask if they'll let you
- provide a password. (This is reportedly true of Citibank Visa, for instance.
- They ask for a phone number but are willing to accept any password.)
-
- When buying (and possibly refinancing) a house, most banks will now ask for
- your Social Security Number on the Deed of Trust. This is because the
- Federal National Mortgage Association recently started requiring it. The
- fine print in their regulation admits that some consumers won't want to give
- their number, and allows banks to leave it out when pressed. [It first
- recommends getting it on the loan note, but then admits that it's already on
- various other forms that are a required part of the package, so they already
- know it. The Deed is a public document, so there are good reasons to refuse
- to put it there, even though all parties to the agreement already have access
- to your number.]
-
- Insurers, Hospitals, Doctors
-
- No laws require private medical service providers to use your Social Security
- Number as an ID number. They often use it because it's convenient or because
- your employer uses it to identify employees to its groups health plan. In
- the latter case, you have to get your employer to change their policies.
- Often, the people who work in personnel assume that the employer or insurance
- company requires use of the SSN when that's not really the case. When a
- previous employer asked for my SSN for an insurance form, I asked them to
- find out if they had to use it. After a week they reported that the
- insurance company had gone along with my request and told me what number to
- use.
-
- Most insurance companies share access to old claims through the Medical
- Information Bureau. If your insurance company uses your SSN, other insurance
- companies will have a much easier time finding out about your medical
- history. You can get a copy of the file MIB keeps on you by writing to
- Medical Information Bureau, P.O. Box 105, Essex Station, Boston, MA 02112.
- Their phone number is (617)426-3660.
-
- If an insurance agent asks for your Social Security Number in order to "check
- your credit", point out that the contract is invalid if your check bounces or
- your payment is late. Insurance is always prepaid, so they don't need to
- know what your credit is like, just whether your check cleared.
-
- Blood banks
-
- Blood banks also ask for the number but are willing to do without if pressed
- on the issue. After I asked politely and persistently, the (non-Red Cross)
- blood bank I go to agreed that they didn't have any use for the number.
- They've now expunged my SSN from their database, and they seem to have taught
- their receptionists not to request the number. I've gotten one report that
- some branches of the Red Cross will issue a "file number" in lieu of your SSN
- if you insist. It's probably the case that not all branches (and especially
- not all receptionists) know about this possibility, so it will pay to be
- persistent.
-
- Blood banks have changed their policies back and forth a few times in the
- last several years. When the AIDS epidemic first hit, they started using
- SSNs to identify all donors, so someone who was identified as HIV-positive at
- one blood bank wouldn't be able to contaminate the blood supply by donating
- at a different site. For a few years, they were a little looser, and though
- they usually asked for SSNs, some would allow you to donate if you provided
- proof of your identity. (I showed a Driver's license, but didn't let them
- copy down the number.) Now the Federal Government has declared blood banks
- to be "manufacturers" of a medical product, and imposed various Quality
- Control processes on them.
-
- The Blood bank I go to now asks for SSNs, and if you refuse, allows you to
- give a Driver's License number. I balked at that, since I hadn't had to give
- it before. They let me donate, but while I was eating cookies, the director
- of Quality Control came down and talked to me. After a little bit of
- discussion, she was satisfied to have me pick an ID number that I promised to
- remember and provide when I visisted again. So, once again, if you want to
- protect your SSN and your privacy, it pays to push back when they ask.
-
-
- Short History
-
- Social Security numbers were introduced by the Social Security Act of 1935.
- They were originally intended to be used only by the social security program.
- In 1943 Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9397 which required federal agencies
- to use the number when creating new record-keeping systems. In 1961 the IRS
- began to use it as a taxpayer ID number. The Privacy Act of 1974 required
- authorization for government agencies to use SSNs in their data bases and
- required disclosures (detailed below) when government agencies request the
- number. Agencies which were already using SSN as an identifier before
- January 1, 1975 were allowed to continue using it. The Tax Reform Act of
- 1976 gave authority to state or local tax, welfare, driver's license, or
- motor vehicle registration authorities to use the number in order to
- establish identities. The Privacy Protection Study Commission of 1977
- recommended that EO9397 be revoked after some agencies referred to it as
- their authorization to use SSNs. It hasn't been revoked, but no one seems to
- have made new uses of the SSN recently and cited EO9397 as their sole
- authority, either.
-
- Several states use the SSN as a driver's license number, while others record
- it on applications and store it in their database. Some states that
- routinely use it on the license will make up another number if you insist.
- According to the terms of the Privacy Act, any that have a space for it on
- the application forms should have a disclosure notice. Many don't, and until
- someone takes them to court, they aren't likely to change.
-
- The Privacy Act of 1974 (Pub. L. 93-579, in section 7) requires that any
- federal, state, or local government agency that requests your Social Security
- Number has to tell you four things:
-
- 1: Whether disclosure of your Social Security Number is required or
- optional,
-
- 2: What statute or other authority they have for asking for your number,
-
- 3: How your Social Security Number will be used if you give it to them, and
-
- 4: The consequences of failure to provide an SSN.
-
- In addition, the Act says that only Federal law can make use of the Social
- Security Number mandatory (at 5 USC 552a note). So anytime you're dealing
- with a government institution and you're asked for your Social Security
- Number, just look for the Privacy Act Statement. If there isn't one,
- complain and don't give your number. If the statement is present, read it.
- If it says giving your Social Security Number is voluntary, you'll have to
- decide for yourself whether to fill in the number.
-
-
- Why SSNs are a bad choice for UIDs in data bases
-
- Database designers continue to introduce the Social Security Number as the
- key when putting together a new database or when re-organizing an old one.
- Some of the qualities that are (often) useful in a key and that people think
- they are getting from the SSN are uniqueness, universality, security, and
- identification. When designing a database, it is instructive to consider
- which of these qualities are actually important in your application; many
- designers assume unwisely that they are all useful for every application,
- when in fact each is occasionally a drawback. The SSN provides none of them,
- so designs predicated on the assumption that it does provide them will fail
- in a variety of ways.
-
- Uniqueness
-
- Many people assume that Social Security Numbers are unique. They were
- intended by the Social Security Administration to be unique, but the SSA
- didn't take sufficient precautions to ensure that it would be so. They have
- several times given a previously issued number to someone with the same name
- and birth date as the original recipient, thinking it was the same person
- asking again. There are a few numbers that were used by thousands of people
- because they were on sample cards shipped in wallets by their manufacturers.
- (One is given below.)
-
- The passage of the Immigration reform law in 1986 caused an increase in the
- duplicate use of SSNs. Since the SSN is now required for employment, illegal
- immigrants must find a valid name/SSN pair in order to fool the INS and IRS
- long enough to collect a paycheck. Using the SSN when you can't cross-check
- your database with the SSA means you can count on getting some false numbers
- mixed in with the good ones.
-
- Universality
-
- Not everyone has a Social Security Number. Foreigners are the primary
- exception, but many children don't get SSNs until they're in school (and some
- not until they get jobs). They were only designed to be able to cover people
- who were eligible for Social Security. If your database will keep records on
- organizations as well as individuals, you should realize that they're not
- covered either.
-
- Identification
-
- Few people ever ask to see an SSN card; they believe whatever you say. The
- ability to recite nine digits provides little evidence that you're associated
- with the number in anyone else's database.
-
- There's little reason to carry your card with you anyway. It isn't a good
- form of identification, and if your wallet is lost or stolen, it provides
- another way for the thief to hurt you.
-
- Security
-
- Older cards are not at all forgery-resistant, even if anyone did ever ask for
- it. (Recently-issued cards are more resistant to forgery.) The numbers
- don't have any redundancy (no check-digits) so any 9-digit number in the
- range of numbers that have been issued is a valid number. It's relatively
- easy to write down the number incorrectly, and there's no way to tell that
- you've done so.
-
- In most cases, there is no cross-checking that a number is valid. Credit
- card and checking account numbers are checked against a database almost every
- time they are used. If you write down someone's phone number incorrectly,
- you find out the first time you try to use it. An incorrect SSN might go
- unnoticed for years in some databases. In others it will likely be caught at
- tax time, but could cause a variety of headaches.
-
-
-
- Why you should resist requests for your SSN
-
- When you give out your number, you are providing access to information about
- yourself. You're providing access to information that you don't have the
- ability or the legal right to correct or rebut. You provide access to data
- that is irrelevant to most transactions but that will occasionally trigger
- prejudice. Worst of all, since you provided the key, (and did so
- "voluntarily") all the info discovered under your number will be presumed to
- be true, about you, and relevant.
-
- A major problem with the use of SSNs as identifiers is that it makes it hard
- to control access to personal information. Even assuming you want someone to
- be able to find out some things about you, there's no reason to believe that
- you want to make all records concerning yourself available. When multiple
- record systems are all keyed by the same identifier, and all are intended to
- be easily accessible to some users, it becomes difficult to allow someone
- access to some of the information about a person while restricting them to
- specific topics.
-
- Unfortunately, far too many organizations assume that anyone who presents
- your SSN must be you. When more than one person uses the same number, it
- clouds up the records. If someone intended to hide their activities, it's
- likely that it'll look bad on whichever record it shows up on. When it
- happens accidentally, it can be unexpected, embarrassing, or worse. How do
- you prove that you weren't the one using your number when the record was
- made?
-
-
- What you can do to protect your number
-
- If despite your having written "refused" in the box for Social Security
- Number, it still shows up on the forms someone sends back to you (or worse,
- on the ID card they issue), your recourse is to write letters or make phone
- calls. Start politely, explaining your position and expecting them to
- understand and cooperate. If that doesn't work, there are several more
- things to try:
-
- 1: Talk to people higher up in the organization. This often works
- simply because the organization has a standard way of dealing
- with requests not to use the SSN, and the first person you deal
- with just hasn't been around long enough to know what it is.
-
- 2: Enlist the aid of your employer. You have to decide whether talking
- to someone in personnel, and possibly trying to change
- corporate policy is going to get back to your supervisor and
- affect your job.
-
- 3: Threaten to complain to a consumer affairs bureau. Most newspapers
- can get a quick response. Ask for their "Action Line" or
- equivalent. If you're dealing with a local government agency,
- look in the state or local government section of the phone book
- under "consumer affairs." If it's a federal agency, your
- congressmember may be able to help.
-
- 4: Insist that they document a corporate policy requiring the number.
- When someone can't find a written policy or doesn't want to
- push hard enough to get it, they'll often realize that they
- don't know what the policy is, and they've just been following
- tradition.
-
- 5: Ask what they need it for and suggest alternatives. If you're
- talking to someone who has some independence, and they'd like
- to help, they will sometimes admit that they know the reason
- the company wants it, and you can satisfy that requirement a
- different way.
-
- 6: Tell them you'll take your business elsewhere (and follow through if
- they don't cooperate.)
-
- 7: If it's a case where you've gotten service already, but someone
- insists that you have to provide your number in order to have a
- continuing relationship, you can choose to ignore the request
- in hopes that they'll forget or find another solution before
- you get tired of the interruption.
-
- If someone absolutely insists on getting your Social Security Number, you may
- want to give a fake number. There are legal penalties for providing a false
- number when you expect to gain some benefit from it. A federal court of
- appeals ruled that using a false SSN to get a Driver's License violates the
- federal law.
-
- There are a few good choices for "anonymous" numbers. Making one up at
- random is a bad idea, as it may coincide with someone's real number and cause
- them some amount of grief. It's better to use a number like 078-05-1120,
- which was printed on "sample" cards inserted in thousands of new wallets sold
- in the 40's and 50's. It's been used so widely that both the IRS and SSA
- recognize it immediately as bogus, while most clerks haven't heard of it.
- The Social Security Administration recommends that people showing Social
- Security cards in advertisements use numbers in the range 987-65-4320 through
- 987-65-4329.
-
- There are several patterns that have never been assigned, and which therefore
- don't conflict with anyone's real number. They include numbers with any
- field all zeroes, and numbers with a first digit of 8 or 9. For more details
- on the structure of SSNs and how they are assigned, use anonymous ftp to
- retrieve the file /cpsr/privacy/ssn/SSN-structure from the machine cpsr.org.
-
- Giving a number with an unused pattern rather than your own number isn't very
- useful if there's anything serious at stake since it's likely to be noticed.
-
- If you're designing a database or have an existing one that currently uses
- SSNs and want to use numbers other than SSNs, you should make your
- identifiers use some pattern other than 9 digits. You can make them longer
- or shorter than that, or include letters somewhere inside. That way no one
- will mistake the number for an SSN.
-
- The Social Security Administration recommends that you request a copy of your
- file from them every few years to make sure that your records are correct
- (your income and "contributions" are being recorded for you, and no one
- else's are.) As a result of a recent court case, the SSA has agreed to
- accept corrections of errors when there isn't any contradictory evidence, SSA
- has records for the year before or after the error, and the claimed earnings
- are consistent with earlier and later wages. (San Jose Mercury News, 5/14,
- 1992 p 6A) Call the Social Security Administration at (800) 772-1213 and ask
- for Form 7004, (Request for Earnings and Benefit Estimate Statement.)
-
-
- Collecting SSNs yourself
-
- There aren't any federal laws that explicitly forbid the collection of SSNs.
- However, there is a body of law, intended to prohibit the misuse of credit
- cards, that is written vaguely enough that it could be interpreted to cover
- personal collections of SSNs. The laws are at 18 USC 1029, and cover what is
- called "access device fraud." An access device is "any card, plate, code,
- account number or other means of access that can be used, alone or in
- conjunction with another access device, to obtain money, goods, services, or
- any other thing of value, or that can be used to initiate a transfer of
- value." The law forbids the possession, "knowingly and with intent to defraud"
- of fifteen or more devices which are counterfeit or unauthorized access
- devices." If interstate commerce is involved, penalties are up to $10,000
- and 10 years in prison.
-
-
- When All Else Fails
- (Getting a Replacement Number)
-
- The Social Security Administration (SSA) will occasionally issue a
- replacement SSN. The most common justification is that the SSA or the IRS
- has mixed together earnings records from more than one person, and since one
- of the people can't be located, it's necessary to issue a new number to the
- other. The SSA tries very hard to contact the person who is using the number
- incorrectly before resorting to this process.
-
- There are a few other situations that the SSA accepts as justifying a new
- number. The easiest is if the number contains the sequences 666 or 13. The
- digits need to be consecutive according to SSA's policy manual, but may be
- separated by hyphens. You apparently don't have to prove that your religious
- objection is sincere. Other commonly accepted complaints include that
- someone who is harassing you is tracing you through your SSN, sequential
- numbers assigned to family members, or serious impact on your credit history
- that you've tried to clear up without success.
-
- In all cases, the process includes an in-person interview at which you have
- to establish your identity and show that you are the original assignee of the
- number. The decision is normally made in the local office. If the problem
- is with a credit bureau's records, you have to show that someone else
- continues to use your number, and that you tried to get the credit bureau to
- fix your records but were not successful. When they do issue a new number,
- the new records are linked to the old ones. (Unless you can convince them
- that your life might be endangered by such a link.)
-
- There are a few justifications that they don't accept at all: attempting to
- avoid legal responsibilities, poor credit record which is your own fault,
- lost SSN card (without evidence that someone else has used it), or use of
- the number by government agencies or private companies.
-
- The only justification the SSA accepts for cancelling the issuance of an SSN
- is that the number was assigned under their Enumeration at Birth (wherein
- SSNs are assigned when birth certificates are issued) program without the
- parent's consent. In this case, the field officer is instructed to try very
- hard to convince the parent that getting the number revoked is futile, but to
- give in when the parent is persistent.
-
-
- Recent Legal News
-
- The Ohio Supreme Court ruled October 26 that SSNs of public employees
- are not public records, and so the city of Akron acted correctly in
- not disclosing them in response to a request from the Akron Beacon
- Journal. The newspaper had asked for copies of the city's employee
- master files, and the city had provided the bulk of the records, but
- had deleted the SSNs on privacy grounds. EPIC, on behalf of CPSR,
- wrote a friend of the court brief with the Public Citizen Liitigation
- group arguing in favor of the city. The EPIC brief was based, in
- part, on the Greidinger v. Davis case (C.A.4, 1993), 988 F.2d 1344
- decided in Virginia in 1993
-
-
- If you have suggestions for improving this document please send them to me:
- Chris Hibbert
- hibbert@netcom.com or 1195 Andre Ave.
- Mountain View, CA 94040
-
-
-
- Retrieving the SSN FAQ and related documents
-
- The SSN FAQ is available from two sources: rtfm.mit.edu, and ftp.cpsr.org.
- I've recently built a few privacy related web pages, all of which are
- accessible starting from
- ftp://ftp.cpsr.org/cpsr/privacy/ssn/html/privacy.html. ftp.cpsr.org has
- other resources on privacy, SSNs, and related subjects. rtfm.mit.edu is a
- standard archive for many other FAQs as well.
-
- You can retrieve files from rtfm.mit.edu by anonymous ftp (look in
- pub/usenet-by-hierarchy/news/answers/privacy/ssn-faq) or via internet
- mail. You can get the latest version of the file by sending mail to
- mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with
- send usenet-by-hierarchy/news/answers/privacy/ssn-faq
- as the sole contents of the body. Send a message containing "help" to
- get general information about the mail server.
-
- The SSN FAQ and related files are stored in /ftp/cpsr/privacy/ssn on
- ftp.cpsr.org. You can use anonymous ftp to retrieve them. There are
- also directories containing information on pending legislation,
- privacy, the 1st amendment, computer security, cryptography, FOIA,
- NII, and CPSR.
-
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