U.S. Exposed Personal Data - 63,000 SSN Online

U.S. Exposed Personal Data - 63,000 SSN Online

www.washingtonpost.com

For more than a decade, the Census Bureau posted on a public Web site the Social Security numbers of 63,000 people who received financial aid, officials said yesterday. The apparent violation of federal privacy law prompted concerns about identity theft.

Government officials removed the data from the Web site on April 13, the day they were alerted to the breach by an Illinois farmer who discovered the numbers while surfing the Internet. They did not publicize the matter until yesterday, saying they needed the delay to enable information-security officials to contact those whose numbers were revealed and to contact "at least a half-dozen" mirror sites.

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
www.playfuls.com

Why am I not surprised, 10years?

The typical response for misdeeds this is what a spokesperson said "We take full responsibility for this and offer no excuses for it"

No excuses? [sarcasm]I'm sorry, we are a good government who does bad things[/sarcasm] - sound familiar?

Unbelievable.....well not really these days.

www.washingtonpost.com
(visit the link for the full news article)



[edit on 2007/4/21 by JacKatMtn]

Unfortunately, it won't be until they go to apply for a passport or credit that they'll find their personal identity has been used by others illegally.

Sounds like there are moles working in a lot of government departments.
There is no way something like that could possibly be just an accident.

Originally posted by Flighty
Unfortunately, it won't be until they go to apply for a passport or credit that they'll find their personal identity has been used by others illegally.

Lost emails(WH), lost laptops (IRS), lost classified material (LANL), loss of respect (US Govt), loss of SSN private data (IRS, Census Bureau)

total loss of confidence in US Govt (me)

If it's any consolation, the Australian government departments aren't any better.

www.computerworld.com.au...;1100295214

www.abc.net.au...

There does seem to be something strange going on.
Its anyones guess what they are doing with all this information that they are stealing. The above 2 stories are from a few years ago, but we still hear of this happening occasionally, so nothing has changed.
I'm sure you'd also find this happening in the U.K and Europe.
It does seem to be systematic.

Those FOOLS tried to foreclose on me for 3 1/2 years on a note that I had paid off, paid off early and overpaid. My lawyer was not even allowed to prove that I had paid off the loan at a hearing.

I had the man that caused all the problems investigated by the Office of Inspector General because he had been arrested for a drug trafficking charge about the time I started having the problems. They insisted that he was not involved in drugs in any way. It took a while, but I finally found a newspaper article telling of his arrest and mailed it to Washington. Nothing happened.

The man made illegal loans to his friends that the govt had to write off because he wrote the loans with no collateral and nothing was paid back(I wonder where he got the money to buy the drugs). I wonder where the $68,000 that I could prove that I had paid that the govt said that I didn't go(paid a man to go to jail in his place so he wouldn't lose his job).

He has caused me to lose just about everything I have worked for in my entire life, but nothing can be done to him because he is a govt employee. My lawyers told me that it is obvious what they did to me, "but they are the govt and they can do anything they want to you and there is not a damn thing you can do about it".

I could write a book on the CRAP they have done to me.

Between incompetence on one hand, and fraud on the other, we just can't win.

Or can we?

Just posting this FYI, in case any of our members were affected when the USDA posted the 63,000 SSN online.

The USDA is offering a credit monitoring program:

USDA

WASHINGTON, April 20, 2007 - The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will offer free credit monitoring for one year to people whose private identification information was exposed on a Federal Government website that is accessible to the public. The information was removed from the website immediately after USDA learned of the potential exposure. There is no evidence that this information has been misused. However, due to the potential that this information was downloaded prior to being removed, USDA will provide the additional monitoring service.

I'll bet that my info is on the site. Don't believe that they will help with anything. They made a bunch of agreements with me till I put my name on the dotted line then they got the worst case of amnesia you ever saw in your life.