As I am someone from EU, please explain me what can you do with this SSN number?
I mean is it like a unique database row id which happens to be a non-changeable-lifetime password which is stored in multiple places in plain-text and you can use it to... "unlock some doors"? Make legally binding agreements remotely... ? Or what?
Or it is PII - privately identifying information which is more of a privacy issue here?
It's used for all sorts of "prove you are who you are" situations. It's most commonly associated with applying for credit/loans, and taxes, but definitely not limited to those things. It's ridiculous that an immutable 8-digit number + name is used for authentication in the USA. It even says on the card "FOR SOCIAL SECURITY AND TAX PURPOSES - NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION" but apparently we've all lost our minds and ignore that. It can be very difficult to go through business processes if you refuse to give your SSN - some healthcare providers will just refuse to serve you.
With it, people can take out loans in your name, get into your accounts, file fake tax returns and get tax refunds in your name, and generally act as if they're you. Things are getting a little better nowadays (with additional information required) but we still don't have a secure method of identification online / over the phone.
Over here we use a PKI cert for that. A smartcard providing the root of that trust is provided by the government after verifying your identity using the typical stuff used for identity documents (any biometric data on file, birth certificate, etc.). That still doesn't mean that it's impossible to steal an identity, or acquire a made up one, but it does make it a whole lot harder.
The thing about social security is that it was supposed to be used for a fairly narrow system, and the physical cards even have text like "not to be used as identification" on them. And then we used it for that anyway
Basically in the EU, you usually have an ID card (or a passport/driving license/visa card, they're recorded on all of those too) that has a combination of a citizen ID and a document ID. Both of these details are combined considered to be "you" for the purposes of anything to do with the government. The government has a registration of every citizen ID+document ID combination and knows as a result what documents are in circulation. They're technically not required in most of Europe, although you must be able to procure one at request for legal reasons (ie. getting your employment properly sorted, opening a bank account, or a law enforcement official asking for your identity). Revoking a combination is as easy as getting a new ID card/passport since the combination is what counts. ID documents also usually expire eventually, so there's also an inherent time limit to what a leaked combination can cause issues with.
They're also as I understand it, used to handle things like sending everyone voter IDs for elections in advance; this is how the government knows who to send the voting cards to.
Bafflingly, the US does NOT have a national identification method that works like this. There's no country-wide identity document that provides the same assurances. As a result, most US entities (government branches & corporations) have settled on a "closest possible"... which is the social security number. A number that's used to identify every person with attachment to the US in some form since social security is something every US citizen has to interact with. (It also includes a ton of non-citizens since as I understand it, social security is something foreign workers also have to interact with, but that's besides the point.) It's a 9 character long numeric string that identifies you as a person... and has almost no revocation mechanism, even if it ends up in a data breach.
Yet in spite of this, it's still used as a country-wide ID mechanism for a lot of different things and replacing it with a proper ID mechanism has as I understand it (not American) very poor support as it's a culture war issue.
It's often used as a way to verify identity. Historically it's been one of the more secret pieces of information about someone, so while name and birthday are not very secret, if someone wanted to steal an identity, it's generally the SSN that is hardest to figure out. As a result though, I think a lot of places treat it as "If you know the SSN, then you are who you say you are."
As an example, if you call your bank to report a lost credit card, and that you'd like it shipped to a different address than the one you registered with them, they'll ask you for the last 4 digits of your SSN.
So yeah, someone who knows (name, SSN) or especially (name, address, phone, SSN) can do a lot of harm.
I'v seen quite a few Tesla Ys that needed repairs and... they seem to improve the car year to year or even months to months. Car interface suddenly changes to RJ45, some metal parts changed to aluminium (if I'm not mistaken), various things that become easyer to fix and so on. Low Voltage battery getting Li-Ion. Front under body changes: https://service.tesla.com/docs/BodyRepair/Body_Repair_Proced...
And then the airbag controller gets newer and newer.
Not something to market about, but you see steady incremental improvements.
What I want to say, the serviceability is very good for the cars. You get open documentation, you can access toolbox for a price, but it's there for the simple DIYer. Need to change pyro fuse? No problem, pop up docs, order part, change it. The parts are cheap.
Sorry I pressed downvote and cannot revert my press...
I had to set up CF for a small local business in a very small country that has ecommerce presence targeted mainly at local population. It just gets non-stop ongoing traffic a hosting provider cannot handle.
There's an interesting coping mechanism (verging on the conspiracy theory) popular on some Polish forums, namely that the abysmal data comes from abundance of sensors combined with them being placed (by whom and why? here's where the conspiracy part kicks in) in the most polluted spots.
Until recently, I've been a smog-skeptic; I figured it must be an overblown issue, as regardless of what the digital sensors and pretty graphs say, having spent almost my entire life in Kraków, I never saw it, never felt it. Still don't. Air in Kraków feels perfectly fine to me. And every time I saw someone complain, it was because of "see the PM2.5 PM10 thru the roof omg zomg!", not any actual health-related issues or discomfort.
What changed my mind about the whole thing was my kids. I may not feel the particulates in the air, but my kids do, especially my eldest daughter (who has early childhood asthma, in remission) - winter comes, particulates go up, they start coughing uncontrollably all day. Particulates go down, suddenly they're healthy again (+/- running nose).
I have limited sympathy for conspiracy theories, and very little for those burning trash in their homes, but I do understand where the smog-skepticism comes from. I still remember when Krakowski Alarm Smogowy became a thing, winter 2012; back then, this felt like a huge fad pushed by young activists on the Internet.
I got the same condition for diesel fumes since my military service. Thankfully
I remember how dizzy I used to get around fumes but I really have to force myself to avoid fumes now even at the faintest smell since I can endure it ... when people around me start complaining I can't even smell it.
I assume you lived there since childhood and got used to it from that time?
I don't mean this in a bad way but, have you visited other countries? I'm Spanish but lived for about half a year in Krakow, and the difference is just so stark I can't imagine skepticism. In winter the air smells burned. Fog is a phenomenon, sure, but what takes place most of winter in Krakow is not fog. It's just smoke.
I didn't know about any of this when I first travelled there, in fact when my boss at the time recommended I got a mask I thought he was paranoid or something. Absolutely not.
I hear you but let me add that what you feel is not necessarily the good indicator.
PM 2.5 does have the potential to trigger asthma & similar stuff but it also causes cancer and heart disease, neither of which can be felt (until it's too late anyway).
My parents were the same until I forced them to install an air purifier, and showed them the filter after running it for one winter (with windows always closed). It was snow white when new, and turned black after four cold months (not grey or dark grey, but literally black).
Actually, if the PM2.5 and PM10 are high, you can see it very easily.
If you can't see it, that means the air isn't polluted. Obviously some people confuse fog with smog, or can't see haze in some situations (failure to see).
But it's always there and always visible. You can't have pollutions at that scale and not see them.
To be frank, having a poorly functioning sense of smell is not exactly a great excuse for ignorance. Are you rejecting everything that you can't verify with your (or your relatives') senses?
Well, the map obviously does a lot of extrapolation. Look at Norway, for example. The bigger cities pollute the air in a 50km radius? In a country where heating is primarily electric? When Berlin and Paris don't seem to affect the air quality 20km away, despite having ten times the population?
Dunno if Odoo is more ERP or CRM but... if you speak about Microsoft Dataverse/Dynamics 365 Sales/Customer Engagement and such, the documentation, the tools the API the underlying foundation are just excellent.
Counter point about general knowledge that is documented/discussed in different spots on the internet.
Today I had to resolve performance problems for some sql server statement. Been doing it years, know the regular pitfalls, sometimes have to find "right" words to explain to customer why X is bad and such.
I described the issue to GPT5.2, gave the query, the execution plan and asked for help.
It was spot on, high quality responses and actionable items and explanations on why this or that is bad, how to improve it and why particularly sql may have generated such a query plan. I could instantly validate the response given my experience in the field. I even answered with some parts of chatgpt on how well it explained. However I did mention that to customer and I did tell them I approve the answer.
Asked high quality question and receive a high quality answer. And I am happy that I found out about an sql server flag where I can influence particular decision. But the suggestion was not limited to that, there were multiple points given that would help.
> Adjusted gross disposable income of households per capita in real terms is the total amount of money households have available for spending and saving after subtracting income taxes and pension contributions, plus the individual goods and services (such as education and health services) received free of charge from government and non-profit institutions serving households. Real means that its nominal value is adjusted for price increases (by the deflator of household actual final consumption expenditure). Per capita indicates that the value was divided by the total population.
I was also dreaming of an opening in a wall where I can brush my dust into and it magically disappears... Since having cordless vacuum I no longer dream about that.
I mean even a plug which would let you plug in an elephant nose - I think that is more cumbersome than the cordless vacuum. I mean having to get that hose and hook it up every time I want to vacuum something? Meh. Easier to pick up the 21th century broom that makes dust disappear when you roll over it.
And manual brooming makes you give n passes over the same place to do the job... juck.
I mean is it like a unique database row id which happens to be a non-changeable-lifetime password which is stored in multiple places in plain-text and you can use it to... "unlock some doors"? Make legally binding agreements remotely... ? Or what?
Or it is PII - privately identifying information which is more of a privacy issue here?
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