[Default] On 21 Apr 2020 22:43:34 -0700, in bit.listserv.ibm-main [email protected] (Timothy Sipples) wrote:
>Mark Jacobs wrote: >>The Social Security Administration does not reuse Social Security >>numbers. It has issued over 450 million since the start of the >>program, and at a use rate of about 5.5 million per year. It says >>it has enough to last several generations without reuse or changing >>the number of digits. > >The Social Security Administration could easily give 20 years of advance >warning before expanding their number space if they wish. They've got >several options before that far distant future, such as: > >1. Allowing capital letters except those that can be confused with numeric >digits. That'd likely mean excluding B, D, F, G, I, L, O, Q, S, T, U, Y, >and Z if they want to be maximally cautious. That still leaves 13 letters >available, or 14 if they want to include the symbol representing the >artist formerly known as Prince. :-) They'll also probably have some >placement exclusions to avoid spelling out any words. Even with these >restrictions, the character space is vast. The fun would come for programs like the now retired payroll programs I wrote that stored social security numbers as packed decimal. Clark Morris > >2. Alternatively, and in an overlapping period, some brand new digital >identity scheme. > >- - - - - - - - - - >Timothy Sipples >I.T. Architect Executive >Digital Asset & Other Industry Solutions >IBM Z & LinuxONE >- - - - - - - - - - >E-Mail: [email protected] > >---------------------------------------------------------------------- >For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, >send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
