• Norman Diamond (unregistered)

    The US government used to publish social security numbers. Maybe they thought the Privacy Act of 1974 expired in 1992. The US government still publishes social security numbers sometimes, and still insists that they're doing the right thing by doing so.

    The web site that rejected a date probably uses JavaScript or some other language/library derived from C. 01 is 1. 07 is 7. 010 is 8. 08 is an invalid octal number. I got my master's degree in month 08, year [censored]. I applied for a QA position at one particular company because that particular company really particularly needs to improve their QA and billions of people worldwide would benefit if that particular company would improve their QA. Guess which company didn't QA their JavaScript code in their web site, so they couldn't even retain a ton of data that I'd input into fields in preceding pages leading up to the page where they bombed out on the 08.

  • Your Name (unregistered)

    08/11/2011 is not a date because that system wants dots as separators.

  • Anonymous Coward (unregistered) in reply to Norman Diamond

    Not quite the government, but I recall quite a few news orgs releasing footage from the Zimmerman trial with shots of uncensored personal information like his address, SSN, etc.

  • Taliesyn (unregistered)

    The real WTF is that CareerBuilder.com is obviously built on SAP... which has one of the worst web GUIs out there.

  • The stupid hurts too much (unregistered) in reply to John
    John:
    The unhelpful help text is an example of an oh-so-common phenomenon.

    Back in the 80s and 90s when user interface standards started to be a required component of system development you'd often find that the specification would call for help text to be available for every input field (commonly by pressing F1). This then resulted in developers meeting the letter of the law, whilst totally missing out on the spirit.

    Testing an application you'd hit a field like:

    Guinea pig vector: [ ]

    and seeking enlightenment you'd hit F1 and be rewarded with help text which said:

    "In this field you should enter the value of the guinea pig vector."

    Plus ca change.

    200% of the "help" in SAP is like that.

    200% because each of the help items has a "Click for more help", which gives you the exact same help text, except larger.

  • Garris Bartlin (unregistered)

    What "Remains days"?

    CAPTCHA: "eros". No. Just... no.

  • sigh... (unregistered) in reply to herby
    herby:
    SSNs are funny things. For one thing, I know who owns the number before me and after me. I guess they didn't do randomization when they were issued.

    Yes, they are my brother and sister. All applied at the same time (no, we aren't triplets either, born 4+ years apart). My parents just applied for them in the same envelope I guess.

    I don't know anyone else who can say this though!

    You do now. My 2 younger brothers and I are sequential. And we happen to be 4+ years apart too...

  • (cs) in reply to sigh...
    sigh...:
    herby:
    SSNs are funny things. For one thing, I know who owns the number before me and after me. I guess they didn't do randomization when they were issued.

    Yes, they are my brother and sister. All applied at the same time (no, we aren't triplets either, born 4+ years apart). My parents just applied for them in the same envelope I guess.

    I don't know anyone else who can say this though!

    You do now. My 2 younger brothers and I are sequential. And we happen to be 4+ years apart too...

    You wouldn't happen to be herby's (older) sister, by chance?

  • (cs)

    The real WTF is the mosaic filter on the first image, text can be recovered from those things.

  • Mike Francis (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward:
    Not quite the government, but I recall quite a few news orgs releasing footage from the Zimmerman trial with shots of uncensored personal information like his address, SSN, etc.

    If the SSN, etc., was part of court documents, evidence submitted to the court, or testimony in open court, it's considered public information.

  • Norman Diamond (unregistered) in reply to Mike Francis
    Mike Francis:
    Anonymous Coward:
    Not quite the government, but I recall quite a few news orgs releasing footage from the Zimmerman trial with shots of uncensored personal information like his address, SSN, etc.
    If the SSN, etc., was part of court documents, evidence submitted to the court, or testimony in open court, it's considered public information.
    Court rules require redaction. Court rules make an exception for an individual to reveal their own information. Court rules don't make an exception for a party to reveal a different party's information. The US government considers itself not bound by court rules as well as not bound by the Privacy Act of 1974.
  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    There are 99 possibilities.

    What's not on that page expressly is that Social Security Randomisation was implemented years ago, so the order listed is not the current order.

    Years ago = 2011. Anyone older than age three has a group number that is driven by date of birth (or date of SSN application).

    If you were born between 1972 and 2011, you have an SSN that is almost entirely determined by state and date of birth. The last four digits - the ones that everyone asks for - are the least predictable of the bunch, at least until you give them out to everyone.

  • anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Dwedit
    Dwedit:
    The real WTF is the mosaic filter on the first image, text can be recovered from those things.
    No, TRWTF is that the part they redacted was repeated about four times more and they didn't redact any of those.
  • Jay (unregistered)

    Congratulations on receiving your Social Security Number!

    Your Social Security number serves two vital purposes:

    1. It is your universal identity number. You must provide this number when doing business with Federal, state, and local governments. You will need it to apply for a job or to college or for a loan. You must provide it to doctors and hospitals to receive treatment. Always keep your Social Security number handy so you can provide it to anyone who needs to keep records about you or with whom you do business!

    2. It is your secret password. In order to get access to government benefits and to many private bank or investment accounts, you use your Social Security number to prove that you are authorized. You should carefully protect your Social Security number. Never, ever give out your Social Security number.

    Sincerely,

    Your Social Security Administration

  • Essex Kitten (unregistered) in reply to Daniel
    Daniel:
    our issue tracking system (JIRA) uses the local date format for display, but if you need to enter a date, it only accepts the US format (so yes. you cannot just use the default they propose. You need to reformat it first)

    And I assume you filed a bug report with JIRA so it gets fixed. Pounces baseball bat in palm of free hand Well, did you?

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