So where is our privacy?

Can you imagine your security code getting in wrong hands? I know it’s not pleasant news (excluding for identity thefts), but researchers say there’s a surprisingly easy way for the technology-savvy to figure out the nine digits of the security numbers. The one who discovered it is Alessandro Acquisti of Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We can breathe relief because he is not a “bad guy”, but can you imagine what could happen if a hacker got this information.

On the other hand I think at the social sites, networks or businesses that are asking for our private information when we register an account. Birth date and year is a part of our security number and this part we are spreading over the Internet every time we register on a website. When Social Security was created in 1930 they were not anticipating the fact that these numbers will be used for other forms of authentication.

This is a risk that we regularly take but now it’s the moment when we should stop using the codes for verifying identities and do our best into implementing secure, privacy-preserving authentication methods.