Song: Older Social Security numbers are predictable by birth year and location
Rick Song · He thought his startup would fail—then grew to $100M ARR. | Rick Song, Co-founder of Persona · PMF Show · Aug 11, 2025 · at 14:42
Rick Song, co-founder of identity verification platform Persona, discusses the vulnerabilities of legacy government identity infrastructure.
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“Back in the day, like, social security numbers weren't random. In fact, like, if you're born, like, I think prior to 1991 or something, your social security number is a company. The first five Is identified by the location of where, which hospital you were born at, and the subsequent floor is actually just an incrementing number. So, like, you can actually, if you, if I know how old you are, plus, like, you know where you were born, I can actually pretty much guess, like, within, like, maybe, like, let's say a hundred, like, within a hundred numbers what your social security number is.”
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