2008 Woodie Awards
Numbers not socially secure
Editorial Board
Issue date: 2/14/08 Section: Opinions
It is disconcerting when college students get letters in the mail that, in cold university-speak lingo, tell them that the core of their financial and personal identity has been hacked and could possibly be jacked and used for dubious purposes.
That's exactly what happened to 1,500 students this week at MTSU.
Social Security numbers are now more valuable than all the gold in Fort Knox because busting into Knox requires a lot of explosives and cojones the size of Texas.
Busting into someone's financial accounts now only requires a keen ear and the ability to use a computer or phone, or a convenient idiot with a loud voice and no common sense.
MTSU forces us to give up those precious nine digits to do anything on this campus. Of course, they are trying to remedy that by giving us M-numbers on our student ID's that can be used to access a slew of personal information related to the university.
Yet in a complete disregard at this privacy attempt, we have all had professors who use our SSNs to post grades. In the halls. Where everyone can see them, alongside the fact that we made a terrible grade on our Spanish final.
Consider how these professors would feel if we posted their credit card numbers on the reviews we give them online with how much of a pain their class was.
The M-numbers are a good idea in theory, but if someone has mad computer skills, they'll still be able to figure out your Social Security number and with that, everything about you. This includes how many dollars you have accrued working at Taco Bell and if said funds could buy them a sweet new compact disc player, chicken pox vaccine, or whatever the kids these days are buying.
We all appreciate those commercials about identity theft where some old geezer has the voice of a twenty-something "chippie." They don't only serve as entertainment, their sage counsel encourages people to be more careful when they throw their Social Security numbers around.
We entrust not only our fertile minds to the capable hands of our instructors, but our personal information as well. They can access how much money we have dished out, what grades we are making, and even how much our parents make yearly.
Discretion is the better part of valor, no?
That's exactly what happened to 1,500 students this week at MTSU.
Social Security numbers are now more valuable than all the gold in Fort Knox because busting into Knox requires a lot of explosives and cojones the size of Texas.
Busting into someone's financial accounts now only requires a keen ear and the ability to use a computer or phone, or a convenient idiot with a loud voice and no common sense.
MTSU forces us to give up those precious nine digits to do anything on this campus. Of course, they are trying to remedy that by giving us M-numbers on our student ID's that can be used to access a slew of personal information related to the university.
Yet in a complete disregard at this privacy attempt, we have all had professors who use our SSNs to post grades. In the halls. Where everyone can see them, alongside the fact that we made a terrible grade on our Spanish final.
Consider how these professors would feel if we posted their credit card numbers on the reviews we give them online with how much of a pain their class was.
The M-numbers are a good idea in theory, but if someone has mad computer skills, they'll still be able to figure out your Social Security number and with that, everything about you. This includes how many dollars you have accrued working at Taco Bell and if said funds could buy them a sweet new compact disc player, chicken pox vaccine, or whatever the kids these days are buying.
We all appreciate those commercials about identity theft where some old geezer has the voice of a twenty-something "chippie." They don't only serve as entertainment, their sage counsel encourages people to be more careful when they throw their Social Security numbers around.
We entrust not only our fertile minds to the capable hands of our instructors, but our personal information as well. They can access how much money we have dished out, what grades we are making, and even how much our parents make yearly.
Discretion is the better part of valor, no?
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