SSN numbers are good for 999,999,999 people alive or dead. At some point the US will hit that, right? Do we start reusing numbers? Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

  • cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de
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    21 days ago

    Just add another digit and watch the entire country break down because they can’t find someone to update their 40+ year old software written in COBOL.

    • purplemonkeymad@programming.dev
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      21 days ago

      Sorry we can’t employ you as your ssn is too long. Also we can’t have any new employees called Mike Smith as the HR system already has someone with that name.

      • BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works
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        21 days ago

        The LMS we use at my school can’t handle multiple students with the same name. So we have John Smith and John Smith-2. We have like 2000 new students each year, and we have recently transitioned to this LMS. Smh

        • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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          16 days ago

          In this two thousand and twenty fourth year of our lord, there are still people using databases that don’t automatically append a unique number to entries to avoid this exact scenario…