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What would happen if the entire SSN database and all DMV/RMV databases in the country were deleted? Would this pose a critical problem for citizen's lives, or would they recover quickly?

Voter ID would be intact, and there are other means of identification. It would however be at the very least an incredible source of confusion and would require nationwide re-registration.

How many times a day do you need to provide your SSN? For me it depends what I'm doing--if I'm registering for something/filling out a government/university form I need it, but otherwise it doesn't really come up. Of course, there are probably elements of SSN that I'm not aware of but that are incredibly important to day to day life.

It would be a headache, but you can't "delete" the entire database. Almost all of that information still exists in hard copy form at multiple locations. Any time you get a new SS card, you still have to fill out new paperwork, with the original stored on site.

I would say as a sinister master plan this wouldn't be all that devastating, however it would work well as a distraction or perhaps a "warning shot" by a terrorist organization/rouge state.

this does sound much more like something a hactivist might pull off, as opposed to a major cyber attack or anything like that

Originally posted by Lestov16
What would happen if the entire SSN database and all DMV/RMV databases in the country were deleted? Would this pose a critical problem for citizen's lives, or would they recover quickly?

Fragmented database storage, some offline and some online, would make this impossible to pull off.

There are also long-lasting offline storage devices that can be used to restore backup copies of this kind of shit. Most government storage is done on a Grandfather-Father-Son backup system. And necessary PII (personally identifiable information) is encrypted* if necessary to keep (like the SSA would need to do).

So not only are their duplicates of the backups, they are at different locations and they are encrypted. Some offline in physical storage and some online.

Results: the premise in your OP is invalid.




Also, having an SSN is not necessary to function as a US Citizen. When a credit company assigns you a credit line, sure, your SSN is used, but you also have a unique identifier with that organization. What would be lost is the credit-information linking between the various credit-oriented entities. That could be a good thing for those that have bad credit and a bad thing for those that have good credit. Most likely, in the event that all SSN's are lost by the SSA in an impossible to execute plan, the major credit organizations would pool their data and quickly recreate the SSN database. This would most likely be done via legislative authorization OR, worst case scenario, forced by the federal government onto those organizations.


*NIST SP 800-122

http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-122/sp800-122.pdf

I think the government can handle and solve the problem quickly.