The Security Mentor

There's a web site where you can check whether your SSN or credit card number has been compromised. You do this by typing it into their form, and they check their fraud database. They claim to have over two million numbers in there which they believe have been compromised.

This made me a bit nervous, but the parent company,TrustedID, says in their FAQ that a crook would also need your name, billing address, date of birth or other such information to commit fraud. The session is encrypted, just as it should be. I wish they didn't make me turn on Javascript and cookies. I decided against putting in any sensitive numbers of my own. I didn't have any logical reason and you might want to give it a try.

They do some real checking. 078-05-1120, the usual dummy SSN, gets an error message. Richard Nixon's SSN gets you a warning that your security is at risk and you should consider signing up for their credit monitoring/control service for $90/year.

I found out about the site from a New York Times story about an activist who tries to stop governments from publishing Social Security numbers.