Summary
Elon Musk and his “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) have been granted access to the U.S. Treasury’s federal payment system, raising concerns about security and misuse.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent approved the move after a top Treasury official was ousted for resisting.
Critics warn Musk could freeze payments to government programs or manipulate federal contracts.
The move coincides with DOGE’s takeover of the Office of Personnel Management.
Experts call it a dangerous power grab, as Musk holds no official government position.
At least in the past, you could use a person’s ssn to open credit cards, change utilities, and generally ruin someone’s life. Someone took out a credit card with my SSN when I was like 9 or 10 and it caused issues when I became an adult and tried to get a student loan for uni.
That is technically possible with our information too. It happens, but is bothersome. Taking out massive loans is possible too, with the right bank on the right day.
You’d need some way to verify the identity, but since such signatures are handled digitally through an app it’s just a good phishing call away really. You already have the phone number and the address if you have the personal identification number.
In the US, if you know someone’s address (which is trivially easy to find online) and their social security number, you can open credit cards online.
The number itself is considered secure, so knowledge of the number is assumed to be enough identity confirmation for most applications.
Yeah, that is a problem of course. It’s not a very secure system.
Ohh well in that case, I’m sure nobody would bother taking advantage of it for free money…
Oh, it totally happens. It’s not that I wanted to say that it’s too bothersome. Scammers will do what scammers do.
There’s actually been some talk about gangs running such business from Spain. Mostly scamming old people.