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All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report

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  • I'm surprised. Canada's SIN (Social Insurance Number) is 9 digits, but there is a checksum to validate the number, so there are "only" 100 million numbers that can actually be assigned to real people. So, Canada is in danger of runnong out of numbers if the population triples too (or if we were to annex the U.S. :-).
    • From HowStuffWorks [howstuffworks.com]:

      What happens to my social security number after my death?
      According to the SSA, SSNs are not recycled. Upon an individual's death, the number is removed from the active files and is not reused. Recycling numbers might become an issue someday, but not any time soon -- statisticians say that the nine-digit SSN allows for approximately one billion possible combinations.

      I love how they had to get a statistician to tell 'em 9 digits = approx. 1 billion combinations. Why the approx, too?

      • > Why the approx, too?

        They may have set aside some small ranges for special purposes. I have an American SSN, for example, since I worked there.
        • Are EINs (distinguishable from SSNs by hyphen placement) in the same pool of numbers, or separate?

          I'm still on my first SSN, but have gone through two EINs.
      • Because they didn't want to pay for the government mathematician to multiply it out. (ba domp domp ting)
        --

        ------------------------------
        You are what you think.
    • I, for one, welcome our Canadian Overlords. ;) What with their hockey, Canadian bacon and universal health care.

      Reference [upenn.edu]
  • The National Insurance number over here is in the format AA NN NN NN A. Although the last letter is only A, B, C or D according to the IR website [inlandrevenue.gov.uk].
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