[Y7ZCQtNo39]

So if an identity thief has enough of my information to potentially open a new line of credit, wouldn't they also have enough information to reverse the freeze?

In other words, is a freeze enough to stop new accounts from being created?

[mcshicks]

You get a unique long pin code when you freeze the account. You need that to unfreeze it. There is some "recovery" procedure, I think you need a notary or something

[cespare]

And that unique long pin definitely isn't stored in plaintext in the next column over in their database, right?

[roywiggins]

At least it's only in one database, and not all of them, like SSNs are...

[ianai]

At this point it's about doing that one thing the other 1 million won't. It might be surmountable but do you figure the adversary is going to have the incentive to surmount it?

[gruez]

"don't worry, your 12 digit pin is securely encrypted with md5"

/s

[seanp2k2]

md5? They use triple ROT13.