What challenges have you faced in testing SSN validation in your projects?

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Read our latest article, " Social Security Number Validation: A Tester’s Guide to Uncovering Hidden Defects" by @natebosscher, an in-depth look at the challenges and methods used in validating SSNs in software applications.

This article deeply examines changes in the rules for SSN format and validation. You’ll learn about:

  • Basic SSN formatting rules
  • Applying complex rules for Pre- and post-2011 SSN validation requirements
  • Strategies to avoid common pitfalls in SSN validation

After reading, we’d love to hear from you:

  • What challenges have you faced in testing SSN validation in your projects?
  • Do the insights from the article help or resonate with you?

Share your thoughts and lessons learned in the comments below

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I think the struggle is not testing the rules themselves, but that validation/checks for forms can happen client and also server-side in most apps. When rules change or have to be implemented in multiple clients it causes huge copy-paste problems across platforms. Recently while implementing single-sign-on for azure/OpenID we had to look at email validation, and the topic came up in engineering and test team meeting.

The best strategy is to handle the invalid and gotcha cases server-side at the point that it really matters, and only handle length and simple rules in the form/client itself. It’s a corollary to the defensive coding strategy that anyone who coded in a low-level language will remember, do not check parameters twice, it used to cost CPU cycles, but today it creates contract frustration. All the client really needs to do is verify the input is roughly sane and contains no SQL injection attacks, it can then leave the hard work to the server where rule changes can be patched cheaply and not bloat the clients either. Knowing who is responsible for what part of the mission makes this a lot easier, as we discovered with trying to work out when an email address is valid enough for example to let a user continue. Turns out email addresses are not really a thing your should try to validate yourself other than to prevent malicious data being input.

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