By THOMAS HARGROVE, Scripps Howard News Service

Here is the computer program developed by Scripps Howard News Service to identify female victims of serial killers using computer files from the FBI's Supplementary Homicide Report covering 539,600 homicides committed from 1980 through 2009. This program is written for the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) but can easily be modified for other software.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. - A computer analyst turned amateur detective used old FBI crime files to identify a cluster of unsolved murders of young women in upstate New York that police agree was the work of a little-known serial killer active in the early 1990s.

WASHINGTON - The fraud-fighting businessman who 31 years ago won court-ordered release of an important federal database to stop thieves now worries it is widely misused by crooks and blundering bureaucrats.

Millions of manufacturing jobs have disappeared across America since 2000, evaporating in a furnace-like blast of economic upheaval.

WASHINGTON - Members of Congress say they are increasingly concerned by failures of the Social Security Administration to keep confidential information safe and to warn the public when the security of personal data has been breached.

WASHINGTON - The Social Security Administration has failed to inform tens of thousands of Americans that it accidentally released their names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers in an electronic database widely used by U.S. business groups.

WASHINGTON - Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue conceded mistakes by his agency "can wreak havoc" for the estimated 14,000 living Americans who each year are falsely reported as dead.

Authorities in New York City and at the Social Security Administration now have explanations for why most of the 3,000 victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks are missing from an important federal registry of deaths.

Esther Enos, 61, of Abilene, Texas, found out she was "dead" when her cellphone suddenly stopped working about six years ago.

"They cut off my service and I went to find out why," Enos told the Abilene Reporter-News in Texas. "They said I was using the Social Security number of a deceased woman."

Many others found out while shopping.

What do you do if the Social Security Administration has listed you as dead?

Contact your local Social Security office immediately. Do not assume the error will be corrected automatically.