I’ve lived in countries where there is *GASP* no such thing as an SSN or equivalent. They make your signature one form of verification (you need to learn to sign EXACTLY the same every time) while they use good old fashioned photo IDs and pass-phrases. Works just fine.

With “heightened awareness” of the sensitivity of the #, why isn’t there heightened sensitivity on the part of bank officers, credit card companies, and so on, to the fact that knowing a 9-digit number doesn’t prove jack shit?

WHY IS SSN STILL TRUSTED AS A “PASSWORD” TO YOUR IDENTITY?

The problem isn’t that congress would publish the IDs of officers; but that those IDs are all that scammers need to do all sorts of things in their names. (and, quite cleverly, the financial world calls this “identity theft” which makes it your problem, rather than “bank fraud” which would make it theirs. It is impressive, is it not, that if a bank gives somebody money just because they say that they are you, it becomes your problem?)

As long as the underlying problem remains, any putzing around with the details of where SSNs are likely to show up is just a bandaid.

The technology exists; we simply need to implement it.

I openly profess ignorance of them, but I had thought of that publication as being mostly a propaganda machine based upon what I’d heard of it (not always in the perjorative sense of the word propaganda, but in the sense that doesn’t expect much investigative reporting). I had sort of come to expect a lot of encouraging the troops and some mild jingoism and “the US is great!”

It looks like I was wrong. How far under a rock have I been living?