[ale] OT: am I paranoid?

[George Carless]

Just to add a contrary view - as a non-American, I'm a little bewildered
by all of the fuss around SSNs.  I think it's a little bizarre that
they're so widely used as a general means of identification when their
original purpose was presumably limited to 'social security'.  But surely
the cat is out of the bag?  SSNs seem to be so widely used, and already
applied to so many areas, that worrying about things like the display of a
few numbers on a web page would seem like a non-issue -- or rather a mere
more obvious example of what is already a problem.

Doesn't this come down to security through obscurity, insomuch as that we
should not feel that because our SSN isn't on display that it's in any way
secure from nefarious use?  I would imagine that anyone wanting to get a
hold of someone's Social Security number could do so without too much
difficulty, at any rate.  Of course, there's little sense in making it
'even easier'; but it might be pragmatic to worry more about *why* social
security numbers are being captured/distributed/etc. at all in the first
place..

Cheers,
--George