[hamburglar]

When are we going to move from a nine-digit number to something a little more secure for identity? I effectively want a public key and a private key and require signing of forms submitted as me.

edit: Freely provide easy to use tools for doing the signing and verification, and for people who still aren't savvy enough to do it themselves, train notaries to do it.

[hyperion2010]

The issue here is not that SSNs are used for identity (which is what they SHOULD be used for), but rather that they are used for authentication, which is retarded beyond belief. https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc512578.aspx

[flatline]

Presumably, the Chinese and some random hackers now have every piece of relevant data on my life that could ever be used for at least the initial validation of my identity - up to and including my fingerprints. For repeat authentication it's not an issue but parts of this go way beyond SSNs.

[grumio]

You may be interested to see Estonia's advancement in this direction: http://estonia.eu/about-estonia/economy-a-it/e-estonia.html

[dimino]

I'm immensely jealous of Estonia's ability to rebuild their infrastructure from the ground up. I know we'll never have that chance in the US, but if we did, we could build something truly incredible, especially now that government is slowly starting to understand the benefits of the "lean startup" model (I say that loosely).