> I agree, SSN's are a poor form of authentication. What's missing from these conversations is realistic approaches to fixing it.
SSNs are a poor form of authentication because they're ostensibly secret but re-used everywhere. It's just like a password in that regard: no password is secure against reuse, no matter how strong it is on paper.
A minimal change would be to allow/encourage single-use SSN-equivalents, generated on demand by a central authority. That is, someone would give a different "SSN" to their employer, their bank, the IRS, and their cable company (for credit check).
That still provides a point of vulnerability, but that
is far better than the current system where a single credit application form is a global compromise. If a single-use number is compromised, it could be easily revoked without affecting the person otherwise. Likewise, numbers could easily be generated with short expiry dates to make use from stored credentials impossible.
SSNs are a poor form of authentication because they're ostensibly secret but re-used everywhere. It's just like a password in that regard: no password is secure against reuse, no matter how strong it is on paper.
A minimal change would be to allow/encourage single-use SSN-equivalents, generated on demand by a central authority. That is, someone would give a different "SSN" to their employer, their bank, the IRS, and their cable company (for credit check).
That still provides a point of vulnerability, but that is far better than the current system where a single credit application form is a global compromise. If a single-use number is compromised, it could be easily revoked without affecting the person otherwise. Likewise, numbers could easily be generated with short expiry dates to make use from stored credentials impossible.