More Privacy Risks

In GOF 2.4, Sarah Baase talks about the insecurity of social security numbers. Social security numbers are used to identify us, and are therefore given to certain organizations, which use them to identify us. The fact that social security numbers are used for so much, a lot of valuable and personal information is associated with them. Whoever knows your social security number can gain access to a huge amount of information, pretty much everything about you. The possibility of someone unlawfully gaining access to one's social security number is a huge risk, resulting in fraud and invasion of privacy. In history, the government has even abused the use of social security numbers (or other uses of identification), including: Hitler, who used the information to determine religious affiliation, in order to track the non-Germans; and even the United States now, using identification to keep track of illegal immigrants. Today, the Internet, which is the ultimate source for the exchange of information, has also become very dangerous, because of the availability of information. If social security numbers, and other identifying resources, which hold our most personal information, are so insecure and are sometimes subject to flaws, what can we rely on to keep our private information safe?