WTF?

I never supplied, heh, was never ASKED for, my SSN to/by either company. They got it by other means and chose to use it as an entry gate for a customer seeking to block text spam from a cell phone and inquire about a service outtage. I’ve got account numbers for both companies, but foo, why use those when you can let me know my privacy and security have been invades by the Ubergreedies?

Yes, it is nice to know that every time I call up about some little twiddle, Mr. or Ms. Boiler Room Slave will have access to my SSN. And, as it turned out, to my mother’s maiden name.

No point in locking all that down now. We need another way of proving a transaction is legit and a person is who they say they are. The old “proofs” have been rendered useless.

Most of all, who bears the misery of opening up personal identifying information to all and sundry needs to be changed by law. It’s got to move from you and me to the corporate pigs at the trough. Let’s make it happen.

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Big banks, telecoms, and utilities hoard private data on customers and citizens, yet can’t protect the data from snooping employees and identity thieves. What do you do when everyone has access to your private life and you can’t stop it?…