I think the bigger problem is that public information like your name and address is sufficient for proving your identity. If we make whois information private, what about phone books, property records, direct mail databases, etc. etc.
{SWAT, pizza orders, etc} assume that the phone number that shows up on caller ID is authentication of the identity of the phone line on the other end. They could call back the number on caller ID to verify the original caller matched the person who picked up, but they don't.
Having knowledge of a Social Security number was assumed to be authentication, but it's increasingly obvious that such an authentication scheme is antiquated and was destined to fail from the beginning. When an identity thief can get a mortgage under my name with little more than credit bureau data on me, it costs only a little more than $15 to destroy my credit, my time, and my future because transactions don't have sufficient authentication.
These awfully designed authentication schemes will only magnify the problems as more companies (especially credit bureaus and data marketers) pass around data on me and make it easier for someone to buy it on demand.
I'm pretty much a hair away from blocking all calls without caller ID at my house so I can reliably lock out the remaining spam callers.
No the people that designed and implemented Social Security knew it was not secure for identification purposes, the first few decades of the program even had "Not to be used for Identification" on the card.
Then the government, and financial industry got lazy and said "well since the majority of people already have these numbers assigned to them lets just use them for Identification as well" and made it a defacto National ID. Something it was never designed for, nor secure enough to be,
This is getting to the point of paranoia at this point. You're already at significant risk if you ever say anything that gets attention by virtue of living in a society. But it comes with benefits, too...
It does make good sense to not use your primary "personal" email address in whois, nor your home address. PO Box rentals are fairly cheap and that's what I use for whois registrations.
Where I am (Australia) theres a whole bunch of places that'll provide "non Post Office PO boxes" who're perfectly happy for you to address things to "Suite 306" or "Apartment 306" as well as "PO Box 306" at whatever address the box is located. Fools _most_ of the "must be a real address, not a PO Box" restrictions.
(Interestingly StartSSL failed me on that once when I gave one of those as a personal address - they mailed me saying "that looks like a business address, we need a personal home address for personal identity validation") - I dunno of they Google Street-viewed it or of they've got some automated system that flagged it...)
1) it's free, and
2) they will also accept UPS/FedEx/DHL/etc shipments on your behalf for no charge! (they will sign for packages, but if "Direct" signature (the named recipient) is required, they can't accept those.)
If you just try using "UNIT #" or "APT #" or whatever, or you don't have this additional agreement signed, they can and will return to sender.
Keep in mind that street addressing doesn't work at all USPS locations, although it does work at most of them. You have to fill out a form with USPS or any mail addressed to that location will be returned as undeliverable.
I wish this was an industry with a bit more visibility. When you think about renting a "PO Box", there's a good chance that you'd be better off with a box rental from a private mail service.
His daughter was also attacked...