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Comment by spencerhakim | Hacker News Reader

Given the alternative of handing out my SSN and hoping for the best, I'd be more than happy to use this for banking and related services. Presumably, third-party use would be covered by some form of ToS, and maybe we'd see actual repercussions for leaking data that originated here.

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Even if you're not concerned that the government might get a list of all the sites you log into, what about arbitrary login revocation? Suddenly someone gets a brain fart and decides that everyone on the terrorist watch list shouldn't be able to use this service? Now you're locked out of all the accounts you used this for, even if you're not a "bad guy".

This is why I don't use "log in with google" or log in with Facebook" -- I don't think those companies are evil (I use them both) but I can't afford for them to accidentally or absentmindedly deny me access to other services.

With the government you have free speech rights, so you can sue them if they close your account. With private companies you have no free speech rights and they can close your account whenever they want.

So account closure seems like a positive point of government-controlled login.

Look up the secrecy and lack of oversight over the so-called "terrorist" watchlist and the calls for scope creep, and see if you are so confident about those first amendment rights. I'm sure failure to log in would not be considered a first amendment right.

I agree that the government should be a far more dependable provider than any private sector organization. But the recent (last 20 years) enthusiasm for scope creep has not been encouraging.

Does the government deny passports or driver licenses/IDs to people on those lists? Because that would be the equivalent here.

I'm not saying the government wouldn't do it. I'm saying you would have constitutional basis to sue, which you don't have for companies.

Some lawsuits against the no fly list have been successful. https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/victory-no-fly-l...

I'm not sure that it would be seen as equivalent here given the overall push away from net neutrality over the last decade. I could see many government officials making the (out-dated) argument that the internet is a non-essential service and you online profiles are not as critical as physical government-issues IDs.

Edit: Forgot this post was a couple days old, working through my HN backlog haha

Government action could let you sue under (say ) free speech protections.

You can't sue FB for account termination

Repercussions? For the OPM hack, I got a form letter and a year (I think, I didn't use it) of credit monitoring. That was some of my most intimate information. That was a huge invasion of my privacy. I didn't even get a phone call. I didn't even get a sincere apology.

Just as an FYI, I think they extended the period to 10 years. I agree that it was handled poorly!

I froze my credit. I am in a position where I don't need credit and can get credit by virtue of assets if I did need to. I was, for lack of a better phrase, pretty pissed off. I got a form letter and something about credit monitoring in one of those weird security envelopes, as I recall.

Ten years? Yeah, that'll help. I pretty much admitted to everything I'd ever done, on those forms. It wasn't just me impacted, it had names of my friends and family. Then, I'm guessing it had all the notes I didn't see, from things like the interviews.

I don't have any real enemies, or any reason to be afraid, but that makes me no less angry and feel no less violated. Meh... I try to let the anger go, so it only pops up when I discuss it. There's nothing I can do to change it. I do consider it the greatest violation of trust ever enacted on me by the government. There was no reason for me to even be in the system any more, I am retired.

[redacted]

Oh well... If you can get away with it, freeze your credit. This does, curiously, impact your credit score. The peace of mind is worth it. Sorry for the novella.

This thread is the digital equivalent of why every attempt so far to set up a sane ID system in the US has floundered, leaving us stuck with the worst possible solution, SSNs.

Wouldn't it be entertaining if the SSN leak was just a really clever PR boost for the Trump administration?

I'm certainly entertaining conspiracy theory level ludicrousy, but it is entertaining.

The EquiFax thing would only be good PR for Trump's administration if they used it as an attempt to push through legislation that would prevent these kinds of things from happening in future - like a reasoned and functional (and minimum privilege) national identification service - while Alex Jones-types would normally be up in arms I think they would support it it Trump sold it as the system additionally to make it easy to identify illegal immigrants and members of the "alt-left".

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