Comment Military use (Score 1) 262
Back in Gulf War I (the big one) we had our family, gf's and penpals write our service number in the address. This came down from the big kahuna postmaster in the theater. Of course, for US citizens, our SSN was our service number.
No one made a fuss about it then. It was when businesses started using it as authentication that identity theft became rampant.
The solution has been around for years -- notaries.