One poster here says that it's clear you cannot sell personal replicas for profit. Is it? I thought the "right of publicity" rules were somewhat less powerful, and that there were public figures exceptions of some sort. Do Bill, George and Barack get a few cents of royalties from each of the little President Bobbleheads on sale at DC tourist traps and airports? IAAL, but haven't looked into this law recently.
If the little Zuckerberg was holding a cardboard "Will Sell Sekrets for $$$" sign, would that make it First-Amendment-protected parody in the US?
Or, as a US law thing, does that explain the use of Chinese law to issue the cease-&-desist?

Lots of US laws already prohibit or limit SSN use:
http://epic.org/privacy/ssn/
http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs10-ssn.htm
If it's illegal to collect and use in whole, is it illegal to cadge in part, and then reassemble and use?
Or does the law have holes?
As rwa2 points out above, deriving the whole SSN ID number from a partial one might be within the reach of a lot of people, not just huge datafarms.

Hats off to the classy approach to being swamped by /. linkage: http://twitpic.com/3tmjo6 Grace under pressure. Cheers!

Great question. I went over the wall, from big law firms to open standards work, a decade ago and have loved every minute of it. (I'm the general counsel of a standards org; my definition of virtuous projects probably is broader than some.)
Lots of great project suggestions already in the comments, here. Might also want to consider the "start-up" side, hooking up with a newer or smaller project, and helping to grow it.
-- Shop around. Look for something that ignites your passion. Be aware that the threshold for declaring an organization or "project" is pretty low. Not every SourceForge page is going to be the next Apache. Invest your volunteer time in something which might have legs. The more active a community of contributors, the more likely you'd be useful.
-- Open, collaborative projects generally have accessible archives. You can read up on the issues and personalities, assess possible gigs with somee advance insight. Many also have face-to-face gatherings, in this sector, sometimes on multiple continents. They tend to be friendly and accessible. Go see the tribe live.
-- FYI, some people do make a living at it. There are a bunch of orgs where the lawyer help followed this path: started as a volunteer thing, but then evolved into full-time, self-invented, cool careers.
-- Yes, these projects often need fairly simple, non-patent-prosecutor, lawyer help. Like basic contracts, organizational (company/entity) formation, work-for-hire arrangements, basic licensing, website hosting contract review, etc.
-- There are boobytraps, though. If you act as someone's lawyer, obviously you're likely liable for them and yourself within the defined scope of your work, pay or no pay. So get the scope limits, expectations and any conflicts issues written down and crystal clear, in a few short pithy sentences, up front.
-- A word about being "general counsel": that title often is taken as a broad duty to represent the org. Be careful what you promise. Still, there are some great people having a spectacular, intellectually rewarding time being the volunteer or part-time general counsel for worthy dot.orgs like ID Commons (@DanielPerry), Linux Foundation, OpenID, FSF, IETF and other groups.
Good luck!

Totally agree. Thought of him, then found his name in the list already. Show your son the bio. Spaceships, cool cars, saving the world, and an internet gazillionaire in his 20s. What's not to like?

"State procurement laws don't prescribe the degree of openness or standardization within the government." Well, yeah, some do, in the US and elsewhere. Netherlands is a strong example. And at the US federal level, look at OMB's Circular A-119. Hmm. If you changed the vendor name here ... a hospital CTO who says "we will use only RedHat (or) only Dell (or) only Novell Linux (whatever), and I don't want to see anything else" ... would you have the same problem? Is it generically a bad idea for CTOs to pick sole platforms for an enterprise? You'd have to oppose virtualization, too, then, right?

Spectactular. Well done all. And yes, this is a pull medium, you can have curated geeky videos along with the curated geeky YRO. But, just curious, what's with the dogcam? Cheers, JamieXML