> Who pays? Since all those companies can plausibly point to someone else, the victim pays! Which is just how they like it — privatize the profits and socializ

> Who pays? Since all those companies can plausibly point to someone else, the victim pays! Which is just how they like it — privatize the profits and socialize the losses. What would actually get creditors to stop using social security numbers is if the SSN's utility as a proxy for creditworthiness drops. But that won't happen, even with many more breaches, because individual consumers need to do everything they can to keep their credit scores up. > Still, we should demand it. Yep. The market will not drive this. It will have to be consumers, speaking collectively through the government, imposing regulations.