Hacker News Reader

Why don't they just assign a new one from time to time? It's just a number after all, much easier to change than fingerprints.

The whole point is that it's not supposed to change, unlike your name, address, gender, occupation, and everything else.

Which makes it all the more ridiculous that as an immutable identifier, it's also supposed to be a secret.

It is supposed to change. The Social Security Administration explicitly allows people to obtain new SSNs in limited circumstances.

supposed !== possible