I am sorry that this comment was pulled down. I posted in earnest because the subject is interesting to me. I would like to ask why to suggest that a personal id number controlled by the person and not by the corporate owners of the id database is a bad comment? In fact, this article just posted to HN a few hours ago http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2008/06/05/the-computer-data-... suggests that in the US, the social security number become a unique identifier in "data banks" starting in the 60s. So, to me it appears that it is legitimate to discuss if the social security number, email or a new personal id number owned by the person ought to be chosen as the new id standard for the modern post-internet human individual. Please correct, if I don't understand the issue here. Thanks.