Identity Theft, Here We Are!

More stupid academic carelessness (dare I say negligence?) about identities:

I'm at a new place, but nothing changes...much. There is a network here for checking financial aid status, registration, one's schedule, and probably some other things I will never use. One needs a login identity and a "PIN" to log in - the ID being, essentially, the username, and the PIN being the password. Well, as is common, when you're typing in your username, it's not really a secret, so the name just shows up. When you type in the password, of course, asterisks show up so no one can look over your shoulder and get the password, or see what a saved password actually is. Makes sense.

Well, it makes sense, except, the thing is, my username is my Social Security number. The school chooses it, not me. So what the school is saying, I suppose, is that one's SSN is really not an important thing to keep private, but my PIN should be. Because with my PIN, someone could, say, register me for a class! What an outrage! But with my SSN, all someone could do is steal my identity, defraud credit card companies, and ruin my credit. That's all. No need to avoid that. What I really care about is that someone might cause the registrar five seconds of annoyance by messing up my registration. The inconvenience of having my financial life destroyed is really nothing, so yeah, let's spread that Social around!