The secret information everybody knows.

Every time you see a report on idenity theft or other scam, you are admonished to never give your Social Security number to anyone. But every time you go to a medical office, they will not even talk to you until you have provided all pertinent information including, and especially, your Social Security number. So do you or don't you? It doesn't matter. In most cases, you have no choice. Everybody seems to be desperate for as much information as possible these days. I just tried to access a list of opticians. But, like most sites today, they were not going to provide that information until I became a member, which I don't intend to become. Why do we have to become members (with passwords yet) of every on-line source we might use once and never need again? It's just another one of our sheep mechanisms: something we respond to and never say, "baaa."