Hacker News is not fair when it comes to YC companies. This would have been a valid post if it concerned some other well-known company. It probably won't be for Wakemate. I don't know that it's Graham killing the stories (there's a pronounced YC bias here, for obvious reasons, and most of us can "flag"), but that doesn't matter; the effect is the same.

I don't like it, but I accept it. There aren't so many important YC companies right now that this is a real problem. I suggest: write a blog post with your open letter, promote it on Twitter, here, and Reddit, and let it pick up steam that way.

Hacker News isn't a complaint board for YC companies, so start by refactoring your story so that it doesn't appear like you're trying to use the site that way.

Or, you know, get on with your life. I've written off Wakemate. They can keep my $5. Best of luck.

the real issue here is everyone assuming social security numbers are meant to be 'secret'. It is a terrible way to authenticate someone. There have been recent studies to show how non-random someone's number actually is.

Someone recently suggested the 'nuclear' option of making everyone's social security number public and forcing all institutions to figure out a better model. This may be too extreme but something like that may be necessary

I wrote an application for a banking client a few years ago that required a valid SSN. In addition to using the information available on ssa.gov to check the validity of a number, I built a simple filter to exclude valid, but otherwise fraudulent numbers. While none of the steps I took are a bulletproof measure against identity theft, they do lighten the load a bit.

I cross-referenced the SSN death index to ensure dead people had not risen from the grave to apply for credit. I also excluded the popular "fake" SSNs used in advertising (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_number#SSNs_inv...), and I most definitely added Todd Davis's number to the list. This last step seemed like a no-brainer given all of the publicity at the time.

While I can understand a small boutique store not going to those lengths to prevent a fraudulent account, I am a little surprised that AT&T and Verizon were among the casualties.