Mostly off-topic, but related: this is one of the major reasons email needs to finally go away. It was never intended to be the backbone of peoples lives in the way it has become.
Access to my email account probably gives you more access to my life and identity than my SSN [0].
I long for the day that we [1] all get assigned a public/private keypair instead of SSNs. That won't fix everything, but it's a huge step above a shared secret that is limited to 9 digits [2].
[0]: Even without signing up for a bunch of services, it's basically impossible at this point (at least in the US) to not have an email address associated with your bank account, car loan, mortgage, credit card, or even just watching TV.
[1]: "We" meaning "US citizens" or anyone else with a similar system.
[2]: I realize you also need info about the person and not just their number, but also apply that to keypairs.
