posted 23 years ago
I think it is not Sun who is using your SSN, it is originally coming from Sylval Prometric, that uses your SSN as a testing ID.
You had an option when registering for your first exam with Sylvan to use their testing id instead your SSN, although not everybody knows it. Then they give you SPXXXXXXX number, which is a valid testing id. In this case your SSN is safe.
Anyway using SSN as your login id is a very common practice, I saw it on couple of online traiding sites, although I think it is not correct, for instance, users outside US do not have SSN.
Sometimes there are legal regulations that dictate the way of storing such confidential information, normally it should be encrypted, and its transmission in a clear format is not allowed, that's why all such sites including galton use SSL.