Someone in some faraway place has my Social Security number. Or so suggests a notice I received recently from the US government. Along with an offer of one year of free credit monitoring, the notice informed me that my personal data was compromised in the 2014 breach of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) computer network.

The compromised data included, among other things, detailed personal information  – including mine – from the SF-86 forms (for obtaining security clearances) of millions of current and former government employees and contractors.