all of our lab notebooks still go on microfilm.
For long-term preservation of books and documents, polyester microfilm is considered safer than digital media I believe. It has a lifetime of about 500 years (obviously just an estimate). There are concerns about the systems needed to retrieve digitally stored documents—what if a document needs some sort of obsolete system to retrieve it, things like that----whereas something that has been microfilmed just needs light and magnification.
http://www.nedcc.org/plam3/tleaf51.htm
Yeah, that was exactly my worry.
My coworker, like Nano, says he never writes his SSN on his checks, and they get through OK.
(The SSN-check instruction is on the form 1040-ES, next to the address.)
I think I’ll follow suit, and pay the fine if it comes up.
I’ve never put my SSN on a check to the IRS and so far there has been no complaint. The worst that could happen is if your check did get separated from your forms and credited to the wrong taxpayer’s account. That would be a pain in the butt but not difficult to straighten out once you showed them the cancelled check.
In my experience the IRS has been fairly reasonable, though I hate paying the bloodsuckers as much as anyone. 
A couple of years ago I took a 401k distribution for a down payment on my house. Consequently, at the end of the year I owed like $5600 in taxes and early withdrawal penalties which meant that I also owed penalties for not having enough withheld. I filled out a simple form asking for relief from the insufficient withholding penalty and they approved it with no problem.