Wishing someone a Happy Birthday is a common ritual and just a nice thing to do for someone on their special day.  

I've always felt that it's somewhat odd and awkward to wish a Provider or a Hobbyist a Happy Birthday on a public board like this. It's revealing personal and identifying information on someone to the public. I'm not a very paranoid person but revealing their birthdate can allow LE to narrow down who they suspect might be the person behind the board handle. For Providers, they already have a general age, height, weight, hair color and physical description to work with and then you throw in their birthdate (albeit, minus the birth year) and you've narrowed their search parameters by 90%. For Hobbyists,  a suspicious SO might already suspect that it's you behind a board handle based on your writing characteristics and very subtle hints you've given away in your posting history, and then, a Provider wishes you a Happy Birthday on your actual birthdate and, BOOM!, guess what...nail in the coffin, boys!  

So, lying to each other on this issue is OK. I've never asked a lady when her birthday is and I've only been asked mine once. I only told her my birth month. I'm not advocating that this practice should be stopped. I rarely participate in it but I really don't care if others do. I'm just bringing up the topic of secondary identification metrics to raise awareness.