computer programmers have very different lives from me, apparently

[deird1]

In today's news: online security questions that ask you questions about your life are DUMB.

Current ones they're wanting me to provide answers to are:
- my spouse's mother's maiden name (assumes that I have a spouse, and that I have the faintest clue what their mother's maiden name IS)

- make and model of my first car (assumes that I had a car, and that I pay the slightest attention to car makes and models)

- the city I met my significant other (assumes that I have a significant other, and that they're the same significant other I had when I set up this security question)


I've previously encountered others such as my favourite song (don't have one), my favourite book (I have four), my first school teacher (don't remember), and my favourite food (not a clue).


Now, if they'd let me create my own, I'd go with (1) my favourite superhero (Spiderman), (2) my favourite author (Agatha Christie), and my favourite fake hobby (Irish Llama Wrestling). You know – stuff I actually know.

Comments

[tielan]

LOVE THE ICON!

And yes, the questions are very stupid and also very trawlable if the FB posts about "what was the first car you ever had to change a tyre for" are any indication.

[deird1]

These days I mostly pick a tv show and answer questions related to it. (For instance, a car question would be "Tardis" or "Impala" or "Moya"; a maiden name question would be "Bartlet" or "Summers" or "Crichton".)

[tielan]

LOL. I like the way you think!

[lirazel]

Oh that's smart!

[out_there]

I much prefer the ones that you actually set yourself.

Although I suspect the bank staff who have to sit there and ask, "What's the name of your biggest dog?" and "What's the name of your smallest dog?" wish those weren't the questions.

[deird1]

Wow, how many dogs do you have?

[out_there]

*laughs* That does sound like I have a lot of dogs. We only have three -- one labrador and two small Maltese shih tzus.

[alexseanchai]

yeah, preset security questions seem to come in "my family, who shouldn't have access to my accounts without my permission, and possibly my Facebook friends, ditto, know these answers at least as well as I do" and "this answer changes often enough I might as well pick a lie off a list" and those are the only available categories

(any question with the word 'favorite' in is in the latter category)

where if I got to set my own, I could choose questions that literally nobody but me could possibly know the answer to! or failing that, one would have to have been one of a couple dozen people there twelve years, several addresses, and one legal name change ago, or whatever. but it's an answer that isn't changing, is neither written on my cheat sheet nor made up on the spot, and isn't something my parents know or someone stalking my internet presence could learn.

[deird1]

I could choose questions that literally nobody but me could possibly know the answer to!

Exactly! I could tell them the name I picked out for my hypothetical second daughter - not even my husband knows that one! Or the surname of my favourite English teacher, or the names of the three triplets in a story I wrote when I was 12, or my favourite Latin phrase, or...

[hnpcc]

My problem is often that I forget what I put down anyway, especially for "favourite" type questions.

[deird1]

Exactly. How do they expect my favourite song to be a fixed entity?

[frogfarm]

When you're allowed to create your own security questions, I think the most secure options are to use nonsense questions, or to lie about the answers.

[lonespark]

yeah

my work training thing let me pick "Who is your favorite actor?" but then on the work computer we couldn't figure out how to do the accent mark. at least it let me skip to another question...