Joho the Blog
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November 15, 2007
Yesterday, my ISP required me to choose two "security questions" from a drop-down list of dumb choices: the name of my first pet or my favorite book, movie, food, or place to visit. Why dumb? First, these questions assume I don't have an Evil Sibling who knows these things; the same is true, of course, of common questions such as where you were born and your mother's maiden name. Second, they are guessable. Type in The Bible" and "Harry Potter" as favorite book and you've probably covered 95% of Americans. Third, I don't have a favorite book, movie, food or place to visit. I don't even have a favorite non-fiction book, sf novel or funny book. As for favorite places to visit, I had a really good time in Italy, but I also had a really good time in Leiden before that, and I don't really know how to rank my sister's house on Thanksgiving versus that place fifteen feet in front of the Monet water lilies in the basement of the Musée de l’Orangerie versus Heaven if the Lord is willing to overlook certain transgressions (which, by the way, are also some of my favorite places to visit). So, here is a list of similarly dumb security questions, although they are dumb in a variety of ways:
[Tags: humor security passwords ] Posted
by D. Weinberger at November 15, 2007 08:19 AM
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Comments
Why can't you remember your password?
Are you stupid?
Ou sont les neiges d'antan?
Posted by: Wray Cummings | November 15, 2007 11:28 AM
You don't have to answer them honestly. Your evil sibling might not know that you always give your mother's maiden name as "Artichoke" on websites or that your answer for first pet is "Happy the wonder gnu"
Posted by: brent ashley | November 15, 2007 12:15 PM
Don't forget 'forgetability', e.g.
"Your password must be at least 6 characters, have a mixture of case, involve at least one digit, and not be found in any dictionary or other lexicon - including concatenations and use of homoglyphs, e.g. N3wY0rk. You must not write your password down anywhere nor store it in any device."
Posted by: Crosbie Fitch | November 15, 2007 12:18 PM
I wanna know why the sibling is described as "evil?" You must be thinking of our other sibling, the older and not to be named here for purposes of anonymity- brother. lol. I know your mother's maiden name, the name of your first pet and what you had for dinner almost every Friday night. Don't worry, your secrets/passwords are safe w/ me, as long as mine are safe w/ you. It's actually a joy to be your sister, bragging rights included. Love, (your sister) Ellen
Posted by: Ellen Cavanagh | November 15, 2007 01:24 PM
The answer to #8 is obviously 69.
Posted by: Shalmanese | November 15, 2007 02:48 PM
So how did our sister get here before me? I was going to claim to be the evil sibling (I guess I still can claim it) and reveal to all that your (our) first pet was named Chewbacca and that our parents sued George Lucas for stealing the name. :)
I assert bragging rights too.
Posted by: Andy Weinberger | November 15, 2007 10:47 PM
I like the one where I was asked "the color of my first car". When I entered "blue" it was rejected because it needed to be 5 characters or longer.
Posted by: mark | November 16, 2007 10:54 AM
Why "evil siblings"? Spouses are always trustworthy? Parents and children always look out for one's best interests? HA!
Posted by: Charlie Green | November 18, 2007 06:03 PM
My favourite remains authorising my son to access the account for his phone. It's always had a password, and for years he just used that. All of a sudden, they decided he needed a secret question, too, and that he'd have to produce both to access the account.
The password remains the same. The new question is "What's the password?"
Posted by: Adam | November 19, 2007 04:23 PM