Insecurity questions
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ComEd (my local electric company) just changed their online account information website. I had to choose and answer three of the below "Security Questions". I had to just make up answers to three of them. Do people really know these things?
In what city or town did your mother and father meet?
What was the last name of your third grade teacher?
What is your maternal grandmother’s maiden name?
What is the name of the place your wedding reception was held?
What is the name of a college you applied to but didn’t attend?
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Insecurity questions
- What are the first three digits of pi?
- If I were to ask you for a date, would you give me a calendar, a piece of fruit, or a slap in the face?
- If a security question only has two possible answers, is it secure?
- What is your current ping to this server?
- Solve this captcha!
- Multiply this by five: 1601627.
- Sing the Bill Nye the Science Guy theme song and then push continue on this static HTML page.
- This site is incripted with secure ssl https internet. There's no way a hacker could type
' OR 1=1 --into the login form!
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Some dumb game I used to play did the same thing and wouldn't let you write your own questions. I was so frustrated by the number of questions they required I ended up making up some of the answers because I really, really wanted to be done filling out this stupid form. This worked well until I forgot my password. What do you know? They don't ever, and I mean ever (I tried recovering my account dozens of times over the period of two months), change which security question they ask you to verify your account. I don't know how they determine it, but it was like the 5th one every single time. I started making them up after 4 because, like most people, I only had one first pet and my mother only had one maiden name. Their recommended solution? You CALL them, they then ask you some of your other security questions to confirm you are you, then they tell you the answer to the question that you can't remember.
Needless to say, I now consider any and all uses of security questions aggravating and pointless. Even my bank has weaker security than this stupid computer game. Wtf?
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@Pascal said:
ComEd (my local electric company) just changed their online account information website. I had to choose and answer three of the below "Security Questions". I had to just make up answers to three of them. Do people really know these things?
Well, at least some people do. I know the answers to three of them. I think I may remember the names of my 2nd and 4th grade teachers, but not 3rd grade. One question has no answer; I'm pretty sure I have attended every college I applied to (although not necessarily until several years after I first applied).In what city or town did your mother and father meet?
What was the last name of your third grade teacher?
What is your maternal grandmother’s maiden name?
What is the name of the place your wedding reception was held?
What is the name of a college you applied to but didn’t attend?On the other hand, I have been faced with security questions that could have several answers, and I couldn't remember which one I used when set the answer. I had no access to my online banking for a while because of this.
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@Ben L. said:
Insecurity questions
- If a security question only has two possible answers, is it secure?
pomegranate
@Ben L. said:
- Multiply this by five: 1601627.
ttttthhhhhiiiiisssss
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@Pascal said:
I know the answers to the first three, and there are no answers to the last two.Do people really know these things?
In what city or town did your mother and father meet?
What was the last name of your third grade teacher?
What is your maternal grandmother’s maiden name?
What is the name of the place your wedding reception was held?
What is the name of a college you applied to but didn’t attend?
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@Pascal said:
ComEd (my local electric company) just changed their online account information website. I had to choose and answer three of the below "Security Questions". I had to just make up answers to three of them. Do people really know these things?
In what city or town did your mother and father meet?
What was the last name of your third grade teacher?
What is your maternal grandmother’s maiden name?
What is the name of the place your wedding reception was held?
What is the name of a college you applied to but didn’t attend?Are you trying to social engineer people on this forum?
note: in my case I know the answer to all questions. Last one is NOT WestPoint.
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@Pascal said:
ComEd (my local electric company) just changed their online account information website. I had to choose and answer three of the below "Security Questions". I had to just make up answers to three of them. Do people really know these things?
In what city or town did your mother and father meet?
What was the last name of your third grade teacher?
What is your maternal grandmother’s maiden name?
What is the name of the place your wedding reception was held?
What is the name of a college you applied to but didn’t attend?What‽
I was concieved in-vitro, my mother never met my father!
I never went to school!!
My maternal grandmother is known only as "gramma", she has no "maiden" name!!!
I'm not married!!!!
I never went to college!!!!!I can't sign up for this‽‽
THISS.
ISS.
DISCRIMINATIONN!!!!!!
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@Pascal said:
ComEd (my local electric company) just changed their online account information website. I had to choose and answer three of the below "Security Questions". I had to just make up answers to three of them. Do people really know these things?
In what city or town did your mother and father meet?
What was the last name of your third grade teacher?
What is your maternal grandmother’s maiden name?
What is the name of the place your wedding reception was held?
What is the name of a college you applied to but didn’t attend?My mother and father met in ltbh uufy ejne oftf bfcc ctrl-A ctrl-C a, the last name of my third grade teacher was ctrl-V b, my maternal grandmother’s maiden name was ctrl-V c, my wedding reception was held at ctrl-V d, and I applied to but did not attend ctrl-V e. KeePass is a good thing.
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@Pascal said:
In what city or town did your mother and father meet?
What's really stupid is that all of these things are something a hacker with only the smallest knowledge of you (such as a social network contact) is just as likely to be able to find out about you, as you are. Eg. call/message someone in your family, saying they are arranging a "this is your life" party for you, or that there is going to be a school reunion and they wanted some background on all participants.
What was the last name of your third grade teacher?
What is your maternal grandmother’s maiden name?
What is the name of the place your wedding reception was held?
What is the name of a college you applied to but didn’t attend?
So yeah, I don't give straight answers to such stupid questions - usually I just use yet another pass phrase as the answer.
Oh, and since others are stating their problems with the individual questions;
1. They met while hiking in the Scottish wilderness (no not really, but they also didn't meet in a town of any kind, and I don't know what it was called since it was a secret military base [also not true, it wasn't a secret, I just don't know the name and don't want to ask them <probably not true either>]).
2. In the UK, we don't have "grade", and I never went to primary school anyway.
3. I will have to ask my relatives for a copy of the family tree, and hope they bothered to put such useless information as a woman's maiden name (traditionally at least, nobody cared, so the information may not even be on said family tree). More people than me have access to my family tree, and those could well be the people I don't want to trust with my bank account.
4. Every person who attended it will know that, and I'm fairly sure it's written in a number of public places, including a number of online galleries.
5. None. As for universities, that answer is already in public records, and most of my high school friends and enemies will know the answer.
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@TarquinWJ said:
3. I will have to ask my relatives for a copy of the family tree, and hope they bothered to put such useless information as a woman's maiden name (traditionally at least, nobody cared, so the information may not even be on said family tree).
Typically it would be her father's surname, and if that isn't on the family tree it'd be a pretty useless tree.
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@PJH said:
Typically it would be her father's surname, and if that isn't on the family tree it'd be a pretty useless tree.
On the first edition of the family tree that I saw, nobody cared about the maternal lines. Women were not deemed important. Only the paternal lines were followed. Even then, the last names were often wrong or missing. I know that someone in the family has a more complete tree, but I don't.
(Also, since half of my ancestral family doesn't talk to the other half, it would be very hard to obtain information about a specific person like that, if you didn't already have it in writing.
From a hacker's perspective, it may be a lot easier to sign up for a fake account with an ancestry website, and see if you can trick it into linking into someone's existing tree.
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@da Doctah said:
@Ben L. said:
ttttthhhhhiiiiisssss- Multiply this by five: 1601627.
C:\Windows\System32>perl6
> "this" x 5
thisthisthisthisthis
> "this" X "five"
this five
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@Pascal said:
What was the last name of your third grade teacher?
I feel bad for not remembering this. I spent two years in her class in order to sync up with the people my own age.
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The worst part about this is that even yahoo has managed to get this right, though their real 2-factor authentication isn't enabled by default.
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Insecurity questions?
"How does it make you feel when people you love criticise something you enjoy doing?"
"What do you think when someone doesn't reply to an email sent several days ago?"
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@Pascal said:
In what city or town did your mother and father meet?
What was the last name of your third grade teacher?
What is your maternal grandmother’s maiden name?
What is the name of the place your wedding reception was held?
What is the name of a college you applied to but didn’t attend?Ironically, the answer to all of these questions is: 3269E984-FC26-45AB-88BD-E73CA72071F4
But since that isn't funny, LET'S ANSWER!
1) My mother was an early adapter of "breeding lesbianism". She traveled to a place in Germany that isn't on the maps, and participated in a trail project of human poly-autogamy. I have no father in any biological sense. I literally have two mothers.
2) EduPsychoPod really doesn't have a last name. Or deal with grades. Or suffer those who fail.
3) Please be more specific. WHICH maternal grandmother? (See #1)
4) Legally, that's difficult. We were married aboard a super-sonic intercontinental ballistic rocket in high-earth orbit. The rocket's orbit was eccentric and had a wobble. In effect, our ceremony and reception occurred in the airspace of every single municipality, region, province/state and country in the world that recognizes marriage as a legal construct. It'll saved a lot of time and paperwork having our union recognized down the road as we move about / are forced to flee from the rising horrors we leave behind.
5) EduPsychoPod v2.0 (Higher Education Module) doesn't judge or reject me. It only teaches. And loves with its supple robotic hands.
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@Ronald said:
Are you trying to social engineer people on this forum?
note: in my case I know the answer to all questions. Last one is NOT WestPoint.
Is this the point where we name-drop colleges that we got into but declined to attend? Last one for me is Georgetown. Fucking assholes and their $500 scholarship can bite me.
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@Snooder said:
@Ronald said:
Are you trying to social engineer people on this forum?
note: in my case I know the answer to all questions. Last one is NOT WestPoint.
Is this the point where we name-drop colleges that we got into but declined to attend? Last one for me is Georgetown. Fucking assholes and their $500 scholarship can bite me.Parchman Farm (I have my lawyer to thank on that one)
