One of the more pointless efforts to "secure" online accounts are the "security questions," in which system administrators ask pointless questions such as "What is your favorite candy?" and store the answer. Of course, this all presupposes that two years later I remember the answer that I give today; not only do my favorite foods change over time, but I don't even have a favorite candy. All this is done in lieu of real security, but frankly your bank is unwilling to spend the money to actually secure your account.
Your mother's maiden name and your social security number is recorded in dozens if not hundreds of different databases. I know of security professionals that choose a different mother's maiden name for each entity that demands it. I do, too.
I have my own little ways to answer these other bogus security questions, but apparently Yahoo/Flickr has caught on to the methods that I and apparently many others use to get past the nonsense — and Yahoo/Flickr won't let me register for a new Yahoo/Flickr account unless I follow their strict rules for answering security questions. It's hard to imagine, but even though they offer a free account the cost in aggravation is too high, and I've decided to look for a photo-sharing site that doesn't require such obnoxious security measures. Not to mention, of course, that I have no intention of creating a database just to record my bogus answers to their bogus security quetsions.
Topics: · security
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