3 ms·

Lie about which is your sign. If the bad guy knows your birthday, they will guess the wrong sign.

astura 8y ago
They already know the answer from your credit report and other databases... If you answer incorrectly then you get denied opening a bank account online and you'd have to jump through extra hoops, either going to a branch or mailing documents.
thetrumanshow 8y ago
And now you have to keep all of your lies straight.
- nothrabannosir 8y ago
  Absolutely; use a password manager. This is the least bad way to go for these types of "security questions": give a plausible, but wrong, answer. Correct is too easy to guess. Obviously wrong will be recognised by the customer service representative, who is a kind person, and will help you out by just disabling the question (anecdotes galore for this, to the point we can call it data). Lie, in a believable way. Put the answer in a password manager. Open your password manager up before calling any CS rep. Be a star in the security theatre. :)
  - yorwba 8y ago
    Password managers solve the storage part of making security questions secure, but there's still the question of generating sufficiently random answers in the correct format. I look forward to password managers including generators for your birth date, family tree, childhood friends, favorite color and maybe also social security number, name and address if those aren't actually required for anything. Then you can have a value for your mother's maiden name that isn't incredibly common, but nonetheless looks like an actual person's name.
  - nkrisc 8y ago
    I save my security questions in a password manager and just generate it. Though I've thought about instead giving answers that would serve as a message to customer service rep to actually validate it in cases of someone trying to impersonate me. Q: Where were you on New Year's Eve in 1999? A: demand-exact-answer-over-phone
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Someday someone will write a password manager equivalent for keeping track of one's lies.
- basch 8y ago
  They arent asking you questions they dont know. They will ask you questions about the color of your car or streets you lived on, and they know the answers.
wyldfire 8y ago
This is one of those questionnaires that is generated based on your credit report and other items related to you identity. So it's extrapolated from your birthdate and probably makes it ever-so-mildly more difficult for robots to get it right than it would if it just asked for your birthdate.

They already know the answer from your credit report and other databases... If you answer incorrectly then you get denied opening a bank account online and you'd have to jump through extra hoops, either going to a branch or mailing documents.

thetrumanshow 8y ago

And now you have to keep all of your lies straight.

nothrabannosir 8y ago
Absolutely; use a password manager. This is the least bad way to go for these types of "security questions": give a plausible, but wrong, answer. Correct is too easy to guess. Obviously wrong will be recognised by the customer service representative, who is a kind person, and will help you out by just disabling the question (anecdotes galore for this, to the point we can call it data). Lie, in a believable way. Put the answer in a password manager. Open your password manager up before calling any CS rep. Be a star in the security theatre. :)
- yorwba 8y ago
  Password managers solve the storage part of making security questions secure, but there's still the question of generating sufficiently random answers in the correct format. I look forward to password managers including generators for your birth date, family tree, childhood friends, favorite color and maybe also social security number, name and address if those aren't actually required for anything. Then you can have a value for your mother's maiden name that isn't incredibly common, but nonetheless looks like an actual person's name.
- nkrisc 8y ago
  I save my security questions in a password manager and just generate it. Though I've thought about instead giving answers that would serve as a message to customer service rep to actually validate it in cases of someone trying to impersonate me. Q: Where were you on New Year's Eve in 1999? A: demand-exact-answer-over-phone
TeMPOraL 8y ago
Someday someone will write a password manager equivalent for keeping track of one's lies.
basch 8y ago
They arent asking you questions they dont know. They will ask you questions about the color of your car or streets you lived on, and they know the answers.

wyldfire 8y ago

This is one of those questionnaires that is generated based on your credit report and other items related to you identity. So it's extrapolated from your birthdate and probably makes it ever-so-mildly more difficult for robots to get it right than it would if it just asked for your birthdate.