3 ms·

My "birthday" is January 1, 1970 (an homage to unix) for any database/system inappropriately asking. This way they don't have my data to leak or abuse, but I st

My "birthday" is January 1, 1970 (an homage to unix) for any database/system inappropriately asking. This way they don't have my data to leak or abuse, but I still know what I specified if I'm asked to verify it.

Ancient 4y ago
I always use January 1st {Birth Year} (easy to remember) but I like this now too. Thanks
- kgwxd 4y ago
  That's still accurate enough for their goals though. I put random very old dates and just keep DOBs noted in my password manager.
katla 4y ago
I might just start doing the same. Thanks! :)
LeifCarrotson 4y ago
At 00:00:00 UTC, I assume? I don't expect there's any reason for them to divide by a datetime...but one can hope that some ad server somewhere has crashed as a result. My go-to birthday has always been January 1st of the year I was actually born. That way it doesn't raise any eyebrows if I want to convert something to a real account or interact with real people, but it fails verification if they mishandle my credentials. That's worked great, except that one time when I inadvertently booked a flight on united.com (who should have my actual birthday, with whom I'd flown internationally several times before) with a session token or something set by a random travel search engine to whom I had given my fake January 1st birthday and then (I thought) abandoned before picking a different flight. Customs had pointed questions about the authenticity of my passport and driver's license, because their system showed that my documents should be different and they couldn't tell me why... They eventually let me back into the country, but that was not fun.
- vanilla_nut 4y ago
  Even better, if it ever ends up mattering -- say, at a border crossing -- you have plausible deniability. "Oh, that's the first Unix epoch timestamp, must be a bug in the system." Not sure how much it would help at a border crossing... but with any kind of tech support it would immediately elicit a chuckle.
  - b800h 4y ago
    What, you reckon first or second line tech support would recognise that as the Unix epoch?
    - vanilla_nut 4y ago
      tech support at any level could likely web search for it and confirm it quickly. But maybe i'm being a smidge optimistic :-)
incomingpain 4y ago
This is brilliant. Thanks!
valbaca 4y ago
Or, go with December 31, 1969 just to test their system. A little mini-bobby tables.
alias_neo 4y ago
My go-to for the same reason.

Ancient 4y ago

I always use January 1st {Birth Year} (easy to remember) but I like this now too. Thanks

kgwxd 4y ago
That's still accurate enough for their goals though. I put random very old dates and just keep DOBs noted in my password manager.

katla 4y ago

I might just start doing the same. Thanks! :)

LeifCarrotson 4y ago

At 00:00:00 UTC, I assume? I don't expect there's any reason for them to divide by a datetime...but one can hope that some ad server somewhere has crashed as a result. My go-to birthday has always been January 1st of the year I was actually born. That way it doesn't raise any eyebrows if I want to convert something to a real account or interact with real people, but it fails verification if they mishandle my credentials. That's worked great, except that one time when I inadvertently booked a flight on united.com (who should have my actual birthday, with whom I'd flown internationally several times before) with a session token or something set by a random travel search engine to whom I had given my fake January 1st birthday and then (I thought) abandoned before picking a different flight. Customs had pointed questions about the authenticity of my passport and driver's license, because their system showed that my documents should be different and they couldn't tell me why... They eventually let me back into the country, but that was not fun.

vanilla_nut 4y ago
Even better, if it ever ends up mattering -- say, at a border crossing -- you have plausible deniability. "Oh, that's the first Unix epoch timestamp, must be a bug in the system." Not sure how much it would help at a border crossing... but with any kind of tech support it would immediately elicit a chuckle.
- b800h 4y ago
  What, you reckon first or second line tech support would recognise that as the Unix epoch?
  - vanilla_nut 4y ago
    tech support at any level could likely web search for it and confirm it quickly. But maybe i'm being a smidge optimistic :-)

incomingpain 4y ago

This is brilliant. Thanks!

valbaca 4y ago

Or, go with December 31, 1969 just to test their system. A little mini-bobby tables.

alias_neo 4y ago

My go-to for the same reason.