Security

[firstfrost]

So, under ilhander's guidance, I got harrock a suit for his birthday, which was not at all recently, but I have been lame and scheduling the three of us for a shopping trip has been kind of slow. Anyway, they lured me into applying for a credit card with Large Discounts for the suit, which was kind of worth it. The card arrived in the mail, and I went to pay the bill on line. Creating my account with them involved:

1) Verifying my identity, with all the standard types of questions.
2) Choosing a password, with a different set of character restrictions than the usual password restrictions
3) Selecting three different Security Questions, each chosen from a different population of six (what street did my grandmother live on? I don't know!)
4) Choosing a personalized caption for the Security Image that they chose for me. I'm really confused by this one. It looks like when I log into their site again in the future, they will display this image and caption to me. For... reassurance? Really, I'm not reassured by them showing me an image they picked for me and a caption that I chose when I didn't know what it was for. Am I supposed to keep this image a Secret? Do I have to remember what it is?

Baffling.

Comments

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have several sites that require pictures now. Happily for me I can choose a theme and all of my pictures are related.

The security questions are a doozy. I just end up writing down the answers; I know someone else who uses the same answer for all of them.

[kirisutogomen.livejournal.com]

If you answer the security questions as expected, it's significantly less secure than any password that isn't "password123". Bruce Schneier says he answers security questions by just banging randomly on the keyboard, and that seems to me to be the most reasonable plan.

[countertorque.livejournal.com]

Is it that easy to figure out my mother's maiden name?