Questionable Security Questions

One of my friends sent me a Facebook invitation. After poking around a bit, I finally signed up. Every time I log in, there’s an annoying message at the top of the screen telling me that I have to pick my Security Question. This morning I actually looked at the questions. Sometimes I wonder what these sites are thinking. They want you to pick a question, but most of them are based on subjective facts that could very well change in the future.

Some of the questions I have to choose from on Facebook are:

1. What was the name of your first stuffed animal? I don’t even remember my stuffed animals even having names. Ok, I lied — the only one that does is the one John and I made at Build-A-Bear (because you name them as a part of the process), but I completely forgot about that until just now. See what I mean?
2. What time were you born? This is a fact, but do many people either know this or remember it correctly? I’ve recently discovered that the birth time I remember has drifted by two minutes from the correct one, which would mean that my answer to the question would be wrong.
3. What is your least favorite nickname? I have exactly two nicknames; one that is used exclusively by my husband and one that is used exclusively by a friend of ours. If I pick my least favorite of the two (sorry Brian) and someone nicknames me something that I hate later, will I remember that that one isn’t really my least favorite the one time five years from now when I need my account reset?

I’ve seen even worse questions on financial websites, you know — where being able to log in is really important. If you’re writing security questions, don’t ever ask about someone’s favorite anything, because favorites change. Ask about obscure facts — but nothing so obscure that they’ll never remember it (like their first grade teacher).

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