I havn't said anything about solving problems, only about using technology regardless of it making sense.

Oh yes, I get you!

Haven't fingerprints always been digital?

<Da-boom CHING!>

Big brother (Orwellian Division- not idiot box version) attitudes by government and more importantly private enterprise make it even more essential that we do our best to ensure that full correct pictures of ourselves are not created in data banks etc.

To that end ensure that you use 'cash' in making purchases, and put the wrong details down on surveys. For instance, I am a 17 year old ex Vietnam veteran with 8th Army experience in the Western Desert, with a helicopter licence, wear prosthetic limbs and my seeing eye dog has a hearing aid and castors. My interests include being a singing lumberjack, crocheting Battenberg cake cosies and skateboarding through the Vatican naked while reciting 'Sam Hall'. Other than this I am quite normal.

An interesting sort of inverted identity-theft?

Funny I was just talking to my brother about this the other day. He won't bank online and one of the reasons is those 'security questions' they ask now - he pointed out how easy it really is to find out that stuff - but I told him I already have fictitious answers to all of them.

I love calling my second grade teacher things like "Miss Creant" (and no that's not my security answer)...

I read an article on those two-tier log in systems. Apparently there is some sort of dorective that says banks should identify their customers in two different ways - eg type in your password (which only you should know) and then demonstrate that you have a random key code (which only you should have.) Or chip and pin.

But sending out chip readers, or random number generators are a bit expensive... and instead banks have decided to ask for your password (which only you should know) and your favourite colour (which only you should know... but other people can guess.)

ROb

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That statement is either so deep it would take a lifetime to fully comprehend every particle of its meaning, or it is a load of absolute tosh. Which is it, I wonder?
Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

Next time the someone from the bank asks you for info to prove who you are, ask them to prove who they are first.

If you are in a branch of the bank, then they are likely to be genuine, but otherwise......

So, here's what my brother had to say on his blog...

Any IT department that implements one of these “remind me of my password” systems is doing it for one simple reason: verifying someone’s identity is a difficult task. People forgetting their passwords and needing their credentials reset are a huge drain on IT departments - this sort of task (in any meaningful way) needs to be accomplished by someone trained to avoid social engineering techniques and know how to reasonably verify that someone is who they say they are. Most IT departments are strapped for resources as it is, they’re not going to do this job properly unless there is a real mandate to do it right.

I had a brother in IT years ago and he said many of his coworkers used passwords like 'unknown' or 'errors' or (shudder) rude words as they were less likely to be forgotten.

reminds me of a story where the password was 'I don't know' so if a person in the know was asked they answered correctly.

Unfortunately people using real words are the bane of any security system. Then in general, everything that the user community does is the bane of the security system, so that's alright, then, isn't it?

IT sections are often the bane of the profit making divisions.

They often get the idea that the system is more important than the product.

Isn't it?

Only when the auditors find a problem.

Heheh. Randomly generated passwords are the best. Using real words is a bit dodgey...

Generally, anything that can be found in a dictionary is a bad idea. Ideally you also want to mix in numbers and, if the system is case-sensitive, capital and lowercase letters. But you know all this. :P

__________________________________
'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

plus special characters (!"£$%^&*{}[])

Hmm... I sense a great disturbance in the force- Like a thousand braincells crying out for help, and then... Silence.

I fear Something Terrible Has Happened

A random thought: is a Big Mac (tm) only half bad?