this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2026
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I mean, I just feed security questions as a randomly generated string- password managers will even save that string so you don’t have to remember it.
If you store it in your password manager alongside your password, what's even the point in having these questions?
In some places it is mandatory
... that's an excellent question.
Frankly, even if you don't... what's the point? if you can crack the password, you can probably crack the secret question. or questions.
if you can social engineer a password, same with secret questions.
They're basically just a second passwords. possibly one of many passwords with a prompt.
I'm not even sure how I would store the answers to these questions in a database. Would you hash them like passwords or just store them in plain text (maybe encrypt them, but if someone has access to your servers they can probably access the encryption key too)?
many passwords allow you to store pass keys (like with crypto wallets) as hashes attached to any login credentials. I would suggest storing them that way. at worst, I used to create secondary credentials.
Yeah, it's a little silly if you end up on the phone having to say it to a service rep, but it's better than what's otherwise basically security theater.
I once spent about five minutes explaining my email over the phone — which email has just a handful of letters, but in a weird sequence. Can't imagine having to dictate a random password.
Reminds me of the time when our office got corporate debit cards for everyone, and one dude had his security phrase be eight letters ‘Q’ (or more specifically, a sorta connective letter that can only be at the end of syllables in our language).
The name of my high school crush was "SnorkleBrewersExploringAsphaltBrowniePie" why do you ask?
"Little Snorkly Pie, we called them."
I said my name is Apostrophe Semi-colon DROP USERS.
I enjoy singing "oh ricky you're so fine, you're so fine you blow my mind hey ricky [clap clap] hey ricky [clap clap]" at the service rep and i told them that if i don't sing it or clap that i have failed the security challenge.
it's the answer to what was the color of my first car.
I feel like maybe someone could convince people over the phone to give them access if they explained correctly that the fields have random strings and roughly how they are formatted, but claim to have forgotten what they are
In a properly secure system the rep can't see the code but must type it in to get to your data. If they can get to it without your secret, they can be tricked into supplying it or may abuse their access themselves.
If they're doing it that way then it's dumb for these to be questions about your life because the point of that is to make it things that people will definitely be able to remember, but realistically you're only going to remember the answer in general, not necessarily the specific wording or how the answer was formatted.
For anything properly made the words are not stored in a format the service rep can read, they are hashed
You could convince a cs rep to open it with a sob story and a fake sniffle.
Fortunately, most places have gone away from giving CS repels that kind of access.
Or random word(s): easier to tell a service agent.