this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2026
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[–] Zwrt@lemmy.sdf.org 7 points 7 hours ago

You can also lie to security questions with joke answers only you understand.

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 8 points 12 hours ago
[–] WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 21 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

I use fingerprint technology.

It is so secure, I can't get in, 95% of the time!

[–] MehBlah@lemmy.world 7 points 8 hours ago

Don;t worry the it will work for the feds when they knock you unconscious and put your finger in the scanner.

[–] workerONE@lemmy.world 49 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Childhood friend: Z67!1pQ6fk9

[–] thermal_shock@lemmy.world 9 points 17 hours ago (1 children)
[–] architectonas@lemmy.world 5 points 13 hours ago (1 children)
[–] bearboiblake@pawb.social 19 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Instead of answering security questions honestly, you can treat them as just like another password field.

[–] architectonas@lemmy.world 2 points 13 hours ago

Ah, thnks for explaining!

[–] Etterra@discuss.online 20 points 18 hours ago (4 children)

That's why I never tell anyone that my first pet was named Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.

[–] MehBlah@lemmy.world 5 points 8 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Etterra@discuss.online 2 points 7 hours ago

Nah, just a smartass.

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 3 points 10 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Spezi@feddit.org 7 points 10 hours ago

It’s a village in Wales.

[–] Asinus@feddit.org 4 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

How do you pronounce the third "o"?

[–] JimVanDeventer@lemmy.world 3 points 16 hours ago

Welsh cat! Bapahdahbabapadahdah.

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 78 points 23 hours ago (4 children)

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.

[–] zaphod@sopuli.xyz 3 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

If you store it in your password manager alongside your password, what's even the point in having these questions?

[–] calcopiritus@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

In some places it is mandatory

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 6 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

... 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.

[–] zaphod@sopuli.xyz 1 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

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)?

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 2 points 12 hours ago

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.

[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 37 points 23 hours ago (3 children)

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.

[–] SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 4 points 13 hours ago

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).

[–] helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world 34 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

The name of my high school crush was "SnorkleBrewersExploringAsphaltBrowniePie" why do you ask?

[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 14 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

"Little Snorkly Pie, we called them."

[–] jaybone@lemmy.zip 8 points 18 hours ago

I said my name is Apostrophe Semi-colon DROP USERS.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 11 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

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.

[–] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (3 children)

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

[–] ReluctantMuskrat@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 hours ago

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.

[–] vaionko@sopuli.xyz 2 points 10 hours ago

For anything properly made the words are not stored in a format the service rep can read, they are hashed

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 7 points 19 hours ago

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.

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[–] betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world 18 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

My voice is my passport. Verify Me.

[–] probablymissing@lemmy.world 7 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

i am wearing a wire.

[–] 14th_cylon@lemmy.zip 22 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

you need to never use the "security questions" ever...

[–] zikzak025@lemmy.world 44 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

The security questions are often forced.

The trick is to make up answers. Have some go-tos or a pattern that only you know and no one else could guess with information from your life.

Why yes, I did grow up on AmazonFakeStreet. Oh, my spouse? MicrosoftSpouseName of course.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 8 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

so the funniest thing, we were sitting around at a family reunion. someone asked, so do we all use the same answers for our security questions? and uh, turns out we all do. same made up answers (everyone had the same favorite cat. whose favorite person was me awww yisss), but the same answers. and that moment we decided to update our security procedures.

[–] SLVRDRGN@lemmy.world 9 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

You get security questions asking you who your "favorite person" is?

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago

Hmm... SELECT * FROM Users WHERE SecurityResponse2 = "*Epstein"

[–] jaybone@lemmy.zip 4 points 18 hours ago

I bet Jesus is a popular answer.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 3 points 17 hours ago

It's the cat, yeah

[–] 14th_cylon@lemmy.zip 6 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

the trick is q'wdsjfaosdijgoasfgnsdk;jfavfghoiaerjhpguewrhjtiwuerth

never ever put any non-random information there.

i had a 70 year old guy getting divorced, because his wife of similar age "hacked" his email by entering name of their parrot and found out he is emailing with another 70 yo lady.

[–] zikzak025@lemmy.world 5 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (2 children)

Ideally you still want it to be something you'll remember, unless you're using a password manager capable of tracking those for you.

The mistake that guy made is that he still chose a name he had some attachment to. You want to make sure you choose something you have no attachment to whatsoever.

And then never reuse the same answer between different services, just in case one of them is storing them as plaintext.

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[–] Creat@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (3 children)

You can't even install Windows (local account) these days without answering 3 of these. If you ever click on one of the recovery options, you'll be asked for one of them.

My solution is usually to just randomly smash the keyboard for a while.

[–] FjordDan@lemmy.zip 3 points 12 hours ago

The worst about those is that they only give you 6 questions to choose from, and all of them are really bad as security questions.

They should have had a list of at least 20 to choose from. Preferably the ability to enter your own as well.

[–] MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 3 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

install Windows

Well... there's your problem. ;}

[–] Creat@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

No, cause it's at work and not my choice. It's also just one example of many. I don't run Windows on any of my own PCs any more.

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