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Comment by cedaratlas | Hacker News Reader

Better than the SS administration who ask "Where were you when 9/11 happened" or "Where were you when JFK was assassinated"...Took a screenshot of these but cant find it now. My method is picking the common questions like "what street did you grow up on" and assigning it a random/not true/or another question such as "I don't know what my favorite street is"

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These are so called "security questions" for that account; the great grandparent is talking about "knowledge-based authentication," which is a different thing entirely.

The "security questions" you choose your answers, in "knowledge-based authentication" the questions and answers are generated based on the information on your credit reports and other databases, such as insurance databases. You don't make up answers, they already know the answers.

> Static KBA, also referred to as "shared secrets" or "shared secret questions", is commonly used by banks, financial services companies and e-mail providers to prove the identity of the customer before allowing account access or, as a fall-back, if the user forgets their password.

Wikipedia refers to "security questions" as "Static KBA".

Speaking of the SS Administration, I ran into an annoyance with them when trying to get a replacement SS card. They would not accept any ID for which the name did not exactly match the name in the records.

So, for example, if you always went by "Ron Weasley", having your driver's license , your utility bills, your apartment lease, your animagus registration, and so on all under that name, but your name in their records was "Ronald Weasley", you would be out of luck.

I often use "None Of Your Business Street." Works every time.

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