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I had that exact thing with a bank last year.

Them: Can you confirm your mother's maiden name?

Me: Sure but just a second. I need to open my password manager because it's a long random string.

Them: Okay, that's good enough!

I reported that to their security and compliance team. Never heard back but moved my accounts from there.

I like to imagine that one day, after the Singularity, the super-intelligent AI overmind that society merges into will be able to resurrect me from the security answers I've left throughout the internet.

And all of the virtual reincarnations of all you security-minded suckers will be stuck thinking your mother's maiden name was X1r$9ox01.

aka Elon's descendants.

At one point I did the same, until I also had to read a long random string to a CSR over the phone. Now I use real-sounding fake answers.

I've found that goofy answers are both easy to remember / say, but impossible to guess.

Like, "what's your mother's maiden name?" "Lady with cheeto-colored hair." Or, "what street did you live on growing up?" "We liked to imagine it was the moon"

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