Hacker News Reader

Comment by pingou | Hacker News Reader

I'm a bit surprised so many people would put real information as answer to their secret question, and I'm surprised a lot of websites offer this alternative to log in without knowing the password, it seems like a big security hole to me.

View on HN

Well, I remember once needing to use that function to recover a password I had forgotten. If i hadn't put real information as an answer to the question, I'm not sure how I would have been capable of answering it..

I used to make up answers.. and was bit by not knowing.

Now I associate a friend I grew up with the site and fill it out as if I was them. Now I can say "ING -> Mike" and I know which Mike and what their info is but it doesn't mean anything to anyone else.

I make up a single fake answer for every secret question out there and always use that one.

This will not help you if a si8te storing your secret answer in plain text is hacked (most likely setup if a phone call can reset your password). Then the attacker will have your secret answer for every site you use.

Hehe do you lose your passwords quite often? Perhaps you could try remembering Them..

No I don't but just in case. The point is to have something secret that only you know and other people can't google or guess it (dob, first school, etc..)

Ill start doing that. Just in case.

I like obscure spiritual questions and answers myself.

And now that I've said this on a public forum (a little googling is all it takes to identify me) I will have to change it to something more obscure...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com