Memory attack

If you've been online long enough, you accumulate a host of account sign-on names and passwords that make your head reel. I've begun keeping my passwords and sign-on names in a special file rather than a yellow sticky but, of course, that is subject to loss, theft, and compromise in which case a clever thief would be able to access all my accounts.

One of the things that online service providers have come up with that supposedly helps is the "three question" procedure. In this procedure, you answer three questions ahead of time, questions that very few people would know about you. The company records both your selected question and your "official" answer. Then, if you ever lose or lose the memory of your password, you can answer one or more of the three questions and get a new password on line without having to wait for a mailed password or a human interrogation. This is really no different from the old "mother's maiden name" question and response except that it goes much deeper. And therein lies my concern.

For example I recently logged onto the Kaiser Permanente web page to make an appointment with my doctor. I was presented with a brand new page and logon procedure that I hadn't seen before. No autofill was allowed, nor could the machine "remember me" for this website. But the biggest difference was that they wanted me to select three questions and give them the "official" answers to these questions.

For my first question I could choose from

• What did your maternal grandfather do for a living?
• What is the name of your favorite book?
• If you could choose a new first name, what would it be?
• Who was your favorite musical artist in high school?
• What is your favorite author's last name?

At my age, my favorite book changes every other week as does my favorite author, I can't think why I would change my first name, and I had half a dozen favorite musical artists in high school. These questions are so "wiggly" that I'd be afraid to pick them. Fortunately, they also include questions such as

• What is your maternal grandfather's first name?
• What is your mother's middle name?
• In what city was your mother born?
• etc.

The second question wasn't much better with questions such as:

• Who is your favorite historical person?
• Who is the most famous person you've ever met?
• What was your first pet's name?
• What is your all-time favorite movie?

I'm afraid I'd have to keep track of these questions and answers as much as I keep track of passwords. The third list is maybe even worse:

• What was your first grade teacher's last name?
• Who is your favorite fictional character?
• At your first job, what was your boss's last name?
• What was your favorite teacher's last name?

How do you do on answering the "secret questions"?