October 10, 2008 →
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I tried to log into my AT&T Wireless account this morning. (I wasn’t exactly dying to find out how much I’d spend in London, but…)

After login, I was prompted to choose “account security questions”. Here’s a screengrab highlighting two of the questions:

The idea behind security questions is that, if you were ever to forget your actual account password, you might be able to retrieve it by answering these questions to which (supposedly) only you know the answers.

My issue with the security question approach is that it doesn’t completely solve the problem of forgotten passwords. Each drop down prompts you with a choice between five questions. Some questions (like the “pet” one) don’t have any meaning in my life. I’ve never had pets. If I make something up, I’m bound to forget the answer to the secret question later. Other questions are too “loose”. The answer to the “country” question might change in the next couple of weeks: a) i might visit the country or b) some other country might take its place.

On top of all this, it’s created more work for me and wasted quite a lot of time. Frustating.

Tags: design