Are we TOO secure?

This week I will be changing online banks. I don't want to. The bank I am leaving provides excellent service at good prices. They are large and established and I trust them. As a company, I would deal with them with confidence for years.

But I can't log in to my account.

It's those damn security questions everybody wants you to answer these days. They frustrate me to no end and I always end up wondering if it is possible that I could be that much different than everyone else around me. Do people really actually truly have fixed answers to these obscure queries? In most cases I do not.

What is your favorite color?

When I was a child I played favorites with all of the other children. Not far into adolescense I decided that having favorites was limiting, so I tried to open up my mind to be more flexible. I can possibly tell you what color appeals to me this morning, but I would not have a clue what color I was enjoying six months ago when I was forced to log an answer to that question while filling out a security question screen.

What is your favorite sports team?

I like golf and tennis and swimming and Olympic sports. I don't have any favorite team. Am I really alone in this? Apparently so.

Even when they get away from the dreaded favorites and try to ask questions with specific answers, I am still in trouble.

What was the name of your elementary school?

Which one? We moved to three different states when I was in elementary school. Perhaps they are asking for my favorite elementary school. Oh oh, I didn't have one.

What is the name of your favorite teacher?

Here, I almost have an answer! My second grade teacher was a great influence who helped inspire a love of learning. But wait, I had her in both second and fourth grades, and she got married while I was in third (I am not making this up), so she had two different names. Once again we have no single fixed answer.

What is the name of your best childhood friend?

Forget it. Lots of friends, not one comes to memory as "best", all great. What is this fascination with ranking things. Do people really live in this Highlander mindset where in every category "There Can Be Only One"? Perhaps I am actually a space alien and don't know it. It appears my brain does not function like those of the humans around me.

What is the name of your favorite movie?

Oh PLEASE give me a break here! How is one supposed to choose between classics like Die Hard I, II, or III?

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Most companies do give you a list of security questions and ask you to select the ones you want to use. I frantically scroll down the list looking for the only two I know I can answer:

What is your mother's maiden name?
What is your father's middle name?

Got 'em! Whew!! Two questions with fixed answers that never change. However, apparently those are too easy for a determined hacker to figure out through research, so they look for "soft" questions with answers that only exist in your head. Good. I understand the reason for those other questions, but I definitely do not like the questions they give.

In the case of the bank I am leaving, they require you have six of their obscure questions answered in your customer profile, then they pick three randomly out of a hat and demand answers to all three periodically or you are locked out of your account. I am locked out because I keep getting one wrong, and they don't tell you which one. So I am condemned to spending an hour on the phone with a helpful voice from Bangalore proving my identity seventeen different ways so I can get the block removed, after which I'm not sure I'll be able to log in anyway because next time I still might get one of the answers wrong again.

Hey! How about letting me define my own questions? Trust me to come up with stuff that cannot be Googled up from public records. Let me define both the question and the answer, and we are golden!

What is the name of the person you first had sex with, not in the Bill Clinton sense, but the "all-the-way, now you're going to hell" kind?

That seems a practical question for anyone but a Bill Clinton type, for whom the list is so long that the beginning may be forgotten.

What kind of weapon was in the hand of the first person who seriously thought about killing you, but didn't?

(Trust me, you don't forget that.)

What was the amount of the bet the time you won $500 on a slot machine in Las Vegas?

If this has happened to you more than once I hate you and you don't deserve my sympathy.

What kind of security question do you find the most frustrating?

Gee... I think that last one is my favorite.