Remember when you could just use a fake birthday online?

Back in 2012, I kept getting locked out of a forum for 'suspicious activity' because I used my real info. I started putting in a totally made-up name and birth date, like 'John Smith, born July 4th, 1985', for every new sign-up. It worked for years and cut down on the spam and weird password reset emails to my main account. Has anyone else found that old-school lying is still a decent first layer of defense?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_sam4d agoTop Commenter

Yeah, that "first layer of defense" line is exactly it. I still do the fake birthday thing, but now I go a step further and use a totally wrong answer for those dumb security questions. My first pet's name isn't something a data leak can find, it's "Spaghetti Monster" or whatever nonsense I typed that day. Makes account recovery a pain, but at least it's my pain to manage.

jamie8044d ago

That "my pain to manage" part is where you lose me, @the_sam. Using total nonsense for security questions just sets you up to get locked out for good. A consistent fake answer you can remember is way safer than random jokes that you'll forget. The goal is to stop hackers, not yourself.

nguyen.angela4d ago

My "consistent fake answer" is just me forgetting the joke I made.