Open sesame

[libertango]

The shifting sands of cultural assumptions and security. (Let alone, how long it takes for someone to a) notice and b) do something.) jaylake tweets:

"what's weird about the 'Mother's maiden name' as a default security word is that many of us have divorced mothers who use their maiden name"

It's genius -- once you say it out loud, it's obvious.

Comments

[jaylake.livejournal.com]

There's a lot weird in that idea actually, including the semantics of "maiden name".

Maiden

[(Anonymous)]

So does their name change when they grow out of "maidenhood?"

All security questions are terrible when everyone uses the same one. Just like passwords, one piece of information is the key to too many doors.

[(Anonymous)]

I recall back in dinosaur days, the life of moms before they were mrs was all unrecorded secrets. In my childhood that word was a secure secret. Now in retirement she's using it again, along with her third married name.

While I'm stuck with her second married name (her professional publications name), never having changed it since my second dad took me on. That's MY maiden name, and I'm married. It's nice having a name that begins with A, you get to be at the front of the alpha lists. (That's right, Maryread Abook.) We only use my husband's name when we want to spell it out. My son carries my mother's maiden name and his father's name, and I'm the only one who spends much time getting into places where my name can be googled, so I don't know what he does for security.

Isn't this always less complicated for boys? under the patronymic system? They give you a name, you got a name, that's it. If men had to go change all their ID and credit cards and social security account etc whenever they got married, well, that would be a different country.

[maryread.livejournal.com]

who signed me out? dammit

sorry

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Once Jay pointed it out it was amazing. I have the problem with hometown too. There's the town I was born in, but we didn't live there, we lived on a farm nearby. For Oklahoma values of nearby. There's the town I spent the ages 8-18 in, but I hate it with a passion and have no desire to claim it as my own. And I've lived in so manyplaces since. I have no town that I have the kind of resonance with that hometown implies. And heck, I'm from the generation where those cultural assumptions were invented.

MKK