New iTunes security questions

I didn't ask to reset my password, I asked for help with resetting my security questions. The agent on the phone asked for my most recent purchased hardware item, and stated that if was beyond 90 days that she'd have to charge me to help me.

If you have different information on how I can get the security questions reset, I can't find it. Please help me out.

If they are charging customers to reset security questions, that is an obscene policy.

I don't have a problem answering a question - my issue is with the terrible questions we are forced to answer. They are too vague and subjective, and I'm not confident I'll remember how I initially answered them.

Take the "Where was your first job?" question, for instance. I may have worked at a restaurant called "Christopher's Pub" in the town of Springfield. I could answer that question:

Christopher's Pub

Christopher's

Christophers

restaurant

pub

the pub

Springfield

All of these are valid responses to the question.

To make things worse, maybe I worked at a Holiday Inn before that, but, because I only worked there for one month, I didn't remember that the first time the question was asked, yet that's the first thing that pops into my head the next time I'm asked the same question!

Apple needs to use their brains when they invent these questions to begin with.

This has been a peeve of mine for sometime ~ not security questions per se, but the idiotic questions I am forced to answer. I just sent this to Apple (don't know if it will do any good):

Security questions should NOT be based on favorites (which are subjective and can therefore change over time) or firsts (which often stretch back into childhood or adolescence, and are therefore difficult to associate with identical information each time the question is asked).

In a moment of stress, when I'm trying to restore an account, the last thing I need to be doing is trying to remember which girl in Junior High I kissed first, which teacher I despised the most, and which of the 12 cars I've owned was my least favorite (not to mention that I owned my least favorite cars for the shortest amount of time). Moreover, when I have to answer the questions, I need to worry:

Least favorite car: Did I type in "Chevy", "Nova", "Chevy Nova," or "Cheverlot"? (****, half the time I can't even spell "Cheverlot" correctly).

Least favorite teacher: Did I type "Jones", "Mr. Jones", or "Mr Jones"?

First kiss: Did I type "Elizabeth", or "Liz", or "Liz Hartmann"?

Ask me for something that never changes, like my brother's middle name. Yes, I realize, not everyone has a brother ~ but not everyone has a least favorite car, either.

These security questions are the most stupiest thing that from Apple. Hello, don't ask a teenager to setup those question. How I am going to remember where I were in Jan 1st 2000, I might still remember now but what about 2020?? Favorite car, after you have about 10-20 cars, your favorite one probably got change 10 times. So stupid... Apple is so rich, just issue everyone a RSA token or something to increase security like the banks. Or just do a phone SMS confirmation. 😠😠

Trying to buy a "free" app today, I got hit with having to set these security questions as well -- only one I have an answer too. Tried ???? for all the rest and the answers can't be the same. Like everyone else, I am expecting this to be a problem if I alternate with ???, don't know, can't remember, etc. Then, one day when I need to verify these questions -- guess what, I won't remember what I put. I skipped getting the app. I wonder if app providers have noticed a dip in sales -- hopefully, and hopefully they will trigger getting Apple to change this or at least allow users to create their own questions.

This is crazy for all the reasons listed above.

There must be a way to set your own questions.

I will not purchase itunes content until this is fixed.

Idiots

also check out the following link

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3885304?start=45&tstart=0

There folks are planning on letting apple know of their displeasure with the new security actions.

I did write to apple... see my prior posts for their (apple) reply.

The questions are not supposed to make sense - and you are not supposed to be able to derive the answer from memory.

This is tight security.

An example:

Q:What was your first car?

A:TootsieRoll2ql

You need to write your Q and A down and store it off line.

Apple is going to make sure you do not get hacked.

I like it. It protects my credit card and my devices.

Welcome to the new age...

Or, if you have a Mac, you can store the Qs & As as a secure note in Keychain Access, which is a secure app that comes free on all Macs specifically to store passwords and other information securely and safely. The Keychain Access app is protected by your master user account password.

Professional? Hardly. If they want a string of passwords, why not ask you make up three sets of passwords? To ask stupid and irrelevant questions a 20 year-old might remember is not professional.

BTW, in all the years I have been using online commerce, the single site that had ever been had my account hacked and used fraudulently has been the iTunes store. And it was not hacked by breaking a password.

The questions are dumb. Most sites that do this allow you to create your own questions, and give good suggestions on the types of questions to use and to avoid. I can dream up much more obscure and intimate questions and answers that no one else could ever know.

Hello, this is Apple Support.

Hi, uh, I forgot my password.

Sure, we will reset it for you. Actually, you have three passwords. Do you remember them?

No.

OK. We just need you to answer your security question. What is today's date?

Uh, like today maybe or whatever is on the calender dude.

Thanks, that is the correct answer. Your password is reset and your credit card is ready to be charged for as many purchases at iTunes as you can make.

We can tell from our end using a Crystal Ball that you are not using a lost or stolen device, that there is no credit card fraud involved, and that you are not trying to use identy theft in your effort to enjoy our services.

We go out of our way to protect our customers and their payment methods.

Thanks for calling Apple.

Make sense?

So you advocate, for purposes of advanced security, impersonal questions, for which you have a mixed alphanumeric answer, which is WRITTEN DOWN?

Now, I can't be the only one thinking that is entirely contradictory?!

Whoever wrote those dump questions and the management team who authorized this stupid quesiton should get fired.

Where did I kiss first, Who is my favorite this and that. I dont even remember what I had for my breakfast this morning. They will soon start asking when was it last time you went to toilet. what was the weight of the biggest sh.t has Apple ever made. The answer is same for all questions.

The issue is not whether or not improved security is good or not, but the manner in which Apple is attempting to impose a half-baked approach as some sort of knee-jerk reaction. These sort of human interface issues are remarkably things that Apple has never been desparately good at. I have so far written two notes to the Itunes Store support people in the hope of a message getting through the nerds to someone who actually understands how people think. I am not sure that this has succeeded. I attach below the text of both my emails, in reverse order:

The most recent is as follows:

The general approach is sensible. Dictating people's questions is the issue. I await the next iteration of Apple's approach with interest.

If you have any means of passing messages to the people leading this particular initiative, I would recommend to their attention the review of the actions at Netscape which impacted on customer loyalty & resulted in a cascade of reaction that saw Microsoft's Internet Explorer become more popular as a consequence. Also the work of Dr. Peter Sandman on outrage. Your "technical" people will be following an imperative of "improved security is good & in everyone's obvious best interests and therefore must prevail". In the real world, the people who choose whether or not to be your customers, and the more or less supportive attitudes that they have, will be impacted by what they see as inappropriate forced compliance.

In its present form this is a doomed and damaging approach. I suggest that Apple should review and change it very soon

The first was as follows:

I am being asked to select questions and supply answers in order to be allowed to make any further purchases. The questions provided are contrived and inapplicable. You have created a barrier to my use of iTunes that will now stop all further purchases from me & I will switch to the competition, who do not subject me to this.

Please stop this objectionable initiative and let me continue to purchase as I had been doing previously.

As a PR initiative, this one really *****. People will look back at this initiative as the turning point where Apple's ecosystem began to lose momentum - you cannot afford to turn people off in this manner.

Please take heed and find a better way of improving security.

PS I don't want to be told why this is good for me - I just want you to stop applying it to me.