Q: Forced Apple ID security questions for App store - why?

There are two choices here; secure your account or purchase somewhere else. Just as much as you rant about how much you don'y want to participate to keep the account safe, we also get the folks who rant when their account gets hacked. So Apple gets it coming and going and we get the rants. This isn't a place to rant, this is a tech support forum where folks are supposed to ask for help solving a technical issue.

You opened your account just today. Your first post is to come here and rant. You just agreed today not to rant when you opened the account.

Then I suppose you are the one that is not smart enough to understand what people want and keep ranting about their rantings here. Did anyone say anything about not wanting some added security? All that we are complaining about is the nonsense questions they ask. Imagine if somebody asks you "who was your first same sex partner?" when you don't have one. How would you answer that? What we don't understand is why apple wouldn't just allow us to set up our own security questions but ask a set of questions that don't apply to everybody. and since this is a place that people help other people, if you can't help, i suppose you should refrain yourself from ranting in this place.

Although I was not going to return to this discussion I do find the:

"secure your account or purchase somewhere else"

view slightly irritating.

The problem is that (like any closed markets) users become tied-in to the App Store.  I have been using the App Store since September 2008 - and still use a couple of the apps I purchased way back then. I was very tempted when my phone contract last came up for renewal to go the Lumia/Windows route, but chose not to because of my heavy investment in existing iOS apps.

I *could* jailbreak my phone and only buy future iOS apps from non-approved sources, but (apart from not wanting to invalidate my Apple Support agreement) one of the positive security aspects of a closed market is that it decreases the chance of inadvertently installing malware.

The issue here that Apple appear not to have addressed is that forcing users to choose from a restrictive range of security questions does not suit everyone, either because of their age (me, I'm too old to remember most of these things!), culture, personal lifestyle etc. The only option people then have, if they are unable to choose their own questions where they can remember the answers, is to make a note of these security answers elsewhere. And that decreases rather than increases security for these users.

Well said, I get a feeling Apple did not think this through and could have done it in a different way. Lets see if they fix the problem because the questions are not going to be ones that I will remember out right, Question and Answer should be something that you make up and is related to your life, this kind of security can be prone to problems.

Folks, it's not just that I now need to remember three things from my life. I must remember the keystrokes I used to answer ofr these memorable events. Is my first car VW or 1975 VW or VW Fastback or Blue VW or what? This is just a lot of extra work just to keep attached to the App Store. Yes, I will write them down (and save them in Norton Identity Safe). No, I don't fell more secure, just more frustrated. All I wanted to do was buy a $2 app, not continue to wrestle with Apple

After scouring through the Terms of Service, I found you to be lying.  Nowhere in the ToS does it state I need to put on a false smile and mask my opinion on one of their products.  Nowhere does it state "no ranting". 

And if it was against the ToS, you'd be as in much trouble as I would.  The only reason Apple would say "no ranting" is for the fear of scaring away future customers and current customers.  You have done that time and time again with your comments.  After looking through your profile, I have found that not only have you been rude and unhelpful here, but in almost all your posts!  Your attitude toward someone asking for help is inflamatory and spiteful.

Furthermore, you are ignorantly stubborn!  If you actually read my prior comment, you'd see that there is no way I can answer these questions.  It's not a matter of whether I want to or not, it's a matter of whether I can or not.  And as I stressed before, I cannot.  But you seem to be overlooking that fact and clinging to your argument that everyone else is wrong and what you say is fact.

As you said, "this is a tech support forum where folks are supposed to ask for help solving a technical issue".  Then isn't your job to help said person?  You are not helping.

To conclude, if you're not going to add anything helpful, please refrain from commenting and making yourself seem more of a fool in the eyes of others.  Your ever-so-helpful comments are no longer needed here.

Some of what is going on here is that some of you are in the wrong forum complaining. This forum is for the Mac App Store, apps for Mac computers. So the conversations here are about apps for Mac computers and the Mac App Store itself. If you have wandered in here to rant about something other than the Mac App Store you are complaining in the wrong forum. No one here has any apps associated with the Mac App Store dating from 2006 because the Mac App Store was introduced in JAN 2011. Since this is the Mac App Store forum, about apps for Macs, everyone should have a Mac. All Macs have an easy to use app in the Apps/Utilities folder named Keychain Access. It is simple to create notes in Keychain Access that are secured by your user account's master password, the same password the folks use everyday for a number of things in their Mac's user account. Once you create your security questions and answers, you can create a secure note in Keychain Access with both the questions and answers, even if the answers that you decide on are completely fictitious. It takes five minutes tops to make this secure note and name it Mac App Store Security Questions. Blam, you're done. No little pieces of paper to hide, no unsecure notes on your Mac, accessible on the rare occasions that the Mac App Store checks the security of your account by asking you for the answer to one or two of the questions that you have chosen.

And as a bit of side security, if your answers are actually fictitious, then folks who may know a lot about you, would be hard pressed to come up with the answers.

Again, if you are here to complain about something other than the security questions for the Mac App Store, you are in the wrong forum.

Writing down the answers to security questions goes against the whole point of them, to further improve your account security.  Writing it down actually increases the security risk.  And making up fictional answers?  Are you kidding me?  Other then writing it down, how am I supposed to remember the answers?  As I said before, writing it down is not a helpful solution.

You have shown time and time again you are incapable of solving this issue.  So again I will ask you to leave if you have no more "helpful" comments. 

How does writing them down go against the whole point? No one else would be able to get your answers without breaking into your home and stealing your notepad.

After scouring through the Terms of Service, I found you to be lying.  Nowhere in the ToS does it state I need to put on a false smile and mask my opinion on one of their products.  Nowhere does it state "no ranting".

Submissions

1. Stay on topic. Apple Support Communities is here to help people use Apple products and technologies more effectively. Unless otherwise noted, do not add Submissions about nontechnical topics, including:
   1. Speculations or rumors about unannounced products.
   2. Discussions of Apple policies or procedures or speculation on Apple decisions.

You are free to have whatever opinion you wish about anyone who participates here. Your comments are quite abusive and insulting. You are free to think that mine don't help, but you don't determine who can and who cannot comment in this thread.

"If your not smart enough to understand, I am not the one to explain it to you." - Dahveed

You have no power here. You have no right to ask anyone to leave.

You have been given a secure way to remember the questions and their answers by using a secure app on your Mac. It is for things like this that app was created and included on your Mac.

What I was trying to say here is that your "help" is not needed.  Comments such as "If your not smart enough to understand, I am not the one to explain it to you" are not helpful, and are as you say: "quite abusive and insulting". 

Are you claiming that the majority of your comments here abide by:

Submissions

1. Stay on topic. Apple Support Communities is here to help people use Apple products and technologies more effectively. Unless otherwise noted, do not add Submissions about nontechnical topics, including:
   1. Speculations or rumors about unannounced products.
   2. Discussions of Apple policies or procedures or speculation on Apple decisions.

No sir, it does not.  You submitted more than one comment that is considered nontechnical. 

Futhermore, I'd like to be linked to the page on which you found this.  Many thanks.

Using a computer application to recall the answer for a security question is certainly not safe.  Actually, it is quite the opposite.

How is using a secured app, designed by Apple to specifically safeguard passwords and other information, unsafe?

It becomes obvious that you don't really want a solution, you just want to complain.