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orbitingpluto

Since PayPal == eBay, I just went to change my PayPal password as well.

PayPal went full retard. The security confirmation question?

Please supply your full credit card number ending in ####.

Um, that's the information I'm trying to protect in the first place.

edit: sorry about the "full retard" - trying to quote from Tropic Thunder/RDJ. did not mean to offend

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Doesn't that make it the perfect question? For someone to answer the question correctly, they have to demonstrate that they don't even need to do so, because they already know the thing you wanted to protect?

Along that reasoning... I'm from your bank. Please give me your account # and PIN.

No, that doesn't work: if you really think that is a good argument, then everyone is also a fool for believing "enter your password here to log in"; remember that you are answering a password reset challenge question at the same site you would normally enter your password.

>> "PayPal went full retard."

I'm not usually big on political correctness but you could so easily replace that phrase with something that's not taking the piss out of people.

I suppose I could. I was going for the "Tropic Thunder" line. But really, political correctness? Has anyone ever called an actually mentally handicapped person "retarded" in the past thirty years?

The point isn't to just not call a 'mentally handicapped' person by a slur. It's to prevent the stereotyping of a whole class of people by comparing them to someone doing something wrong or unintelligent. In "Paypal went full retard", what you're really saying is that Paypal did something that is so wrong that only a mentally challenged person would do that, which promotes a stereotype that mentally challenged people do bad things.

By the way, the euphemism treadmill of this subject has proceeded to the point where "mentally handicapped" and "mentally challenged" are also now politically-incorrect. The preferred term is now "intellectually disabled" or "learning disabled" (which to me is far more insulting than "mentally retarded", from a literal perspective, but less evasive than "developmentally delayed").

Probably 1000x in the last 30 seconds. There's a lot of people.

I got that you were going for a "Tropic Thunder" ref, but it doesn't fit. It sounds like you're saying ebay is stupid, but the TT is satirizing actors pretending to be stupid. And, TT gets away with the bit because it pushes PC-ness further towards not shitting on mentally disabled folks. Mayhaps it should, but slang use of the word "retarded" doesn't automatically offend me. I just don't think your use worked.

yes, they have.

Thats on;y the case if you do the password reset when you are already logged into your account. Its another layer to prevent people changing your password on a shared computer if you stepped away for example. Doesn't happen if you are not logged in

When I tried to change my password to a twenty character pass phrase, I wasn't allowed because it was "too weak". Adding a single digit made it "strong." I am not particularly comforted by this.

Credit card numbers should be way down on your list of info to protect. They're easy to change and the consequences of a compromise are small (you're not liable for any fraudulent transactions as long as you're paying the least bit attention). Worry about your checking account number and other info, but not your card numbers.

In my case, the credit card was the most important piece of data to protect.

However I just realized that the credit card might be the only legitimate piece of data that they have left to verify against.

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