Edit: I accidentally refreshed the page and it offered alternative questions for ID validation, such as high school of graduation and SSN. But it’s still absurd to expect someone to even humor the premise of the prompt.
I see people’s comments that it’s technically a fact derived from your date of birth, and doesn’t require superstition. But I have no idea of which sign lines up with my birthday, so I propose some different questions:
Which Chinese emperor was born in the same lunar year as you?
According to the office of national statistics, how many people born on your birthday in Northern Europe were called John?
How many days is it from your fourth birthday to the nearest February 29th?
Lol typical cancer
what country to you live in? fucking Narnia?
I wish
“Using the digits 0 through 9, please arrange them in a sequence that resembles your social security number. You may use each digit more than once.”
Now select it from the dropdown. Keyboard selection has been disabled.
I assume it’s in random order for convenience
Why is that a superstition? It is trivial to write a program to calculate corresponding zodiac sign of any particular date. It’s just a bad captcha and I don’t think most people remember/know enough to calculate in their head.
The questions still valid… Why would I simply be aware what year I was born in under the Chinese zodiac so that I could get a new SS card. You are missing the forest for the trees.
Because you have Google. I suspect most people know their star sign. (The Chinese Zodiac is something different.) I don’t believe in astrology, but it’s certainly common enough that it seems difficult to avoid learning at some point. If not, you can find out in 30 seconds.
All it is is an abstraction to make it slightly harder for bad actors and computer programs, not an endorsement of astrology.
Zodiac signs are about as accurate as tarot readings or reading tea leaves. They’re even wrong about what they are based on. The star locations and sun precession hasn’t coincided with the original 12 zodiac constellations for centuries. People use the dates and signs as they were set by astrology tradition ages ago, but the dates when the sun changes from one constellation to the next is also absolutely arbitrary to make it match exactly 4 and a half weeks.
The personality descriptions for zodiac signs are textbook examples of cold reading. A technique of making intentionally ambiguous but agreeable affirmations so that people project their self-view onto the descriptions disregarding evidence or specifities.
It is a superstition as it is the belief on the supernatural influence of the relative apparent position of stars in the sky over the behavior and personality of individuals. It’s a, mostly, harmless superstition, but superstitious none the less.
I think it’s at a sort of weird crossroads between superstition and factual data, because it is trivial to calculate the factual data regarding the position of any star in the sky at any point, but the superstition comes in when you associate the positions of a rather arbitrary group of stars in relation to a date of birth.
I just thought of this though- you could argue that this is an anti-astrology security measure because it proves that you can’t guess someone’s zodiac sign based on things like their interests and personality traits.
Of course the part associating zodiac sign with personality or fate is clearly superstition.
that’s such a capricorn thing to say
This is a CAPTCHA that is using security by obscurity. Honestly, it seems a lot better than a lot of alternatives around at the moment designed to combat the smarter CAPTCHA solvers.
This isn’t a CAPTCHA, It’s identify verification. Similar to those ID verifications when they ask you where you had a previous address, who you opened a loan with, how much the loan was for, etc.
CAPTCHA is intended to ensure that a human is logging in, not a bot. Identity verification is to make sure that the person creating the account is actually that person. Completely different use cases.
Why are captchas getting complex.
“AI” captcha solvers have a 90% plus success rate for old style ones…
ohh okay
Because automated captcha solvers are getting complex
how is it security through obscurity?
Someone looking to specifically break this website’s captcha wouldn’t have a hard time.
But bots using off-the-shelf captcha solvers will be screened out en masse, because how many of them are equipped to correctly answer this stupidly specific question? That’s the obscurity.
It could be solved with a simple if statement
But you’d have to purposefully code it, you cant just have it automatically done using a library
What we need is a privacy preserving identity system that isn’t tied to one service or entity.
Weird question but at least there’s an N/A option at the bottom
The purpose of these questions is to verify your identity; they have your DoB, and are asking the question to confirm that you are who you say you are, so if you answer N/A when the correct answer is one of the other 4, you’ll be denied access to whatever you’re signing up for.
All that said, “What month were you born in?” would have been a much better question for the reasons OP notes.
All that said, “What month were you born in?” would have been a much better question for the reasons OP notes.
We were discussing this in the atheism community and the advantage of zodiac sign over birth month is that there is not an even overlap between months and zodiac signs, so 30% of people will be born in a different month than the one associated with the sign. I’m one of these. I was born near the end of the month so the sign I would be associated with is not the sign people associate with the month.
Don’t get me wrong, I think this was a stupid security question, but it’s less stupid than it first sounds because of that.
From what I begrudgingly know about astrology, “Does not apply” would only pertain to people who haven’t been born yet or who were born outside of the solar system. Knowing if “None of the above” applies still requires knowledge of how the arbitrary categories correspond with the calendar.
They’re all wrong anyway.
Well yeah, Dulcinea is hitting on the Ninth’s cavalier
Bah. My star sign stays the same in this adjusted version. And I don’t even get a horse racing tip.
I was going to praise this guy for beating Weird Al to the punch by 4 years, but the Zoloft and phone jokes give it away as a fake (or at least not from 1995).
Zoloft been in use since 1991, and “Is that your phone?” was a perfectly cromulent thing to say in the 90s, meaning “do I hear your land-line ringing?” not “is that your pocket computer on the table there?”
There are more than four signs, it could be N/A if you were in the other eight.
This isn’t about whether the question is appropriate, I agree it isn’t. I’m just curious. While I’m not a believer, I do know what ‘type’ I supposedly fall in. Do most nonbelievers know their sign, or do they have no idea?
I know mine because my personality is the stereotype of my sign. It’s just a coincidence, but it’s one that comes up from time to time
it’s just a coincidence.
Typical cancer.
It probably relates to your age. When I grew up there were still newspapers (and dinosaurs) and you probably ran across a small horoscope section somewhere in there (especially on or near the comics page), so for me seeing the dates was virtually unavoidable. But I haven’t run across a random horoscope in over 20 years, so if you’re born after the millennium I’m sure it was much less prominent in your life.
I remember those little scrolls at supermarket check outs. Always thought zodiacs were dumb but the fact that it was a scroll made me want it
Oh I’d totally forgotten about those, and I had the exact same sentiment as a kid. They seemed somehow mystical just because they were in scroll form.
I blame baldurs gate
Or depending on your age, DnD (tabletop) or maybe Rogue or Hack
Baldurs gate for me personally
Absolutely, sharing horoscopes during lunch break used to be very common.
While the wording is stupid, and “astrological” indeed refers to the superstitious bullshit, the zodiacs are not a believer/non-believer thing, but based on an astronomical(!) constellation being at a particular position in the sky in the period of said zodiac. That said, however, and without checking, I am sure that this does not align with the dates assigned to the zodiacs at all anymore because the Earth wobbles on it’s orbit & also because the zodiac cycles could never possibly align precisely with a year on Earth, simply because the dates are fixed and don’t account for leap years (the ~0.25 day extra each year).
Why did I make this point? Because it appears that in Europe at least, everyone knows their zodiac - I would be surprised if it’s any different in countries that use the same calendar.
I don’t think zodiac cycles need to account for leap years, since it’s the leap years that account for things to make dates align. If by wobble you mean something like the tilt of the axis of rotation changing, then yeah, that’d mess things up - otherwise, I think the constellations are basically just based on where the sun is, and this which direction your part of the earth is facing during the night. If I’m correct, then I suspect the zodiacs do still align, but the constellations will differ depending on your latitude…
By saying wobble, I was referring to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_precession
For identical reasons, the apparent position of the Sun relative to the backdrop of the stars at some seasonally fixed time slowly regresses a full 360° through all twelve traditional constellations of the zodiac, at the rate of about 50.3 seconds of arc per year, or 1 degree every 71.6 years.
Re leap years: On second thought you might be correct about that one.
Do most nonbelievers know their sign, or do they have no idea?
In the very rare case where it comes up, I almost always have to look up the answer. Why would I have the signs and their date ranges memorized? This is like asking someone whose only tangentially heard of D&D to name his favorite first level spell.
That example is very unfitting. Its more like your shoe size, just a single fact about yourself to remember. If you never wear shoes and dont talk to ppl about it you may forget, but it doesnt change throughout your life.
I have absolutely 0 connection with astrology and dont believe in any of it, but I still know my sign because I was probably told a few times as a kid.
Asking your shoe size would just be asking your birthday. It’s more equivalent to asking an American what their European shoe size is or the other way around.
Its more like your shoe size…it doesnt change throughout your life.
Actually for some people it does. Especially through pregnancy
Youre right, also for old people
Its more like your shoe size
I buy shoes a lot more often than I check my horoscope.
You do but others might not. Most people have way more interaction with zodiac signs than D&D
Maybe thirty years ago
Oh how I wish that was true :(
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1356374/share-of-americans-who-believe-in-astrology/
And thats just the ones believing in it, far from the number of people occadionally coming into contact with it.
Well, I stand corrected.
https://theharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Astrology-Survey-February-2024.pdf
- 95% know their zodiac/astrological sign
per page 8.
What? You don’t need to remember the ranges. Just look it up once and remember the single one for your DoB. Or am I missing something.
I don’t know what my zodiac sign is despite several people having told me. I never seem to remember. That’s how insignificant it is in my life.
I have no idea what sign I am. Never cared, was never asked.
Ah you must be a lion then, they are always so aloof.
Just kidding, it’s nonsense and I don’t believe it one single bit…But ARE you a lion?
If yes: I KNEW IT! It was so obvious!
If no I’m x: Ah that explains why I mistook you for a Lion. X have many of the same traits.
Yes, everyone around me knows (I think most like I saw it in a news letter), but most of us do not know what it actually means. Some just know a few things about their own sign because those attributes was told to them and actually fit. So it is more like a way to give compliments if someone who knows tells you “oh you are x, no wonder you are so great at y!”. So I have no negative feelings about it. I just don’t believe in it.
The only attribut i know that isn’t for my own sign is that Scorpions are horny ppl, my Scorpion friends brag about that. I don’t know why.
As a kid was it common to use it more like a group name just like some use the seasons like winter, summer, spring, autumn child. Many tv series, games and cartoons used it (not in a serious way). I actually bought as a kid the wrong sign from a glas smith and didn’t know it was wrong for many years, apparently it wasn’t even close to mine 😂
I know mine but only because of homestuck
Maybe you can suggest alternative questions, maybe something involving homeopathy or reiki, or perhaps chemtrails.
I was thinking more along the lines of “Based on your connection to the Force and your relation to the Jedi Order, what color would your lightsaber be: A. Green B. Blue C. Red. D. Purple E. None of the above”, or “Which Pokémon was based on the Chinese Zodiac animal of your year of birth? A. Swinub B. Rapidash C. Lopunny D. Chimchar E. None of the above”
“What’s your build in Dark Souls?”
Me: “Huh, there’s no Trash option here.”
ERROR: SKILL ISSUE
As offensive to my sensibilities as hocus-pocus may be, a question that requires me to be competent enough to use a search engine to derive the answer to their question may be acceptable in some cases… But I rather doubt it is acceptable in this instance.
If part of the intent is to dissuade those who do not have a basic grasp of language or problem solving skills, then it seems the mission is accomplished. But I wonder if it’s entirely ADA* compliant.
*Americans With Disabilities Act, here in the states
tropical or sidereal or Schmidt or IAU zodiac?
At my date of birth, the sun was in Ophiuchus
Dude. NSFW.
It’s just doing a compatibility check.
I really hate the MIlogin questions, sometimes I fail to answer correctly for some stupid mistake and need to wait a couple of days to retry
Interesting. I wonder what the thinking is here? It’s almost like a really poor manual password hash. Here’s something derived from my date of birth. Store that instead of the actual date. Pretty weak though.
My guess is that it’s asking for you to confirm your date of birth, to a minimal degree of accuracy without actually having to reveal your date of birth.
I kind of like the idea. Most people know what their star sign is, whether they believe in it or not. So they will be able to answer quickly and correctly. Those that need to look it up it might need to be more critical of the login for.
It is probably something to confuse automated systems. A person could figure out their astrological sign easily by knowing their birthday. A computer attempting to brute force attack would probably be less likely to know how to answer the question.
A person could figure out their astrological sign easily by knowing their birthday.
The best thing to do during a security check is to google how to know your astrology sign.
