156 IQ, plus some net.savvy

[avram]

(via mylescorcoran)

A few warnings about this one: First, they demand your email address to send you the results, rather than just giving them to you. And they do this after you've taken the test, so you've already committed time and emotional energy to it. I added "+iq" to my email name, so I'd be easily able to block anything further that comes in with that address.

(Y'all know about that trick, right? Most decent email servers are set up so that if your address is, say name@example.com, you can add a plus sign and any arbitrary string of letters and numbers after the name part and it'll still go through. Say, name+iq@example.com.)

Second, they ask for your name, address, and phone number, and they do some sanity-checking on the info so you can't just make up any old nonsense. I gave them a fake name, my old Jersey City address, and a fake phone number (with a legitimate Jersey City area code).

Third, they then ask for even more identifying info, like your mother's maiden name. Screw that shit. I didn't even fill out that form. By then they had already emailed me my results link.

Fourth, the code they give you for posting to your blog includes a 0-by-0 pixel image at the end with a complicated filename that's probably used for some kind of tracking. I clipped that out before pasting it into this post.

So really, it's both a test of your IQ and a test of your ability to avoid getting your personal info snarfed.

Update: And when you close that third form without filling it out, they give you a pop-up JavaScript window tempting you with a "free gift"! Man, these people are sleazy. I feel like it might have even been a bad idea to log into gMail while I still had one of the post-quiz form pages open in another tab. I just checked, and no dangerous filters have been created in my gMail account, but still.

There, I've yanked the links from around that image. If you want to take that IQ test, you'll have to type the URL by hand, and they won't be getting any google-juice from me.

Comments

[baldanders.livejournal.com]

What possible non-nefarious reasons could they have for asking for mother's maiden name??

[avram]

Maybe as an identity check if you lose your password, I figured. But now that I think about it, that's nonsense. A quiz site has no reason to worry about that level of security -- if you lose your password, they can just email you a new one.