security questions

when did this become the norm for "security questions" from everything from your email to your porn account to your netflix? i went on my damned online banking today, logging into my newly reformatted work computer, and it asks me "what is your favorite hobby" and you can bet your ass i missed that 3 times in a row (depends on how i was feeling the day i signed up, sleeping, chilling, and pimpin weren't it though). now thankfully instead of completely locking out my bank account and freezing my assets it simply decides to ask me another common internet security question. "whats your mothers maiden name?" are you serious? what if my mom is trying to hack my account? isn't this is the 21st century? security questions are supposed to be something only you know, not your entire fucking family. might as well make it multiple choice, or even go with something equally private like "whats is your pets name?" "what is your middle name?" "what is your your girlfriends name?" "what is your name?" "what is 2+2?" internet security is in the need of a little reboot, anyone for fingerprint/retina scans?

and one more thing, what about the security checks to stop spam robots from making accounts with everything? i know computers aren't supposed to read them, but they should at least be able to be read by humans, i cant remember the last time i typed one of those and didn't get it wrong at least the first two times.