User Naming Practices?

Kymermosst asks: "Recently, this post was made to comp.sys.sun.misc, and sparked a large debate on the subject of usernames. What standardized user-naming schemes are used out in the 'real world,' if any? Has any company's scheme become a security risk due to its predictability? Were any benefits gained by using any particular system?"

Comments

Security risk?

[bconway]

No way. However, the IT group was kinda surprised that Steve Lutz insisted on keeping with the first letter + last name naming scheme. I shit you not.

How NOT to do it

[Dimwit]

When I was working in Europe for a while, we had an IT director who assumed that he knew everything possible about Unix. (It should go without saying that he didn't.)

When I was hired on, I promulgated the first initial+last name standard. Considering this company was around thirty people, and was never expected to grow past about forty-five, this scheme seemed to work well.

However, he threatened to fire anyone who didn't use his standard: first letter of first name + second letter of first name + first letter of last name!

Now, with my scheme, we had zero collisions. With his, we had about four. His solution?

first letter of first name + third letter of first name + first letter of last name! And so on...

Never work for these people, they're insane...

Just...

[Tom7]

Just use a 128-bit hash of the person. That way, user ids are unique, easy to calculate, but hard to guess.

Apparently real e-mail addresses

[GregWebb]

This was doing the rounds a while back. Whether it's at all true I don't know but hey, it's funny ;-)

--------------

Many colleges and business's tend to strip the last name down to 6 characters and add the first and last initial to either the beginning or end
to make up an e-mail address. For example, Mary L. Ferguson = mlfergus or fergusml. They are just now
beginning to realize the problems that may happen when you have a large and diverse pool of people to choose from. Add to that a large database of
company/college Acronyms and you have some very funny addresses. Probably not funny to the individual involved, however:

TOP TEN Actual E-mail Addresses
10. Helen Thomas Eatons (Duke University) - eatonsht (at) dku.edu
9. Mary Ellen Dickinson (Indiana University of Pennsylvania) - dickinme (at) iup.edu
8. Francis Kevin Kissinger (Las Verdes University) - kissinfk (at) lvu.edu
7. Amanda Sue Pickering (Purdue University) - aspicker (at) pu.edu
6. Ida Beatrice Ballinger (Ball State University) - ibballin (at) bsu.edu
5. Bradley Thomas Kissering (Brady Electrical, Northern Division, Overton
Canada) - btkisser (at) bendover.com
4. Isabelle Haydon Adcock (Toys "R" Us) - ihadcock (at) tru.com
3. Martha Elizibeth Cummins (Fresno University) - cumminme (at) fu.edu
2. George David Blowmer (Drop Front Drawers & Cabinets Inc.) - blowmegd (at) dropdrawers.com

..but at No 1, it had to be...

1. Barbara Joan Beeranger (Myplace Home Decorating) - beeranbj (at) myplace.com