How Allan Scherr Hacked Around the First Computer Password

New submitter MikeatWired writes "If you're like most people, you're annoyed by passwords. So who's to blame? Who invented the computer password? They probably arrived at MIT in the mid-1960s, when researchers built a massive time-sharing computer called CTSS. Technology changes. But, then again, it doesn't, writes Bob McMillan. Twenty-five years after the fact, Allan Scherr, a Ph.D. researcher at MIT in the early '60s, came clean about the earliest documented case of password theft. In the spring of 1962, Scherr was looking for a way to bump up his usage time on CTSS. He had been allotted four hours per week, but it wasn't nearly enough time to run the detailed performance simulations he'd designed for the new computer system. So he simply printed out all of the passwords stored on the system. 'There was a way to request files to be printed offline by submitting a punched card,' he remembered in a pamphlet (PDF) written last year to commemorate the invention of the CTSS. 'Late one Friday night, I submitted a request to print the password files and very early Saturday morning went to the file cabinet where printouts were placed and took the listing.' To spread the guilt around, Scherr then handed the passwords over to other users. One of them — J.C.R. Licklieder — promptly started logging into the account of the computer lab's director Robert Fano, and leaving 'taunting messages' behind."

Comments

'hacking'

[girlintraining]

And so it has been throughout history that whenever an adult takes another adult's toys, they scrawl sexual missives and taunts out to the first adult. Children, being much less mature than adults, feel guilty and turn themselves in, and then share the toy in question.

I can see the advent of the personal computer has done nothing to change this basic dynamic: The older you get, the less responsible with other people's things you become. By the time you're in your mid to late 30s, reaching the epoch of your career, you're probably regularly destroying company property, selling our shareholders, pissing in the sink of the unisex handicap stall (after taking a nice fat dump of course!), and generally misusing everything that's there for you to share with others.

I guess then you should be really careful with your password, otherwise some middle-aged pathologically irresponsible dude will throw feces at it, I guess, is my only point. :}

Re:'hacking'

[Ethanol-fueled]

5/10.

Less Ellen Degeneres and more A. Wyatt Mann. Context also harms your post - regular readers know that your persona is that of a lesbian, hence your username, and your starting off talking about toys only evokes fantasies of lesbian roommates fighting over their communal dildos. Instead of fighting over "Red Rex," why not just go buy another Red Rex? Or, better, go buy a double-sided Red Rex so that you can share with a stranger without mixing juices with them.

I guess then you should be really careful with your password, otherwise some middle-aged pathologically irresponsible dude will throw feces at it, I guess, is my only point.

I guess you should be really careful with your troll posts, otherwise some middle-aged pathologically irresponsible dude will throw critical feces at them.

Re:PRIVACY IS THEFT!

[Ethanol-fueled]

The summary:

To spread the guilt around, Scherr then handed the passwords over to other users. One of them â" J.C.R. Licklieder â" promptly started logging into the account of the computer lab's director Robert Fano, and leaving 'taunting messages' behind."

Is that our own JCR? Only a pompous faggot would have the letters "J," "C," and "R" in their username.