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Submission + - The World's First Computer Password? It Was Useles (wired.com) 1

Submitted by
MikeatWired
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."
User Journal

Journal Journal: People who talk in text acronyms...

Journal by smilnrt

I did not think people did this. I mean how stupid!!! I Went out with some friends, and one of them brought along some chic who spoke in acronyms...Describe a story/situation that she found hard to believe she would say, "O.M.G." Tell a funny story she would not laugh, she would smile and say "L.O.L. or L.M.A.O." Finally, I got tired of it and said "W.T.F. is wrong with you???!!!"

Comment People are scary... (Score 1) 230

by smilnrt (#32304516) Attached to: iPad Steering Wheel Mount
A friend of mine posted this on his FB page, and sooooooooooooooooo many people went nuts over it. Where do I order it, when will it get to me, and on and on and on...I am thinking they are crazier for wanting this thing, than this guy is for posting this vid!!!

Submission + - Market sell-off caused by trader's fat-finger (cnbc.com)

Submitted by s122604
s122604 writes: Stock market's extraordinary volatility may have been caused by fat-fingered entry.
Article is reporting that the catalyst for today's extradorinary price swing (at one point the Dow lost almost 9 percent in less than an hour) may have been because a trader entered a 'B' for billions instead of an 'M' for millions on a trade of Procter and Gamble:

"According to multiple sources, a trader entered a "b" for billion instead of an "m" for million in a trade possibly involving Procter & Gamble, a component in the Dow. (CNBC's Jim Cramer noted suspicious price movement in P&G stock on air during the height of the market selloff."
br. Unbelievable there are no safeguards to protect against this.

Comment Information Overload (Score 1) 2

by smilnrt (#30473342) Attached to: $26 of software defeats American military.
It would seem to me U.S. media would NOT publish this story, and show the world how vulnerable we are to attack. DUH! I love the internet, and how the flow of information is rapid, but sometimes I think it also hurts us. This article is why. This should not have been disclosed in my opinion.

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So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of money? -- Ayn Rand

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