Word: logins
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Almost everyone familiar with Unix knows that typing "who" at the fas% prompt will bring up a list of users on a given login machine. Typing "w" will display that same list, but it will also display what each of those users is doing at that very moment. We've all done it at one point. Those who haven't will most likely run to their computers...
True, these lines of green text are not all that informative. For one thing, they only report the specific Unix operations that the particular users on your login are performing at that particular moment in time. In other words, you get a long list of unfamiliar user names, each usually followed by the word "pine." On some rare occasions you might even see something as interesting as "telnet hollis." Or, if you get really lucky, someone might be running "ytalk" or "finger...
...Unix tools at my fingertips, I shamelessly extrapolate beyond the virtual realm, weaving intricate stories about semi-fictional characters I will never meet. I create elaborate personae based on three-line ".plan" files. I conjecture wild theories based on the geographic information garnered from "ph." In my fictional world, login information from "last" becomes nothing less than a complete roadmap of someone's daily schedule. And slowly, these 4-8 character user names develop personalities and plots...
...sign in too--if they entered their password. That set off alarm bells at AOL, which promptly blocked Microsoft's access to its server. Microsoft came up with a fix, which AOL also jammed. A terse exchange of snail mail followed. Late last week AOL customers were greeted at login by an ominous new start-up screen warning of the dangers of giving passwords to strangers...
Osterberg said the most recent incident involved the installation of a "packet sniffer" on the local network to monitor the traffic, which includes login names and passwords...