Word: password
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...jeans allowed, not to mention pierced noses. It's the first day of class--hacking class--and the instructors, smartly attired in matching corporate polo shirts, point at screens full of code and step-by-step directions on how to hack a host computer. "Get this: No username, no password, and we're connected," says one. "I'm starting to get tingles. They're going to be toast pretty quick." Geekspeak, at least, is still de rigueur...
...counterhacking courses that teach perfectly respectable people the how-tos of cracking their own networks so they can better protect them. "We're kind of wearing the white and black hats at the same time," says Eric Schultze, the Ernst & Young instructor who gets tingles from an exposed password file...
...ones without encryption keys or extremely alert administrators--are in trouble. Why? Because this is the information age, and the average computer gives up far too much information about itself. Because a network is only as strong as its weakest user. And because the most common log-on password in the world, even in non-English speaking countries, is "password." With users like this, who needs enemies...
...real world? "Rarely is there a moment when a hacker isn't trying to get into our networks," says a senior Microsoft executive. "People go looking for that weak link." Recently hackers found a backdoor through a user in Europe--an administrator, no less--with a blank password. This allowed the hacker root access--the ability to change everyone else's password, jump onto other systems and mess up the payroll file...
...high-speed motors that powered instruments on US bombers during World War II. Son Daniel got his start in the Engineering Department; his junior project offered a 1984-ish solution for office building security. It proposed connecting a booth to a building's entrance. The entrance would be password-protected and impenetrable until the booth's door was secured. The chamber's claustrophobic scale would deter all but the most diminutive of piggybackers. The next year, Schumann constructed an electric bicycle. Although he was unable to market it as he had hoped, it did take him--literally and figuratively...