Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!decwrl!ucbvax!ulysses!ulysses.att.com!andys
From: andys@ulysses.att.com (Andy Sherman)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: (none)
Message-ID: <14594@ulysses.att.com>
Date: 11 Apr 91 18:23:31 GMT
References: <26522@adm.brl.mil>
Sender: netnews@ulysses.att.com
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 30

In article <26522@adm.brl.mil> IFAC%SNYCENVM.BITNET@cornellc.cit.cornell.edu ( FRANK CALLUCCI) writes:
>    I feel that there is a simple way to pick a password without being
>vulnerable to people decoding it. I feel that the trick is to use control
>characters. Control characters cannot be displayed or printed. If you
>were to use the password WIZARD for instance you would use (<CTRL> WIZARD)
>and there would be no way that anyone could decode it.


Be careful which control characters you use.  There is a legend in my
lab about the time that Dave Korn walked up to the console of one of
our Vax 8650's and tried to log in.  The machine responed by halting
and going into console mode.  Dave scratched his head and went to the
console of another Vax.  It responded to his password by halting and
going into console mode.  A puzzled administrator looking at the
console logs engages Dave in the following dialogue:

Admin:  "Dave, what did you do to make the machines halt?"  
Dave:   "All I did was type my password!"
   < longish pause >
Admin:  "Dave, does your password happen to have a control-P in it?
	That's the halt character for a Vax console."

--



Andy Sherman/AT&T Bell Laboratories/Murray Hill, NJ
AUDIBLE:  (201) 582-5928
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