Zackary Moore - An exploration of the idea of a "Password"

Passwords are one of the most discussed issues of information security today, whether in terms of how to create a stronger password for yourself or how a group of hackers released some massive number of passwords from a website. When looking back in time the usage of the term started to gradually increase around th turn of the 20th century but in the mid 1980s and early 1990s (a time that coincided with a rise in the consumer purchases of computers) usage began to grow at an exponential rate that has only continued to increase since. In a recent interview with the Wallstreet Journal the man who created and used the first computer password in the 1960s, Fernando Corbató, talked about how he came up with the idea. He talked about how, at th time, the data of all researchers and groups using a computer was stored on a single disk that was accessible by anyone who used the machine. In order to prevent people from viewing confidential and classified information he felt it was necessary to create some form of authentication to ensure that only the desired user was viewing the data. Inspired by the idea of a secret phrase used to enter into clubs and secure facilities, he deecided to imitate that and have the file ask for a secret phrase to enter. What he ended up creating was the first computer password. While a password was an effective means of protection from a few people at the time, Fernando Corbató did not forsee the creation of the itnernet or the mass-adoption passwords as the primary form of security when online. In a paper published by Bell Laborities in 1979 ("Password Security: A Case History") the issues of securing things with a password were discussed. It is very interesting seeing how such a simple idea for small-scale security was adopted en-masse unintientially and how the idea of a password was never itneded to act as a strong form of security against millions of users. With today's woes over passwords and the ever-increasing required complexity of passwords it is clear that the idea is quickly becomming out-dated for its current use, one which was never intended from the begging. With today's technology it will be intersting to see what new forms of user authentication become popular to replace the ill-fated password.