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* [TUHS] Of login names
@ 2016-07-16 16:54 Dave Horsfall
  2016-07-16 23:04 ` Paul Osborne
                   ` (2 more replies)
  0 siblings, 3 replies; 33+ messages in thread
From: Dave Horsfall @ 2016-07-16 16:54 UTC (permalink / raw)


Time to start a new thread :-)

Back when Unix was really Unix and dinosaurs strode the earth, login names 
were restricted to just 8 characters, so you had to be inventive when 
signing up lots of students every term (ObUS: semester).

A wonderful Japanese girl, Eriko Kinoshita, applied for an account on some 
box somewhere.  Did I mention that login names defaulted to the first 8 
characters of the surname?

Understandably annoyed, Plan B for assigning logins was applied, which was
the first name followed by the first letter of the surname.

Sigh...

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
  2016-07-16 16:54 [TUHS] Of login names Dave Horsfall
@ 2016-07-16 23:04 ` Paul Osborne
  2016-07-18 12:24   ` Tony Finch
  2016-07-17  2:56 ` Win Treese
  2016-07-17  6:39 ` Tim Bradshaw
  2 siblings, 1 reply; 33+ messages in thread
From: Paul Osborne @ 2016-07-16 23:04 UTC (permalink / raw)


Heh. At a previous site around 20 years ago we used initial letters of
names generated automatically with a number following so at one point had:

kunt2 Chinese student who didn't raise an issue until 2. 5 years into his
course, we changed that one and put in a rude word filter on login checks.

jc8 so the student was nicknamed "digger" who was not happy so we naturally
refused to change his login as the name had stuck.

we3 - who was quite proud of that one I was told.

Am sure there were many more.

Cheers

Paul

On 16 Jul 2016 11:56, "Dave Horsfall" <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:

> Time to start a new thread :-)
>
> Back when Unix was really Unix and dinosaurs strode the earth, login names
> were restricted to just 8 characters, so you had to be inventive when
> signing up lots of students every term (ObUS: semester).
>
> A wonderful Japanese girl, Eriko Kinoshita, applied for an account on some
> box somewhere.  Did I mention that login names defaulted to the first 8
> characters of the surname?
>
> Understandably annoyed, Plan B for assigning logins was applied, which was
> the first name followed by the first letter of the surname.
>
> Sigh...
>
> --
> Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will
> suffer."
>
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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
  2016-07-16 16:54 [TUHS] Of login names Dave Horsfall
  2016-07-16 23:04 ` Paul Osborne
@ 2016-07-17  2:56 ` Win Treese
  2016-07-17  6:39 ` Tim Bradshaw
  2 siblings, 0 replies; 33+ messages in thread
From: Win Treese @ 2016-07-17  2:56 UTC (permalink / raw)


This is a rambling story of slight relevance about login names, but otherwise not historically consequential.

At MIT's Project Athena in the mid-80s, we had a bunch of VAXstation 100s, which was DEC's bitmapped display, of which you could hook up two to a VAX 11/750. The X Window System[1] was under development then, but not ready for real usage. (The VAXen were all running 4.2BSD, for what it's worth.)

So someone had the idea to use them for new student registration at the beginning of the semester, since widespread student access was being rolled out to all 4,000 undergrads. A registration program on the 750 talked to the master server with all the login information.

The process was pretty simple. The student entered name and ID number[2]. The registration program suggested a username consisting of:
    first initial, middle initial, up to six characters of last name
which the student could accept, or request a different name. (As far as I remember, there was no filtering on chosen names, and I don't think there was much of a problem with possibly-offensive ones.) The only rule was that the name couldn't already be in use. 

If the name was already in use, the server sent back the string "noid" (for "No ID available") to indicate the problem. The first deployed version of the registration code did not, however, recognize this as an error condition.

As far as we could tell, on of the first time there was a collision on names, the registration program suggested "noid" as the username. And the student accepted it, thus becoming noid at athena.mit.edu for the remainder of his/her undergraduate career.

Of course, the next problem with this was that the registration program could get stuck trying "noid", but it got fixed fairly quickly.

I still remember feeling a touch of panic when I noticed the first name "Athena" on a list of incoming students, since the system was not treating mailing list names as unavailable for usernames. But, of course, all of the mailing lists were also addresses like athena at athena.mit.edu (that was the staff mailing list). That also got fixed pretty quickly.

By the way, xclock was originally written to keep the screensaver from kicking in on the registration VS100s.

 - Win

[1] Flames about X not necessary. 
[2] Security review also not necessary now.

> On Jul 16, 2016, at 12:54 PM, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
> 
> Time to start a new thread :-)
> 
> Back when Unix was really Unix and dinosaurs strode the earth, login names 
> were restricted to just 8 characters, so you had to be inventive when 
> signing up lots of students every term (ObUS: semester).
> 
> A wonderful Japanese girl, Eriko Kinoshita, applied for an account on some 
> box somewhere.  Did I mention that login names defaulted to the first 8 
> characters of the surname?
> 
> Understandably annoyed, Plan B for assigning logins was applied, which was
> the first name followed by the first letter of the surname.
> 
> Sigh...
> 
> -- 
> Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
  2016-07-16 16:54 [TUHS] Of login names Dave Horsfall
  2016-07-16 23:04 ` Paul Osborne
  2016-07-17  2:56 ` Win Treese
@ 2016-07-17  6:39 ` Tim Bradshaw
  2 siblings, 0 replies; 33+ messages in thread
From: Tim Bradshaw @ 2016-07-17  6:39 UTC (permalink / raw)


Much later than this I worked on a contract somewhere which had this algorithm: I was 'bradshat'.


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
  2016-07-16 23:04 ` Paul Osborne
@ 2016-07-18 12:24   ` Tony Finch
  2016-07-18 13:21     ` John Cowan
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 33+ messages in thread
From: Tony Finch @ 2016-07-18 12:24 UTC (permalink / raw)


Paul Osborne <paosborne at gmail.com> wrote:

> Heh. At a previous site around 20 years ago we used initial letters of
> names generated automatically with a number following so at one point had:

We have a similar scheme which has been running (with minor changes) for
about 40 years, with a throughput of about 250,000 people in the last 20
years (the era of bulk user registration). A while back I wrote a note
about some of the reasons it works well, but I didn't mention that if
someone ends up with an unfortunate username, we can (modulo language
barriers) blame the parents...

http://www-uxsup.csx.cam.ac.uk/~fanf2/hermes/doc/misc/crsids.pdf

We also allocate unique permanent Unix UIDs for everyone. This numbering
started in 1982, and with some foresight my (mostly retired) colleagues
decided to start numbering at 100, to allow space for system IDs.
Unfortunately nowadays a few of my older colleagues have UIDs that clash
with preallocated system UIDs on some recent Linux distributions.

Tony.
-- 
f.anthony.n.finch  <dot at dotat.at>  http://dotat.at/  -  I xn--zr8h punycode
Viking, North Utsire: Variable 2 or 3, becoming southerly or southwesterly 4
or 5. Slight, occasionally moderate in north. Rain at times. Moderate or good.


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
  2016-07-18 12:24   ` Tony Finch
@ 2016-07-18 13:21     ` John Cowan
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 33+ messages in thread
From: John Cowan @ 2016-07-18 13:21 UTC (permalink / raw)


Tony Finch scripsit:

> We have a similar scheme which has been running (with minor changes) for
> about 40 years, with a throughput of about 250,000 people in the last 20
> years (the era of bulk user registration). A while back I wrote a note
> about some of the reasons it works well, but I didn't mention that if
> someone ends up with an unfortunate username, we can (modulo language
> barriers) blame the parents...

That works provided that web sites that use email addresses as user
identifiers (a common and IMO laudable practice) don't start to filter
for "rude" expressions in them.

I like your section 2.9, which I can now (like Dr. Johnson and the chapter
on snakes) repeat verbatim.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
How comes city and country to be filled with drones and rogues, our highways
with hackers, and all places with sloth and wickedness?
                --W. Blith, Eng. Improver Improved, 1652


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
  2016-10-19 20:53     ` Michael-John Turner
@ 2016-10-19 22:35       ` Aaron Jackson
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 33+ messages in thread
From: Aaron Jackson @ 2016-10-19 22:35 UTC (permalink / raw)


Thanks Michael, that looks interesting.

Michael-John Turner writes:

> On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 01:41:36PM +0100, Aaron Jackson wrote:
>>When it comes to setting up UUCP today (purely for the fun of it), what
>>choices do you have? Is it limited to SDF Public Unix?
>
> Another option is UUHEC - http://www.uuhec.net.
>
> Apologies for digging up such an old thread...
>
> Cheers, MJ



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
  2016-07-19 12:41   ` Aaron Jackson
@ 2016-10-19 20:53     ` Michael-John Turner
  2016-10-19 22:35       ` Aaron Jackson
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 33+ messages in thread
From: Michael-John Turner @ 2016-10-19 20:53 UTC (permalink / raw)


On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 01:41:36PM +0100, Aaron Jackson wrote:
>When it comes to setting up UUCP today (purely for the fun of it), what
>choices do you have? Is it limited to SDF Public Unix?

Another option is UUHEC - http://www.uuhec.net.

Apologies for digging up such an old thread...

Cheers, MJ
-- 
Michael-John Turner * mj at mjturner.net * http://mjturner.net/ 



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
  2016-07-26 12:45   ` Tim Bradshaw
@ 2016-07-26 13:07     ` George Ross
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 33+ messages in thread
From: George Ross @ 2016-07-26 13:07 UTC (permalink / raw)


> I have a possibly-invented memory that the CS department at Edinburgh (and
> probably others) ended up being called DCS because cs is a valid top-level
> domain, and so the horrid sendmail magic which worked out whether addresses
> needed to be turned around (and, I suppose, knew all the TLDs -- it
> certainly had a huge table of things) would get confused by uk.ac.ed.cs and
> send things to Czechoslovakia (as then was).

No, that's a genuine memory, though I don't remember whether it was just a
worry or whether things actually got lost.  Electrical Engineering (aka "ee")
was another similarly affected.  I still have books on my shelf with a
sticker in them with my coloured-book "cs" address listed.

--
gdmr at uk.ac.ed.cs, then gdmr at uk.ac.ed.dcs then gdmr at dcs.ed.ac.uk (which
still works), then eventually gdmr at inf.ed.ac.uk.

George D M Ross MSc PhD CEng MBCS CITP, University of Edinburgh,
School of Informatics, 10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh, Scotland, EH8 9AB
Mail: gdmr at inf.ed.ac.uk   Voice: 0131 650 5147   Fax: 0131 650 6899
PGP: 1024D/AD758CC5  B91E D430 1E0D 5883 EF6A  426C B676 5C2B AD75 8CC5

The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.

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* [TUHS] Of login names
  2016-07-18 18:07 ` Steve Simon
  2016-07-19  9:50   ` Tony Finch
@ 2016-07-26 12:45   ` Tim Bradshaw
  2016-07-26 13:07     ` George Ross
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 33+ messages in thread
From: Tim Bradshaw @ 2016-07-26 12:45 UTC (permalink / raw)


On 18 Jul 2016, at 19:07, Steve Simon <steve at quintile.net> wrote:

> what fun we had in the early 1980s when the uk universities ran coloured book networking, that used arpanet style names but in the reverse order. I wasssimon at uk.ac.leeds-poly.ee.pe.

I have a possibly-invented memory that the CS department at Edinburgh (and probably others) ended up being called DCS because cs is a valid top-level domain, and so the horrid sendmail magic which worked out whether addresses needed to be turned around (and, I suppose, knew all the TLDs -- it certainly had a huge table of things) would get confused by uk.ac.ed.cs and send things to Czechoslovakia (as then was).


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
  2016-07-18 14:06 ` David
@ 2016-07-19 12:41   ` Aaron Jackson
  2016-10-19 20:53     ` Michael-John Turner
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 33+ messages in thread
From: Aaron Jackson @ 2016-07-19 12:41 UTC (permalink / raw)


When it comes to setting up UUCP today (purely for the fun of it), what
choices do you have? Is it limited to SDF Public Unix?

Aaron.

David writes:

> Back when it was all UUCP, a friend setup his own system, bang.
>
> He then used his initials as his login, bam.
>
> So when asked for his email address he answered
>
> 	bang bang bang bam
>
> Bret was a funny guy.
>
> 	David



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
  2016-07-18 18:07 ` Steve Simon
@ 2016-07-19  9:50   ` Tony Finch
  2016-07-26 12:45   ` Tim Bradshaw
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 33+ messages in thread
From: Tony Finch @ 2016-07-19  9:50 UTC (permalink / raw)


Steve Simon <steve at quintile.net> wrote:
>
> formulating valid routed paths with % could be taxing...

This is a good summary of the state of the world of email (from the uk.ac
point of view) in 1990

https://stuff.mit.edu/afs/athena/reference/net-directory/documents/JANET-Mail-Gateways.ps

Tony.
-- 
f.anthony.n.finch  <dot at dotat.at>  http://dotat.at/  -  I xn--zr8h punycode
Fisher, German Bight: West or southwest 3 or 4, backing southeast 4 or 5
later. Smooth or slight. Fog patches developing later. Moderate or good,
occasionally very poor later.


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
  2016-07-18 18:03   ` Ronald Natalie
@ 2016-07-18 18:12     ` Steve Nickolas
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 33+ messages in thread
From: Steve Nickolas @ 2016-07-18 18:12 UTC (permalink / raw)


[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
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On Mon, 18 Jul 2016, Ronald Natalie wrote:

> The most annoying terminal I ever used was a HeathKit thing that not 
> only wouldn’t display lowercase letters, it didn’t just display the 
> upper case version of the character. If you sent it a lower case letter, 
> it printed gibberish.  It was a good thing that the UNIX TTY driver 
> LCASE mode output uppercase.

Reminds me of the Apple ][+.  You send it lowercase, it outputs the ascii 
value mod 64, so you get gibberish...

-uso.


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
  2016-07-18 14:35 Norman Wilson
  2016-07-18 14:44 ` Mary Ann Horton
@ 2016-07-18 18:07 ` Steve Simon
  2016-07-19  9:50   ` Tony Finch
  2016-07-26 12:45   ` Tim Bradshaw
  1 sibling, 2 replies; 33+ messages in thread
From: Steve Simon @ 2016-07-18 18:07 UTC (permalink / raw)


what fun we had in the early 1980s when the uk universities ran coloured book networking, that used arpanet style names but in the reverse order. I was ssimon at uk.ac.leeds-poly.ee.pe.

formulating valid routed paths with % could be taxing...

-Steve


> On 18 Jul 2016, at 15:35, Norman Wilson <norman at oclsc.org> wrote:
> 
> Just to be clear: I don't pine at all for UUCP.
> 
> I do still think it's a mistake that e-mail addresses and
> domain names run backwards from the way directories and
> filenames run.  That's what I miss about !norman vs
> norman at .
> 
> But it's all a Beta-vs-VHS matter these days, like a lot
> of unfortunate design decisions that have become standard
> over the years.  Like git winning out over hg, which is
> sort of like the VAX/VMS command language winning out over
> the Bourne shell.  (To toss another pebble into the pond
> to see what the ripples look like, rather in the manner
> of Rob and Dave.)
> 
> Norman Wilson
> Toronto ON



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
  2016-07-18 15:50 ` Joerg Schilling
@ 2016-07-18 18:03   ` Ronald Natalie
  2016-07-18 18:12     ` Steve Nickolas
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 33+ messages in thread
From: Ronald Natalie @ 2016-07-18 18:03 UTC (permalink / raw)


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> 
> In the 1970s, I had a VT50a at home 12 lines @ 80 cols upper case only.
> I used it with a self make 300 baud modem and later got a lower case character 
> ROM to sold un top of the upper case character ROM.

The most annoying terminal I ever used was a HeathKit thing that not only wouldn’t display lowercase letters, it didn’t just display the upper case version of the character.
If you sent it a lower case letter, it printed gibberish.   It was a good thing that the UNIX TTY driver LCASE mode output uppercase.

The thing also had a keyboard of identical keys and the assembler was given stickers for each letter to stick to each one.




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
  2016-07-18 15:44 Doug McIlroy
@ 2016-07-18 15:50 ` Joerg Schilling
  2016-07-18 18:03   ` Ronald Natalie
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 33+ messages in thread
From: Joerg Schilling @ 2016-07-18 15:50 UTC (permalink / raw)


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Doug McIlroy <doug at cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:

> DMR, JFO, RHM convention was well established. Only the affectation
> of lower-case only was new--and that was the fault of unicase Model
> 33. Who wanted to SHOUT EVERYTHING they wrote, or litter it with escapes?

In the 1970s, I had a VT50a at home 12 lines @ 80 cols upper case only.
I used it with a self make 300 baud modem and later got a lower case character 
ROM to sold un top of the upper case character ROM.

So there is more than just one upper case only terminal.

Jörg

-- 
 EMail:joerg at schily.net                  (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
       joerg.schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
 URL:  http://cdrecord.org/private/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/schilytools/files/'


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
@ 2016-07-18 15:44 Doug McIlroy
  2016-07-18 15:50 ` Joerg Schilling
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 33+ messages in thread
From: Doug McIlroy @ 2016-07-18 15:44 UTC (permalink / raw)


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> I heard that Bob Morris was asked for his initials, he said “rm”, they insisted on a middle initial, which he didn’t have, so he supplied “h”, hence “rhm”.

True in principle, but when it happened and who "they" were, is lore
beyond my ken. I presume it was before he joined Bell Labs. At the
labs, interoffice communications typically used initials, so the 
DMR, JFO, RHM convention was well established. Only the affectation
of lower-case only was new--and that was the fault of unicase Model
33. Who wanted to SHOUT EVERYTHING they wrote, or litter it with escapes?

doug


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
  2016-07-18 14:44 ` Mary Ann Horton
@ 2016-07-18 14:55   ` Ronald Natalie
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 33+ messages in thread
From: Ronald Natalie @ 2016-07-18 14:55 UTC (permalink / raw)


One of my great stories from the early internet days was I received an email from another site that had a from line of:
    From:  Hi There! Will Martin of AMSAA Here <will at amsaa.mil>

I responded by setting mine to:
    From:  Hi There!  Ron Natalie of BRL Here <ron at brl.mil>

Of course, I promptly forgot about it.    Amusingly it got written up in a HUMAN-NETS discussion of signature lines but it also croaked a few people who had imperfect RFC822 vs. UUCP handlers because of the !.



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
  2016-07-18 14:35 Norman Wilson
@ 2016-07-18 14:44 ` Mary Ann Horton
  2016-07-18 14:55   ` Ronald Natalie
  2016-07-18 18:07 ` Steve Simon
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 33+ messages in thread
From: Mary Ann Horton @ 2016-07-18 14:44 UTC (permalink / raw)


It does seem counter-intuitive that email addresses go right-to-left 
like postal addresses rather than left-to-right like phone numbers. But 
these days with auto-complete, I can type the first couple of characters 
of an email address and the correct one pops up.  That would never work 
with com.whatever

When they were both in use at the same time, email routers had to deal 
with ambiguity.  Greg Chesson gave his email address as 
research!greg at Berkeley and that only worked from the ARPANET and systems 
running pathalias.

     Mary Ann

On 07/18/2016 07:35 AM, Norman Wilson wrote:
> Just to be clear: I don't pine at all for UUCP.
>
> I do still think it's a mistake that e-mail addresses and
> domain names run backwards from the way directories and
> filenames run.  That's what I miss about !norman vs
> norman at .
>
> But it's all a Beta-vs-VHS matter these days, like a lot
> of unfortunate design decisions that have become standard
> over the years.
>
> Norman Wilson
> Toronto ON



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
@ 2016-07-18 14:35 Norman Wilson
  2016-07-18 14:44 ` Mary Ann Horton
  2016-07-18 18:07 ` Steve Simon
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 33+ messages in thread
From: Norman Wilson @ 2016-07-18 14:35 UTC (permalink / raw)


Just to be clear: I don't pine at all for UUCP.

I do still think it's a mistake that e-mail addresses and
domain names run backwards from the way directories and
filenames run.  That's what I miss about !norman vs
norman at .

But it's all a Beta-vs-VHS matter these days, like a lot
of unfortunate design decisions that have become standard
over the years.  Like git winning out over hg, which is
sort of like the VAX/VMS command language winning out over
the Bourne shell.  (To toss another pebble into the pond
to see what the ripples look like, rather in the manner
of Rob and Dave.)

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
       [not found] <mailman.79.1468802270.30583.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
@ 2016-07-18 14:06 ` David
  2016-07-19 12:41   ` Aaron Jackson
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 33+ messages in thread
From: David @ 2016-07-18 14:06 UTC (permalink / raw)


Back when it was all UUCP, a friend setup his own system, bang.

He then used his initials as his login, bam.

So when asked for his email address he answered

	bang bang bang bam

Bret was a funny guy.

	David



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
  2016-07-18  0:37     ` Brantley Coile
@ 2016-07-18 10:51       ` William Cheswick
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 33+ messages in thread
From: William Cheswick @ 2016-07-18 10:51 UTC (permalink / raw)


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Rob Pike and Dave Presotto arrived at Google well after its founding, and had to choose login names.
They chose “r” and “p”.  The Googlers were concerned about bugs, and r and p said they would fix any
that were found.  Apparently there were about three bugs that needed repair.


> On 17Jul 2016, at 8:37 PM, Brantley Coile <brantleycoile at me.com> wrote:
> 
> Tom Duff suggested to me that, when I discovered "bwc" was taken at Bell Labs, I should use "b".  I was "brantley" instead. Should have listened to TD. 



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
  2016-07-18  4:06   ` scj
  2016-07-18  4:09     ` Larry McVoy
@ 2016-07-18 10:42     ` William Cheswick
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 33+ messages in thread
From: William Cheswick @ 2016-07-18 10:42 UTC (permalink / raw)


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I heard that Bob Morris was asked for his initials, he said “rm”, they insisted on a middle initial,
which he didn’t have, so he supplied “h”, hence “rhm”.

This looks right: wikipedia does not mention a middle name, and Fred Grampp used to tell stories such as:

	They asked me for a social security number.

	I told them I dont’ give that out.

	They said, “Sir, I need a number.”

	He replied, “Okay, 123456789.”

	“No, sir, that number is no good…”

It’s definitely something Bob would do, but I can’t imagine that 1127 would have some rules about
this. 

As for me, I had been known for 20 years as “BC.”  When I got to the labs, Barbara Chambers
had beaten me to letters, hence “ches”.



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
  2016-07-18  4:06   ` scj
@ 2016-07-18  4:09     ` Larry McVoy
  2016-07-18 10:42     ` William Cheswick
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 33+ messages in thread
From: Larry McVoy @ 2016-07-18  4:09 UTC (permalink / raw)


On Sun, Jul 17, 2016 at 09:06:27PM -0700, scj at yaccman.com wrote:
> My login name story has many fewer characters.  At Bell Labs, it was
> common for people to use their initials as their login name.  Dennis was
> dmr, I was scj, Mike Lesk was mel, etc.  (Ken was an exception--he was
> ken).  When Bjarne Stroustrup joined the company, he chose the login name
> bs.  Several of us tried to tactfully suggest that this might not be the
> best choice, but he stuck with it...

I've been lm@ for a long time.  The ones I liked the best were lm at sun.com
and lm at cs.stanford.edu.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	     lm at mcvoy.com             http://www.mcvoy.com/lm 


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
  2016-07-17 23:09 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
@ 2016-07-18  4:06   ` scj
  2016-07-18  4:09     ` Larry McVoy
  2016-07-18 10:42     ` William Cheswick
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 33+ messages in thread
From: scj @ 2016-07-18  4:06 UTC (permalink / raw)


My login name story has many fewer characters.  At Bell Labs, it was
common for people to use their initials as their login name.  Dennis was
dmr, I was scj, Mike Lesk was mel, etc.  (Ken was an exception--he was
ken).  When Bjarne Stroustrup joined the company, he chose the login name
bs.  Several of us tried to tactfully suggest that this might not be the
best choice, but he stuck with it...



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
  2016-07-17 22:59   ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
@ 2016-07-18  0:37     ` Brantley Coile
  2016-07-18 10:51       ` William Cheswick
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 33+ messages in thread
From: Brantley Coile @ 2016-07-18  0:37 UTC (permalink / raw)


Tom Duff suggested to me that, when I discovered "bwc" was taken at Bell Labs, I should use "b".  I was "brantley" instead. Should have listened to TD. 

Sent from my iPad

> On Jul 17, 2016, at 6:59 PM, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
> 
>> On Sunday, 17 July 2016 at  7:42:56 -0400, Ronald Natalie wrote:
>> I always thought Jay Lepreau???s use of just ???j??? was the perfect minimalism.
> 
> My favourite was Dmitry Kohmanyuk of the Ukrainian TLD (at least 20
> years ago): d at ua.  I can't see any way of getting less than that.
> 
> Greg
> --
> Sent from my desktop computer.
> Finger grog at FreeBSD.org for PGP public key.
> See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
> This message is digitally signed.  If your Microsoft mail program
> reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
  2016-07-17 12:05 Norman Wilson
  2016-07-17 12:32 ` Ronald Natalie
@ 2016-07-17 23:09 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
  2016-07-18  4:06   ` scj
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 33+ messages in thread
From: Greg 'groggy' Lehey @ 2016-07-17 23:09 UTC (permalink / raw)


On Sunday, 17 July 2016 at  8:05:22 -0400, Norman Wilson wrote:
> Gr[aeiou]g Lehey:
>
>   And I wanted greg@, but it was taken.  So I ended up with grog@, and
>   I've had that for nearly 30 years.
>
> =====
>
> I was !norman for some years, but when I left Bell
> Labs for the real world 26 years ago, I was forced
> to switch to norman at .

You've uncovered an inaccuracy in my statement.  grog was the login,
of course, not primarily the email address, which was indeed !grog as
late as 1995.  Unlike you, I never regretted the change away from
UUCP.

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog at FreeBSD.org for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
This message is digitally signed.  If your Microsoft mail program
reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA
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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
  2016-07-17 11:42 ` Ronald Natalie
@ 2016-07-17 22:59   ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
  2016-07-18  0:37     ` Brantley Coile
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 33+ messages in thread
From: Greg 'groggy' Lehey @ 2016-07-17 22:59 UTC (permalink / raw)


On Sunday, 17 July 2016 at  7:42:56 -0400, Ronald Natalie wrote:
> I always thought Jay Lepreau???s use of just ???j??? was the perfect minimalism.

My favourite was Dmitry Kohmanyuk of the Ukrainian TLD (at least 20
years ago): d at ua.  I can't see any way of getting less than that.

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog at FreeBSD.org for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
This message is digitally signed.  If your Microsoft mail program
reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA
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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
  2016-07-17 12:05 Norman Wilson
@ 2016-07-17 12:32 ` Ronald Natalie
  2016-07-17 23:09 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 33+ messages in thread
From: Ronald Natalie @ 2016-07-17 12:32 UTC (permalink / raw)


[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 696 bytes --]

The one amusing thing with my user name (this was back in the JHU eight letter usernames) is I came in to the machine room where we had a log book of all the times the system went down (normally/abnormally) and what you did to bring it back up (this was in the old icheck/dcheck days before FSCK).    It was common when you came in look through the book to see what went bump in the night, so to say.

I found the entry:   “Took the system down.  First nine characters of the accounting file were corrupted.”

I’m saying to myself, “I think I might know how that happened.”   The system manager says “We figured you did.   The characters were your username followed by a colon.”




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
@ 2016-07-17 12:05 Norman Wilson
  2016-07-17 12:32 ` Ronald Natalie
  2016-07-17 23:09 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 33+ messages in thread
From: Norman Wilson @ 2016-07-17 12:05 UTC (permalink / raw)


Gr[aeiou]g Lehey:

  And I wanted greg@, but it was taken.  So I ended up with grog@, and
  I've had that for nearly 30 years.

=====

I was !norman for some years, but when I left Bell
Labs for the real world 26 years ago, I was forced
to switch to norman at .

That was part of the price I paid for trading suburban
New Jersey for downtown Toronto.  On the whole it was
a more-than-satisfactory trade, and emerging to the
real world broadened my perspectives in many areas,
but being stuck with Hideous Naming was certainly a
minor disadvantage.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON
research!norman no more


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
  2016-07-17  8:06 Rudi Blom
  2016-07-17  8:16 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
@ 2016-07-17 11:42 ` Ronald Natalie
  2016-07-17 22:59   ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 33+ messages in thread
From: Ronald Natalie @ 2016-07-17 11:42 UTC (permalink / raw)


[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 284 bytes --]

I always thought Jay Lepreau’s use of just “j” was the perfect minimalism.

I endeavored to be just “ron” at any place I worked.    In the early Windows domain days it turned out you couldn’t have a user and a machine with the same name.    My machine was just “R”.



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
  2016-07-17  8:06 Rudi Blom
@ 2016-07-17  8:16 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
  2016-07-17 11:42 ` Ronald Natalie
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 33+ messages in thread
From: Greg 'groggy' Lehey @ 2016-07-17  8:16 UTC (permalink / raw)


On Sunday, 17 July 2016 at 15:06:46 +0700, Rudi Blom wrote:
> One gets used to login names. In the 80ish I got 'rubl' and I'm still using it.

And I wanted greg@, but it was taken.  So I ended up with grog@, and
I've had that for nearly 30 years.  More background at
http://www.lemis.com/grog/grog.php

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog at FreeBSD.org for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
This message is digitally signed.  If your Microsoft mail program
reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA
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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Of login names
@ 2016-07-17  8:06 Rudi Blom
  2016-07-17  8:16 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
  2016-07-17 11:42 ` Ronald Natalie
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 33+ messages in thread
From: Rudi Blom @ 2016-07-17  8:06 UTC (permalink / raw)


One gets used to login names. In the 80ish I got 'rubl' and I'm still using it.

Of course in this age of the World Wild Web that may make me easily
trackable. Nothing to hide though :-)


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 33+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2016-10-19 22:35 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 33+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2016-07-16 16:54 [TUHS] Of login names Dave Horsfall
2016-07-16 23:04 ` Paul Osborne
2016-07-18 12:24   ` Tony Finch
2016-07-18 13:21     ` John Cowan
2016-07-17  2:56 ` Win Treese
2016-07-17  6:39 ` Tim Bradshaw
2016-07-17  8:06 Rudi Blom
2016-07-17  8:16 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2016-07-17 11:42 ` Ronald Natalie
2016-07-17 22:59   ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2016-07-18  0:37     ` Brantley Coile
2016-07-18 10:51       ` William Cheswick
2016-07-17 12:05 Norman Wilson
2016-07-17 12:32 ` Ronald Natalie
2016-07-17 23:09 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2016-07-18  4:06   ` scj
2016-07-18  4:09     ` Larry McVoy
2016-07-18 10:42     ` William Cheswick
     [not found] <mailman.79.1468802270.30583.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
2016-07-18 14:06 ` David
2016-07-19 12:41   ` Aaron Jackson
2016-10-19 20:53     ` Michael-John Turner
2016-10-19 22:35       ` Aaron Jackson
2016-07-18 14:35 Norman Wilson
2016-07-18 14:44 ` Mary Ann Horton
2016-07-18 14:55   ` Ronald Natalie
2016-07-18 18:07 ` Steve Simon
2016-07-19  9:50   ` Tony Finch
2016-07-26 12:45   ` Tim Bradshaw
2016-07-26 13:07     ` George Ross
2016-07-18 15:44 Doug McIlroy
2016-07-18 15:50 ` Joerg Schilling
2016-07-18 18:03   ` Ronald Natalie
2016-07-18 18:12     ` Steve Nickolas

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