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It was Bill Joy's password, not Ken Thompson's, that had a control character

minnie.tuhs.org

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Re: It was Bill Joy's password, not Ken Thompson's, that had a control character

#21
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The title is in reference to which password contained a control character. It is truncated, but not incorrect.

Ok, we've put a control character in the title above. (Submitted title was "It was Bill Joy's password, not Ken Thompson"... also a category error to compare a password to Ken.)

> Ok, we've put a control character in the title above.

Is that why my computer keeps beeping when I refresh the page?

Re: It was Bill Joy's password, not Ken Thompson's, that had a control character

#22
I knew someone who started with DEC minicomputers. His original password included a backspace.

That is, the password might have looked like

1234

but it was actually

12^H34

because at that point, the backspace character was still a terminal command.

Re: It was Bill Joy's password, not Ken Thompson's, that had a control character

#24
post #2

The current title ("It was Bill Joy's password, not Ken Thompson") I assume is in reference to Ken's password being cracked two weeks ago. The title is not correct. Ken's password was cracked. Bill Joy's password has now also been cracked, but not disclosed w/o getting permission from Joy to do so first. Discussion from two weeks ago - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21202905 Message posting /etc/password entrie…

Yes, It was my fault. the correct title is "Bill Joy's Unix password had a control character".

Re: It was Bill Joy's password, not Ken Thompson's, that had a control character

#25
If you read on in the thread there's this fun story[1]:

> John P. Linderman jpl.jpl at gmail.com

> Sat Oct 19 23:11:10 AEST 2019

> Related story. A user came to us with a problem while we were in our computer room. We asked him to log in at the VAX console, so we could look into the problem. Moments later, dozens of users flooded in, asking what had happened. Seems the first user had a CTRL-P in his password, which, when entered at the console, triggered the VAX to pause.

[1] - https://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2019-October/019137.h...

Re: It was Bill Joy's password, not Ken Thompson's, that had a control character

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> back in the days, in order to find the gold nuggets on the web, you had to shift through shit. "back in the day"? Edit: no, I meant, it hasn't changed since then. Sturgeon's Law still applies today.

I did not know that it's "day" not "days". Not a native English speaker and have always been saying it "days". Thank you for correcting me!

Both could be correct. Here I think "day" could make more sense. An example of the other case: "Back in the days of Fortran programming..."

If you leave out anything after "days" by just saying "back in the days" then it is like you are pausing. As in when you reminisce, "Oh, back in the days!" Maybe that is what the intention was.

In any case, the commentor was actually just saying that he thinks nothing has changed.

Re: It was Bill Joy's password, not Ken Thompson's, that had a control character

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like the rest of us, get browsing! https://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/ Might as well add a disclaimer: back in the days, in order to find the gold nuggets on the web, you had to shift through shit. A lot of shit. But then once in a while, you find those little nuggets that made the whole shit-shifting worthwhile. Useful exercise in patience for beginner webbers maybe.

> back in the days, in order to find the gold nuggets on the web, you had to shift through shit. "back in the day"? Edit: no, I meant, it hasn't changed since then. Sturgeon's Law still applies today.

Sorry, I misunderstood and thought you were trying to correct me! Thanks anyway :)

I would agree, but I think the difference nowadays (had to look up I got "nowadays" right, seems I did!) is that people usually want a quality filter in front of them (like upvotes, likes, retweets or some other metric) rather than just having to judge by themselves.

In good ol' email threads, you always had to judge by yourself. In social media today, many assume quality because of metrics.

Re: It was Bill Joy's password, not Ken Thompson's, that had a control character

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like the rest of us, get browsing! https://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/ Might as well add a disclaimer: back in the days, in order to find the gold nuggets on the web, you had to shift through shit. A lot of shit. But then once in a while, you find those little nuggets that made the whole shit-shifting worthwhile. Useful exercise in patience for beginner webbers maybe.

Google can't monetize this content so it ends up on page 5 behind all the irrelevant SEO links.

If enough legit and important articles linked to it , it would be at the top.

Re: It was Bill Joy's password, not Ken Thompson's, that had a control character

#29
post #20
post #5

So much interesting content is locked in these oldschool mailing lists, how does a modern-day web user get into them?

You need an email account in order to join a mailing list, so get one of those. Your ISP probably gives you one, but you can also use one of the more obscure email providers like yahoo or gmail if you want. I'm a fan of fastmail on my own domain. Once you have an email address, this content is now available to you! Most mailing lists are free and easy to subscribe to.

I understand where you coming from, but I don't think this "modern web-user" is unfamiliar with what email is, so the sarcastic tone is a bit over the top and usually not appreciated on HN.

Instead you could have spent time explaining a better way of browsing the content, or what to consider when reading. Instead of assuming this person doesn't know what a email address is.

Re: It was Bill Joy's password, not Ken Thompson's, that had a control character

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google can't monetize this content so it ends up on page 5 behind all the irrelevant SEO links.

If enough legit and important articles linked to it , it would be at the top.

And what decides if a article is "legit and important"? If some other legit and important article links to it, of course!

And so we continue, until only the bottom-feeding "high quality" is left at the top of the search result, which is generally boring but "correct" content.

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