Worm/Passwords

[Dennis G. Rears FSAC]

>
>T T Phillips writes:
>
>> And after you generate this random "pasword", no human user will be able
>> to remember it. And so your users will write the "passwords" down, paste
>> them on their terminals, ...etc.
>
>I don't know about other government installations installations,
>but here at Los Alamos, we are given what seem to be random
>passwords annually.  You must protect your password as you do
>your badge.  My observation is that the engineers, scientists,
>secretaries and managers seem to be able to cope with the random
>passwords without significant problems.

   Here at Picatinny ( An Army R&D Center) our computers use both
systems.  We also have to protect our passwords.  It is not always
done.  Our higher level people routinely give their passwords to
their secretaries so they can pull off email for them. I have
accounts on over 10 computers.  On machines where I can choose my
own password they are the same.  of course on some I forgot/never
use the password and just use rlogin/rsh.  On the ones I have the
assigned passwords, I don't remember them, I keep them encrypted on my
UNIX machines.   I see passwords written down a lot.  Also since I
am considered the "expert" in my building people say to me:

   Can you help me?  My problem is ****. My user name is ****.  You
   can get my password anyway so I might as well give to you. It is
   ***.  Even though I tell them keep your passwords to yourself
   they  always like to give it out.

  Dennis
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			Dennis  Rears
ARPA:	drears at ardec-ac4.arpa	UUCP:  	...!uunet!ardec-ac4.arpa!drears
AT&T:	201-724-6639		USPS:	Box 210, Wharton, NJ 07885
Work:	SMCAR-FSS-E, Bldg 94, Picatinny Ars, NJ 07806
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