Tuesday 22 July 2008

History of passwords.....



Passwords or watchwords have been used since ancient times.Polybius describes the system for distribution watchwords in the Roman military as follows:
The way in which they secure the passing round of the watchword for the night is as follows: from the tenth maniple of each class of infantry and cavalry, the maniple which is encamped at the lower end of the street, a man is chosen who is relieved from guard duty, and he attends every day at sunset at the tent of the tribune, and receiving from him the watchword - that is a wooden tablet with the word inscribed on it - takes his leave, and on returning to his quarters passes on the watchword and tablet before witnesses to the commander of the next maniple, who in turn passes it to the one next him. All do the same until it reaches the first maniples, those encamped near the tents of the tribunes. These latter are obliged to deliver the tablet to the tribunes before dark. So that if all those issued are returned, the tribune knows that the watchword has been given to all the maniples, and has passed through all on its way back to him. If any one of them is missing, he makes inquiry at once, as he knows by the marks from what quarter the tablet has not returned, and whoever is responsible for the stoppage meets with the punishment he merits. [2].
Passwords have been used with computers since the earliest days of computing. MIT's CTSS, one of the first time sharing systems, was introduced in 1961. It had a LOGIN command that requested a user password. "After typing PASSWORD, the system turns off the printing mechanism, if possible, so that the user may type in his password with privacy." [3] Robert Morris invented the idea of storing login passwords in a hashed form as part of the Unix operating system. His algorithm, know as crypt(3), used a 12-bit salt and invoked a modified form of the DES algorithm 25 times to reduce the risk of dictionary attacks.



2 comments:

Law@wnoS ( MH08061) said...

This is an article about the origin of the password. Password have been used since ancient time. Since Roman military,they secure the passing round of the watchword for the night.

Besides,Passwords have been used with computers since the earliest days of computing. . It had a LOGIN command that requested a user password.After typing PASSWORD, the system turns off the printing mechanism.Robert Morris invented the idea of storing login passwords in a hashed form as part of the Unix operating system.

Law@wnoS ( MH08061) said...

This is an article about the origin of the password. Password have been used since ancient time. Since Roman military,they secure the passing round of the watchword for the night.

Besides,Passwords have been used with computers since the earliest days of computing. . It had a LOGIN command that requested a user password.After typing PASSWORD, the system turns off the printing mechanism.Robert Morris invented the idea of storing login passwords in a hashed form as part of the Unix operating system.