Hacking The First Computer Password

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 19 December 2018

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Scientists at MIT in the 1960s had to share computer time. They were given passwords to access the computer and could not use more than their allowance. But one man, Allan Scherr, hacked the system by working out the master password. He has been talking to Ashley Byrne.

Photo: Allan Scherr at his workstation connected to the MIT central system in 1963. Courtesy of Allan Scherr

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
0:04.7	My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
0:08.5	As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.
0:18.0	What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,
0:24.6	poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.
0:29.7	If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.
0:36.0	Hello, you're listening to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service.
0:41.0	I'm Ashley Byrne and today I'm taking you back to 1962 and the development of
0:45.8	one of the most essential and arguably most frustrating requirements of modern living.
0:50.7	I've been speaking to computer analyst Alan Cher about the very first computer
0:55.5	password. I guess most of us are aware of the fact that the computer has come to play an
0:59.9	increasingly important role in our everyday life.
1:03.6	In December 1962, a brand new system for computer security was created at the prestigious
1:09.7	Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States.
1:13.8	You had an account number which back then they called a problem number which today would be a
1:18.9	user ID.
1:20.1	A time sharing system involving users connecting to the computer via telephone from all over the world
1:26.3	not only opened up opportunities, but also the potential for abuse.
1:31.1	MIT had the first interactive time sharing system that was general purpose in that you could
1:37.6	run any program from a remote workstation.
1:40.9	And one of the first users of the computer password system was then PhD student, Alan
1:46.1	Share. A team of people put the system together. There was a guy named Fernando Corbido,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.