RIP Dennis Ritchie

Dennis Ritchie, creator of the C programming language and co-creator of the Unix operating system, has died aged 70.

I took my first C class in 1990. Prior to that I had done a lot of programming in Basic and Pascal, but really enjoyed programming in FORTRAN. Since that class I have done a lot of C programming, but still pretty much think of myself as a FORTRAN programmer.

Learning C wasn't difficult. But most of my programming experience was with fairly structured languages and C just seemed to offer me lots of different ways to really screw up everything I was doing. During one fairly stressful week in class I asked the professor "Has Dennis Ritchie ever publicly admitted that this whole language was a joke and we weren't supposed to actually use it for anything?"

My question seemed to nail my prof's funny bone. He started chuckling every time he looked at me for a week. He confided to me later that he fully understood my feelings, early in his C programming days he felt much the same way.

It didn't take me long to really warm up to C, even though it never managed to replace FORTRAN as my favorite language. But I guess I can finally stop waiting for an announcement from Dennis Ritchie.

RIP Mr. Ritchie, your work revolutionized the computer industry.

How Good is Your Passward?

At work we have pretty rigid rules about passwards in our computer systems:

Our passwords must be 27 characters long and contain:
- at least 2 capitols (state capitols, not countries),
- two special olympics contestants middle names,
- 7 numbers (3 odd numbers and 4 even numbers, none of the numbers can be a multiple of 3)

In addition we have to change this password every 4 days and the system keeps a log of old passwords. So you cannot reuse any part of a old password until your 32nd password change.

OK, so I'm exaggerating just a little bit. But not by much. There is one system I have to log into at work that requires a password change every 6 months. Since I only log into this system about 3 times a year I pretty much am required to change my password every time I log in.

All in all the password as a method of security on computers is getting ridiculus. I even have to change passwords every six months on a machine that is locked in a vault and has no connection to any other computer.

And if I thought work was bad, you should try keeping up with passwords if you do any e-mailing or online commenting or shopping from home. The largest book in our house is the one we use to write down all our online shopping passwords.

Now I know many of you (OK, all two of you) will say "Hey dorkface!, just pick one password and use it for everything, and make it clever so no one will guess it."

Well the folks at Whats My Pass? have been doing a little password homework. They have compiled a list of the top 500 common passwords that people like to use.

That list is here! (But don't click on that link if you are easily offended by seeing profanity. Apparently a lot of people are willing to type things into their computers that they would never say out loud in public. But then again I've been to our local high school and listened to the way they talk.

There are some interesting passwords on this list that show how people try to be clever, but even human cleverness is predictable. For example, look at these passwords that I found interesting:

ncc1701 The ship number for the Starship Enterprise
thx1138 The name of George Lucas’s first movie, a 1971 remake of an earlier student project
qazwsx Follows a simple pattern when typed on a typical keyboard
666666 Six sixes
7777777 Seven sevens
ou812 The title of a 1988 Van Halen album
8675309 The number mentioned in the 1982 Tommy Tutone song. The song supposedly caused an epidemic of people dialing 867- 5309 and asking for “Jenny”

“…Approximately one out of every nine people uses at least one password on the list shown in Table 9.1! And one out of every 50 people uses one of the top 20 worst passwords..”

I am pleased to say that I have not used any of the passwords on that list at home or at work. Well except one. Back when I did computer and network support I used number 96 as a default password if I had to reset someone's email password or their account password. But in my defense, that was back in the day when keyboards only had 4 numbers and 13 letters on them. We have come a long way since then.

OS Wars

Comment on a blog in the midst of a long discusion about Operating Systems on PCs.

The OS wars are over and the Web Browser won.

Boy isn't that the sorry truth.

My entire Windows Operating system treats everything I try to do like it is a stupid website.