Human-Nets-Request%rutgers@brl-bmd.UUCP (Human-Nets-Request@rutgers) (01/02/84)
HUMAN-NETS Digest Thursday, 29 Dec 1983 Volume 6 : Issue 87
Today's Topics:
Responce to Query - Input Devices (2 msgs),
Computers and the Law - The FCC and "Dirty" Phone Services
Computer Security - Passwording (3 msgs)
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Date: Fri 23 Dec 83 11:35:43-EST
From: Janet Asteroff <US.JFA@CU20B>
Subject: Dvorak Keyboard, Print and Electronic Print
Dvorak was an engineer assigned to the Navy in the 1930's. He designed
a keyboard for maximum efficiency. The Sholes (inventor of typewriter)
keyboard, developed in 1873, was designed to slow down the typist
(user) as much as possible by placing frequently used letters far
apart. Sholes had to do this because when he had it arranged in a
more logical fashion, his typists, way back in 1873, were gaining too
much speed and jamming the keys. So, he changed the arrangement to its
present QWERTY configuration.
The QWERTY keyboard divides the work between the left hand (55%) and
the right hand (45%), and the DVORAK keyboard does just the opposite.
I dont have a chart handy, but I have a reference to an old article in
Scientific American or Business Week or something like that if anyone
wants to poke around. Great speeds were attained with the Dvorak
keboard, probably some claims exaggerated. The Navy thought of making
it the standard, but it never happened.
Anyway, IBM et. al. has always wanted to change the arrangement, but
claimed that "office workers" would never stand for it. I doubt if
writers would have been very happy either. Anyway, if you have access
to an HP National terminal, I understand that there is a "Dvorak
mode",..in Language Mode, type C-shift F1 and you should get it. I
have not tried it yet, so don't hold me to it.
The ironic thing is that we will move from QWERTY to dynamically
designed keboards. We will be able to define our own keys on our
terminals. Keyboard design has been a problem right from the very
beginning. It does not approximate the arrangement of letters in the
printer's case. Sholes broke it up to make his machine usable. The
typewriter appeared at the same time as the telephone--actually a few
years before. Sholes felt his machine was eclipsed by the telephone,
and never thought anyone would find any use for the typewriter after
about 5 years. He knew that it was the first personal instrument of
print culture--enabling us mortals to make print ourseleves. Now that
we have electronic print and ttys, he could not have known the
typewriter would be the only personal instrument of print culture, as
we rush to replace print with electronic print.
Anyone out there interested in the role of the typewriter in the
transition from print to electronic print? After all, when new users
sit down at the terminal, some initial fear goes away when they see
the old QWERTY arrangement. William Zinsser says some interesting
things about the disappearance of paper when he started using his IBM
word processor. Now, if we can only explain CTL, ESC, PF1...
Janet Asteroff
(US.JFA%cu20b@columbia)
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Date: Wed, 28 Dec 83 14:12:02 EST
From: Adam Moskowitz <adamm@BBN-UNIX>
Subject: DVORAK Keyboards
In Response To: Jeff Makey's msg of 15 Dec 1983 22:20 EST
The "DVORAK" keyboard is a keyboard that was designed with maximum
speed in mind. I'm not sure I've ever seen the layout of the keys
(I'm still stuck with QWERTY), but supposedly the "home row" is full
of the letters one uses most of the time (e, t, i, etc). When tested
in high school typing classes, the students who learned the DVORAK
keyboard attained speeds of 180+ wpm ! The average typist today types
about 85 wpm. Professional typist who switched have (supposedly)
attained speeds of 250+ wpm. The error rate was not really different
than for QWERTY.
Adamm
<adamm @ bbn-unix>
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Date: 23 December 1983 12:23 EST
From: Phyllis E. Koton <ELAN @ MIT-ML>
Subject: How "High Society" gets its two cents
I was living in NYC at the time this service started, and I remember
reading that New York Telephone was in cahoots with High Society on
this venture. They know how many calls go to that phone # and they
pay the publishers a percentage of the take. This info was included
in an article about a group that was urging parents to write & call
the phone company to protest this service..
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Date: 24 Dec 83 13:43:05 EST
From: Mike Zaleski <ZALESKI@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Subject: FCC vs. Sexy Phone Companies
Excerpts from: a238 1609 14 Dec 83, AM-Telephone Sex,650
FCC Moves To Regulate ''Dial-A-Porn'', By NORMAN BLACK, AP Writer
Since the law gives the agency only 180 days to establish
regulations, the FCC said it was setting a deadline of Jan. 23 for
comments.
Government in action - A regulation is signed into law on December 8
and a scant 45 days (of a possible 180) are allowed for public
comment, conveniently chosen during a period when most people are busy
with holiday activites.
... declares any commercial service using ''obscene or indecent''
language illegal if it is available to persons under 18 years of age.
When I called the High Society number, I don't remember hearing any
obscene or indecent language as such, i.e. no four letter words. Most
of it was a lot of silly moaning.
There is no special charge for the service in New York, because
much of the city is on measured service and thus local phone calls
are billed separately or counted toward an allowance. Persons outside
New York who dial the number must pay the normal long-distance
charges.
While originally designed as a promotional gimmick, the service
has proven highly lucrative for High Society because of the huge
number of people who have been calling. The magazine pockets two
cents for each call, and the service has attracted up to 500,000
calls a day.
My roommate, who has had some dealings with local phone companies,
contents that it is possible that New York Telephone is losing money
on this deal. He claims that many local phone companies are
collections of small agencies which are often very uncooperative with
each other. This situation could easily lead to providing services
that lose money.
However, it is also possible the New York Telephone is making money on
this service. This could occur three ways:
1. By having people go over their "message unit" limit for a given
month and allow billing for the additional local calls. Also a
number of these calls may be initiated from business numbers during
the day. Businesses pay a higher rate for phone use.
2. By collecting small charges from "nearby" locations such as
Brooklyn, Queens, or the Bronix calling into Manhattan.
3. By getting a larger distribution of long distance income. (Note
that local phone companies do not directly get a cut of the long
distance calls into their area. Rather, Long Lines does a
complicated calculation based on the usage of the phone network and
distributes money to the local phone companies to compensate them
for the otherwise "free" use of their switching equipment by calls
originated outside their billing area.)
In a related development, the author of the new law asked the FCC
Wednesday to levy fines totaling $15.8 million on High Society. Rep.
Thomas J. Bliley, R-Va., argued the FCC should levy the maximum
penalty of $50,000 a day dating back to Feb. 1, when the service
first began.
Bliley contends the phone sex service was illegal even before the
new law was enacted and that it is ''time the FCC got off the dime...
and put these guys out of business.''
ap-ny-12-14 1909EST
What we have here is a typical sleezy politician trying to make
political hay out of a non-issue. As for his claim that the service
was illegal even before the new law was enacted, he should cite a
specific chapter and verse of the law. One might hope the voters in
Virginia would see through this shallow publicity getting scheme, but
I doubt most will.
Excerpt from: Geoff
Lastly, anyone know how/why High Society goes about accumulating 2
cents per call made to their porn number? I would be interested in
having the same accumulation technique/service put on my home and
office phone lines.
I hope my earlier remarks clarified this a little. Try thinking of
some phone service you can provide that will stimulate phone use and
contact your local phone company...
-- Mike^Z
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Date: 22 Dec 83 20:04:07 EST
From: Hobbit <AWalker@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Subject: Passwords
I've always found it easy to sit down and type a few random words on
the terminal, and pick one I liked. They come out anywhere between 6
and 9 characters long, and are such that I can type them *fast* for
when people are watching. I don't think this has been discussed: It
is quite possible for people to get a fairly good notion of your
password by watching you type it, especially if you're a slow typist.
I therefore go for speed as well as unrecognizability. For instance,
I'll do it now:
rudissp
doutsw
ermkis
cornsew
...etc etc. I think that a lot of people who use computers don't
think in terms of their password getting compromised, so they pick
ones that are easy for them to remember. Since most people deal with
real words during their activities, they tend to pick real words that
they use often, without having any thought about those who might be
trying to find out miscellaneous things about them. A system, when it
asks for a new password, should perhaps rather than impose all kinds
of technical restrictions, simply type a small bit of text explaining
that a password should be meaningless if possible, have nothing to do
with personal life, etc... Also, on a system that allows
nine-character passwords, for instance, a four-letter password should
be just as secure as a longer one, since an intruder would have to
select a starting length as well as a sequence and there's no way for
him to know how long a given password is.
_H*
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Date: 23 December 1983 01:03 cst
From: RSaunders.TCSC at HI-MULTICS
Subject: Passwords: Is there a better way?
The past week or so has brought a wide variety of techniques for
validating that I am who I say I am when I log into a computer. Some
really interesting way of getting passwords, the system picking them,
runningwordstogether, rules foR$wh1ch letters I can use and the like.
I would like to see some discussion of non-password validation
techniques. I can't remember who to credit for this but those of you
who know the history of a game called ADVENTURE, which I saw running
on a PDP-10 in '77, will recall that after the user has provided the
"wizard" password the system sends a short 5 character word. The user
is required to permute the key, by an algorithm I will not divulge to
maintain whatever secrecy it may still have, and enter a counter-key.
This is an old technique that was very popular in WWII for validating
simply cyphered messages.
I think this would make a neat system for entry validation. Each
time you guess wrong the system prompts you with a different word.
Knowing the word pair used for the last login wouldn't buy you
anything so there is no need for the no-echo business which I find
causes so many typos as to keep passwords short. Each user picks,
instead of a password, an algorithm for doing the permutation that can
be based on any system he can imagine. This is stored in some nice
execute only region of system storage that nobody but the password
program can use. Guessing is now effectively removed as a hazard and
the order of complexity of the system (how hard is it to crack) goes
from a function of how many letters from how big a set the user can
remenber, to how many ways can the statements in a program be
arranged. I think the latter is at least 5 orders of magnitude
larger.
Thus intrigued I will have to consider making myself such a
program. Any comments?
Randy Saunders
RSaunders@HI-Multics
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Date: 27 Dec 1983 18:46:53-??? (Tue)
From: hp-lsd!paul@rand-relay
Subject: Passwords - An alternative
Passwords are frequently software-limited to around 8-16
characters. People choosing passwords are not always aware of
the latest data in making an intelligent choice. I would like to
see some discussion/investigation on the use of personal physical
characteristics instead of passwords.
Advantages of using physical parameters:
o Your friend/wife can't use your login (good security)
o Very difficult to forge
Disadvantages:
o Your friend/wife can't use your login (sometimes
inconvenient)
o More complexity since some parameters change with time
o Most acquisition schemes require fairly good real-time
data capture capability (difficult in time-shared world)
Some work has been done with things such as recording pen
accelerations as one writes their signature and voice
identification but that won't work with a normal terminal/modem.
I recently wrote a short Un*x-based program to record the
inter-character typing times while a sentence or something was
typed(program available). After several repetitions, the data
began to be consistent enough to extract (visually from the graph
anyway) salient features but that's as far as I took it. One
aspect of this method, if it could be made reliable, is that a
potential trespasser would have to record timing *and* text to
break the system. There is also less pressure to select a unique
password, everyone could use the same sentence if desired.
Ideas?
----Paul Bame
HP Logic Systems Division
hplabs!hp-lsd!paul
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End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
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