jaw@ames-lm.UUCP (01/10/84)
Re: One-handed typing
As a refreshing hiatus from such masochism, (v.i.z. recent item
from Steve Summit), we have alternate-hand keyboard input (e.g. "bicycle"
using QWERTY). Constraining every other letter to opposite hands is
actually useful for password composition; that is, over-the-shoulder
voyeurs cannot so easily intercept a quickly typed shibboleth.
One wag who used to work here confessed to invoking the services of
a random "boustrophedonic" word generator--not only for this paranoid
application, but also for supplying program identifiers which needed to
be typed often! A quick scan of a certain 93000 word list shows that
dismantlement
neurotoxicity
are maximal examples of such serendipity. DVORAK enthusiasts--take that!
-- James A. Woods (hao!ames-lm!jaw)rh@mit-eddie.UUCP (Randy Haskins) (01/13/84)
Just a little note about passwords (not that it really belongs in this newsgroup, but what the hay.). The best passwords are ones that aren't real words in any language. It's okay if they are pronounceable somehow, but they should never be written down anywhere. A former password of mine (I'll never use it as a PW again, because I decided I liked it better as my enabled-prompt on TOPS-20) is "Rhyndren." When people see it as my prompt, they say, "What is it???!!" That's the point, I think. Even if our little mind has convinced us that the real-word password we have chosen has no connection to us and can't be guessed, it's possible that the mind (as usual) is too close to itself to be objective. So it goes. -- Randwulf (Randy Haskins); Path= genrad!mit-eddie!rh