avi@pegasus.UUCP (02/02/84)
As long as her name has popped up again, I saw a reference to Elizabeth Bimmler (owner of the infamous rabbit!bimmler account) in the new book: "The UNIX~ Programming Environment" by By Brian Kernighan and Rob Pike. She is listed in the Acknowledgements section of the introduction. Way back when, I remember a rumor to the effect that Rob Pike was the one impersonating !bimmler. I know there were at least 2 bimmler impersonators, because I (just for the sarcastic fun of it) used inews to send a message that looked like it came from ...!hogpc!alice!rabbit!bimmler, with the title of "How shall I commit suicide CONTEST". It asked people to suggest ways for bimmler (in the first person) to do away with itself. The interesting part was that my account was NOT on hogpc (making it difficult to trace back to me) and that people did respond -- and one person even noticed that the message did not originate on rabbit. Needless to say, I have since reformed my ways, and do not impersonate others. (Is impersonating an impersonator a crime? Does anyone care?) What happened to Elizabeth Bimmler was not unique. She did not even have to be away on vacation in order to have someone else imitate her. Under the current UNIX~ setup, any superuser can do it. Has anyone considered getting all the "bimmler" articles out of the archives and subject them to the latest text-analysis techniques. Maybe we will find that bimmler was not a single individual -- but a collection of pseudo-psychotics (or a single one with multiple personalities) (-: :-) (2-sided grin) ~ UNIX is a trademark of some segment of AT&T or other. -- -=> Avi E. Gross @ AT&T Information Systems Laboratories (201) 576-6241 suggested paths: [ihnp4, allegra, cbosg, hogpc, ...]!pegasus!avi
bob@cbosgd.UUCP (Bob Flandrena) (02/13/84)
Rob Pike impersonate Bimmler!? I met Pike once and he isn't even able to grow a decent mustache much less fill Bimmler's, er, shoes. Bf