Help for the new system manager

[Charley Kline]

> > 	Finally, we have a (potentially) large number of users.  Being a
> > university, our list of users is constantly changing.  Also, it's rather
> > difficult to assign usernames that are both unique and simple for the users.
> > We've come up with one or two ideas for this, but would like to know what
> > some other sites are using.  Our VMS systems use social security numbers,
> > along with a class code, but Unix won't allow that type of setup with only
> > eight characters.
> 
> MIT's Project Athena used the scheme of first initial, middle initial, plus the
> last name (if 6 characters or fewer, the first 6 characters if not).  This generates
> some interesting usernames, but they are almost always unique.  They are
> generally easy for the user who owns it to remember it, but it's often non-mnemonic
> for someone else -- although the VMS scheme is less mnemonic for both, I would think.


Please don't propagate the misuse of social security numbers in this way.
They're not supposed to be used for identification (it says so right on
your card), and using them as logins is quite the invasion of privacy.

But anyway, one good system I've seen is to use the first 3 characters of
the last name, the first three characters of the first name, and then the
middle initial. This almost always produces easy-to-remember, pronouncable
login names that are usually unique. Mine would be "klichav" under this
system, and a friend's would be "pompaub". Besides all the above advantages,
they're cute too.

_____
Charley Kline, University of Illinois Computing Services
kline at tuna.cso.uiuc.edu
{uunet,seismo,pur-ee,convex}!uiucdcs!uiucuxc!kline

"Just another useless dead thing, I've been killed by love."