Unix userid conventions

[davids at iscuva.UUCP]

Here where I work we brought in 5 MicroVAX II's running Ultrix
and an 11/785 running VMS about a year ago.  Other portions of
our company were using login names (on our IBM mainframes) of
the user's first initial, last initial, followed by the employee
number (ds08393).

The person who was organizing the installation of our new systems
decided that if others used that method then we would use the
same method (against both the VMS and Ultrix administrators wishes).

This lasted about 3 months before we were allowed to changed to
a more user friendly method.  Durring those 3 months it was VERY
difficult to communicate with other users.  We were always looking
up names off of printed cross-references or guessing and getting
them wrong.

We currently use first name, last initial (davids).  In the case
of duplicates (3 out of 130 users!) we simply added a second letter
from the last name to the second user.  Communication be INSTANTLY
easier for all users.  Even those who opposed the change agreed
afterwards that it was much better than before.

The place for security is not in the user names, it should be in
enforcing good password practices (long passwords, password aging,
etc.).
-- 
David Schmidt          UUCP:  ihnp4!tektronix!reed!iscuva!davids
ISC Systems Corp.      Phone: (509)927-5479
Box TAF-C8
Spokane, WA  99220