[ih] Why is there (still) spam...?

[Steve Crocker]

Nigel,

If I recall correctly, ITS had a command, Gun, that killed a specific
process, not the entire system.  Any user could kill another user's
process.  This explicit lack of security was included to make it
uninteresting to find ways to find hacks -- a word that meant "interesting
and clever tricks," not the later and current negative meaning -- of
breaking into the system.  It was, in my opinion, an amusing and quirky way
to counter the tendency of smart youngsters to find ways to misbehave, but
it seemed obvious to me this strategy would only work within relatively
small communities.

Perhaps someone on this list can comment further.

Thanks,

Steve


I was in the MIT-AI lab in 1967-68, before the machine was connected to the
Arpanet.  I don't know if security was added later.

On Tue, Jul 29, 2025 at 3:32 AM Nigel Roberts via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> >> Computers were attended by armies of administrators and operators,
> >> who protected their expensive resources with the technology of the
> >> day, such as passwords and quotas.
> >
> > That does not sound like what I remember hearing about, for the
> > operations and use of some of the MIT research computers...
> >
> Not exactly my recollection, either.
>
> If we are talking about MIT computers I remember the following
> interchange, the first time I connected to ITS in early 1978. (It's been
> a long time so please forgive the many inaccuracies in remembered syntax)
>
> @O70
>
> :LOGIN NIGEL
>
> YOU DO NOT APPEAR TO HAVE ACCOUNT. WOULD YOU LIKE ONE?
>
> :Y
>
> WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE CALLED?
>
> NIGEL
>
> WELCOME, TOURIST.
>
>
>
> Such casual use by this stranger from overseas who just happened to have
> worked out how to connect to the only ARPAnet node in the UK and thence
> to the systems, particularly MIT-AI (134) and MIT-DM (70) was actively
> encouraged.
>
> Following which we found DUNGEON aka ZORK.
>
> And it was this passwordless openness that inspired the creation of MUD,
> the ancestor of most all multiplayer games.
>
> (I know the folks at DM were really doing some statistical stuff, and
> the DM stood for Dynamic Modelling or something close to that, but I
> always remember it as "dungeon masters".)
>
> The ITS command :OS allowed you to watch what was going on any other
> terminal, and I even have a vague recollection that there was a command
> that allowed anyone to crash the system.
>
> So, not exactly that guarded.
>
>
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