Fun_People Archive
6 Feb
It's obvious once you think of it.

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Fri,  6 Feb 98 00:40:49 -0800
To: Fun_People
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Subject: It's obvious once you think of it.

Forwarded-by: Nev Dull <nev@bostic.com>
From: John Gilmore <gnu@toad.com>

> NY Times article: Netscape Decision Could Alter Software Industry
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/digicom/020298digicom.html

A convention got started a few years ago for accessing web sites that
require a "free" username and password so they can track your accesses.
The convention is to use the username "cypherpunks" (or as much of it as
fits) and password "cypherpunks".  This works on the New York Times web
site.

Since hundreds or thousands of people use this username and password on all
kinds of web sites, every additional user makes it even harder for the Web
sites to track individual usage.  Tracking people depends on their
willingness to keep their username and password secret; but tracking web
users is not in the peoples' own interest, so they publish, rather than
secure, their usernames and passwords.

I encourage both US and non-US Web users to assist in this process.

	John Gilmore
	(co-founder of the cypherpunks)

PS:  If that username and password doesn't work on a site, please register
on that site as "cypherpunks" with that password.  Then it will work, for
you and for everyone else.

© 1998 Peter Langston