• Gnasher729 (unregistered)

    The public password is not unusual for a machine that is guaranteed to have no secret data on it whatsoever.

  • (nodebb)

    I think using the servers name (and network name?) as its root password is a truly inspired 1970s idea.

  • (nodebb)

    Imagine a world where people are so honest that you can set a root password like that and not worry about people breaking in...

    What am I saying :) Back to reality! Of deceit, theft, murder, and all the other "wonderful" things.

  • (nodebb) in reply to WTFGuy

    The 3.5" floppy disk drive and Turbo button suggest it comes from time closer to the 1970s than the present day.

    (Yes kids, for a number of years it was common for computers to have a button to speed up or slow down your computer, primarily for playing games that relied on the CPU speed being 4.77MHz and became unplayable on faster CPUs. Back when Windows was what allowed natural light into the room.)

  • markm (unregistered) in reply to Paddles

    1980's, not 1970's. The 1970's small computers were 8 bits, and built to at least a dozen different standards. The floppy disks were floppy, rather than with the hard plastic case you see there on the 3.5" diskette. The first IBM Personal Computer came out in 1981, but that case is from years later. In the first model, the processor was an 8088, 16-bit internally but with an 8-bit bus. 5-1/4 inch floppy disks were optional, there was a cassette tape drive interface, and if you wanted a hard drive, you bought an expansion box. By 1989, every PC had a hard drive and 5-1/4 or 3.5" diskettes, or usually both, and the 640K RAM memory limitation was seen as a mistake that it was too late to correct.

  • markm (unregistered) in reply to WTFGuy

    If you can control physical access to the server, writing the password on it is not an insecurity. It probably was not networked, so everyone could know the password but only the guy with the key to the server closet could use it.

  • Kleyguerth (github) in reply to markm

    Even if that PC is from the 90s, it is closer to the 70s than the present day.

  • (nodebb) in reply to Kleyguerth

    I feel so old. I've been using personal computers almost 3/4 of my life.

  • Dvon Edzore (unregistered) in reply to markm

    Small computers in 1970 were 12 bits and came with a box of paper tapes for your TTY. Disk storage was either 14", expensive, and rigid, or 8", 'affordable,' and sort of flexible, but if you folded it you were screwed. Neither one had even a fraction of the capacity the cheapest USB thumb drive available today has. A few of the big boxes had Turbo switches, but they required a CE (customer engineer) to activate, and then doubled your lease payment as well. That is, unless you were lucky enough to own a Datapoint 2200 which integrated keyboard, screen, processor, and two drives for digital media one could carry in a pocket -- and was programmable and networkable enough to start the whole microcomputer revolution a few years later. That was a decade before the underpowered IBM 5150 emerged from Boca Raton (the mouth of the mouse.)

  • (nodebb)

    That server has the ultimate protection, it's running SCO. Any would-be attacker will curl up into the foetal position as soon as they see the login prompt.

  • (nodebb)

    TRWTF is running SCO Unix for production. Or anything, for that matter.

    I've had the unfortunate experience of having to use that POS instead of a more descent Linux or BSD system in the 90s, just because some PHB had decided that only an expensive solution was serious enough for business, regardless of technical merits.

  • (nodebb)

    @markm ref

    If you can control physical access to the server, writing the password on it is not an insecurity. It probably was not networked, so everyone could know the password but only the guy with the key to the server closet could use it.

    A "server" that's not on a network is going to have a very hard time serving anything. To be sure with enough layers of firewalling, and no connection to the internet it might be tolerable enough. Might. Note that this server is sitting on a carpeted floor, so clearly we're not talking a highly professional operation.

    Ref wiki, SCO Unix was first released in 1989. So regardless of the vintage of the hardware, the pic dates from after then. So maybe, just maybe there's no internet connection. Yet.

  • wikster (unregistered) in reply to zomgwtf

    The label on that machine is a plea for help. Put it out of its misery.

  • (nodebb) in reply to WTFGuy

    To be sure with enough layers of firewalling, and no connection to the internet it might be tolerable enough.

    You don't need a firewall if your server isn not connected to the outside world. And, in the early 90's, it was not uncommon for a company's computers not to be on the Internet. The computers in the company I worked for until 1998 were not connected to the Internet. There was an email gateway, but that was our sole connection to the outside world for most staff.

  • markm (unregistered) in reply to WTFGuy

    Sorry, I meant "not networked to the outside world, and without software to allow remote control even from a terminal within the shop."

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