Who stole the first computer passwords, and why?

In 1962 Allan Scherr, a PhD student at MIT, needed far more time on the university’s time-sharing system than his allowance of about four hours a semester. He had been quietly resetting his own usage meter, until the system’s staff removed his code and revoked his access. Then he found that every password lived in a file called UACCNT.SECRET, and that anyone could ask for a file to be printed by submitting a punched card. Late one Friday night he submitted one, returning early the next morning to retrieve the printed list of passwords.

To spread the risk, he offered the passwords in exchange for immunity to J. C. R. Licklider, the Defense Department official overseeing MIT’s computing project. Scherr later heard that Licklider used them to log in as the project’s leaders, including its director, Robert Fano, and leave taunting messages. Scherr also showed two other struggling PhD students how to get more time, and one of them was later caught and called onto the carpet by Fano.

Scherr finished his thesis in 1965 and left for IBM, where he went on to design operating systems. About twenty-five years later, at the project’s anniversary, he finally confessed to Fano in person. Fano assured him his PhD would not be revoked. More than fifty years after the theft, told he was the first documented password thief, Scherr said, “That’s really something to be famous for.”