Password-based authentication
Bill Nugent · ACM SIGSAC Review · 1987
The people who invented computer passwords obviously never met Charlie Fox. During my high school years, I worked Saturdays and Summers at Hampton General Store, in the small New England village of Hampton, Connecticut. Charlie Fox was the postman. For many years, every day at 3:30 PM Charlie would come into the store, having finished his route. Every day he took down the phone book, looked up his home telephone number, and called his wife to ask for her grocery order. He was a pleasant and perfectly normal fellow, but one who just couldn't remember a phone number, even his own.