It was not
proper authentication but rather a very coarse form of authorization
(again, see ???Passwords: Ascent and Decline??? and the de?¬?nition
of blind credentials). The same can be said for later uses of
this security mechanism, such as password protecting Of?¬?ce
documents or Zip archives. Every resource was at the complete
disposal of the computer owner, with the exception of licensed
software; in that case, at least in the installation phase, you had
to provide some form of proof of purchase (such as the stillpopular
serial number, entered at installation time). There was
not much to be stolen, and there was no way of doing it without
sitting in front of the machine.
Things started to change as computers gained access to new
classes of resources that were impossible to have in local form.
Among the ?¬?rst examples were the mail services and the connectivity
provider. For the record, this is one of the ?¬?rst moments
in which the consumer started to project his identity; gaining
Gaining unauthorized
access to the
computer has
always been one of
the most attempted
attacks
The advent of online
services introduced
a new kind
of good to steal
The Advent of Pro?¬?table Digital Crime 11
access to a connection involved supplying the service provider
with a set of credentials, basically a trick of verifying that the
incoming request came from somebody actually covered by a
regular contract.
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