On Tue, Nov 07, 2000 at 11:23:21AM +1100, James Wilkinson wrote:
> This one time, at band camp, Terry Collins said:
> >James Wilkinson wrote:
> >
> >> Er, I think this is illegal in unix-land. You need at least one alpha
> >> character first. I think the syntax of usernames follows that of C
> >> variable names.
> >
> >Keep trying.
> >Numbers make it really handy to track people up to no good; first you
> >have to copy the number correctly, then contact administration to find
> >out who it is, then you start to have some idea of who is involved.
> >
> >Just great for personal service.
>
> I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, so I'll assume you're not. I
> don't see how a username stops you being anymore trackable than having a
> usernumber. If people have some kind of id number, then perhaps a db to
> look up name->id?
>
> After 3 years of having an ugly usernumber at UNSW, I'm firmly against
> it. I don't think the username is the place to store your unique id;
> anyone who's done work with databases knows you don't make your id any
> of the data fields.
>
> I think I'm just rambling now, and this is going off topic.
>
> --
> Sure, I subscribe to USENET, but I only get it for the articles.
> (o_ '
> //\
> v_/_
>
>
> --
> SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/
> More Info: http://slug.org.au/lists/listinfo/slug
Sydney Uni used to do this too - the privacy laws stopped them, as they needed
the student IDs to be "private" so they could use them to give out exams
results etc.
Stephen
--
Stephen Norris [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Farrow Norris Pty Ltd +61 2 417 243 239
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