[USMA:35420] Re: Use of M for thousand [off topic]

[Martin Vlietstra]

Title: Re: [USMA:35411] Use of M for thousand

May I give you another use for Roman Numerals.    Some company computer systems require that you change your password every month and if your new password is the same length as the old one, then at least three characters must have changed.  If the length changes, then they are unable to quantify by how much the password must change.  This is to prevent you form having the password "SECRET01" one month, "SECRET02", the next and so on.   However, it is extremely difficult to design a password busting program to trap the password sequence SECRET_I, SECRET_II, SECRET_III, SECRET_IV, SECRET_V etc as each password has a different length to the previous one.  There are of course variants on this system, but they are secret.   (It should be noted that any semi-decent computer system does not store your password, but an encrypted version of it, so the password busting algorithm is a "brute-force" type of algorithm). ----- Original Message ----- From: Scott Hudnall To: U.S. Metric Association Sent: Thursday, December 15, 2005 12:43 AM Subject: [USMA:35413] Re: Use of M for thousand Hehehe. Roman numerals, eh? Get rid of them! The only place I have seen those used in modern times is in the movie industry when the studio marketers don’t want people to think they might be watching an older movie by disguising the year of the copyright in Roman numerals. That practice seems to have fallen off a little since the turn of the millenium. -- Scott Hudnall