“Halt! Who goes there?”
According to Marine Order 5530.15, this is the proper challenge a U.S. military sentry must issue when approached by unknown parties.
The challenge can sometimes require a password in return – and any of us who work online can attest that even in contemporary civilian life, that elusive secret “word” hangs us up with regularity.
We need passwords for banking, for shopping, for phone access, for computer work of every kind.. And don’t make it simple, they say – use 12 to 16 letters, some numbers, a few special characters – anything to render it impossible to hack. Or to remember.
Somewhere in our house is secreted a sheet of paper covered with such hieroglyphics. But where it is, I forgot.
One tends to consider the password – whether forgotten, never recorded, or outdated – as the curse of our computer era. In fact, it has been a mainstay throughout history in wartime, in espionage, and even in literature.
For instance, who can forget the most famous password of all, Open, Sesame! from the folk tale Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves? Its utterance opened a hidden entrance to a treasure-filled cave. Legend has it that the reference is to the sesame plant because at maturity it bursts open and releases its seeds.
Passwords date even to Biblical times. The Book of Judges tells us how the army of one ancient tribe identified suspected enemies at the Jordan River by ordering them to pronounce the word shibboleth, which meant “flowing stream” in ancient Hebrew. Since there was no “sh” sound in the enemy language, those who pronounced the word as sibboleth were outed by their own tongues – and whacked on the spot.
Similar was a linguistic trap set by the U.S. military in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Since it was difficult for Japanese enemies to pronounce the L sound, U.S. troops used the code word lollapalooza. Enemy infiltrators who discovered the password, but who pronounced the Ls as Rs, were immediately exposed.
Passwords were essential for the 19th Century Underground Railroad as it helped fugitive slaves escape to freedom through a series of safe houses. “Conductors” of the fleeing slaves would identify themselves at the door with the password phrase, “I have sent a friend to a friend.”
During Prohibition, passwords were essential for access to speakeasies serving liquor. Thus, put into service were contemporary slang phrases like Joe sent me and The bee’s knees.
One password wasn’t a “word” at all. It was the sound made by a child’s toy “cricket clicker” issued to thousands of allied paratroopers who jumped into Normandy in the early morning of D-Day. To recognize friend from foe in pre-dawn darkness on the ground, a soldier would sound one click and expect the return of two.
As for more contemporary times, security experts today are incredulous over the simplicity of one of our nuclear codes early in the computer era: 00000000. That would be a big no-no today.
Experts say the most popular computer password now is 123456, which, according to one source, “is regularly cracked by automated tools in less than a second.”
Among other common ones are password and the sequential letters on a keyboard, qwerty.
These just won’t do, say security types. In fact, Artificial Intelligence – speaking of computer grandiosity – suggests this as an example of a strong password: 5#rL*vQ9$mPq2#vLZn.
I don’t know about you, but from my old-school perspective as I daily confront the password lockup, all I can say is, My kingdom for the approachable, exotic, and welcomiing, Open, Sesame!
Gerry Goldstein (gerryg76@verizon.net), a frequent contributor, is a retired Providence Journal editor and columnist.
