The Evolution of the Password — And Why It's Still Far From Safe

Just a decade ago, password theft seemed the province of poorly protected Hotmail accounts and AIM screen names. These days, virtually every company with access to our personal data, from Target to The New York Times to Facebook and Gmail, has been hacked. The password is the sentry that guards this mass of sensitive data — credit cards, addresses, social security numbers — and yet, more than 50 years since its invention, researchers and developers are still figuring out how to fix what has always been a little bit broken.

The first computer password was developed in 1961 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for use with the Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS), which gave rise to many of the basic computing functions we use today. CTSS was designed to accommodate multiple users at once, with the same core processor powering separate consoles. As such, each researcher needed a personal point-of-entry into the system. Read more...