Dr. Fernando Corbato, the man who invented computer passwords to protect user accounts has died aged 93.
Dr. Corbato who reportedly died of complications caused by diabetes pioneered the elementary security measure while working on techniques that allow more people to use a computer at the same time.
He developed a technique, called time-sharing, that divided up the processing power of a computer so it could serve more than one person at once.
According to the BBC, the work on sharing a computer was done at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where Dr. Corbato spent his entire career.
He joined MIT in 1950 to study for a doctorate in physics but realized during those years that he was more interested in the machines that physicists used to do their calculations than in the subject itself.
Using computers during the 50s was an exercise in frustration because the huge, monolithic machines could only handle one processing job at a time.
In a bid to overcome this limitation, Dr. Corbato developed an operating system for computers called the Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS).
Rather than have the machine dedicated to one person, CTSS divided up the processing power of a computer into small slices so it could do little bits of work for lots of people.
The development of CTSS led to another time-sharing program called Multics, which was the forerunner of the Linux operating system and many other aspects of contemporary computing.
Passwords were introduced to CTSS as a way for users to hide away the files and programs they were working on from others on the same machine.
Dr, Corbato said in 2012, “Putting a password on for each individual user as a lock seemed like a very straightforward solution..”
Dr. Corbatoin 19990 received the AM Turing Award – one of the highest honors given to computer scientists – for his pioneering work on time-sharing systems.
Prof Fadel Adib, from the Media Lab at MIT, paid tribute, saying: “Our world would be very different without his research and that of his descendants. He inspires in his work and his legacy.”
