June 23, 2002
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A Demonstration Of How Bad Software Works:
The goal: Get an AOL Instant Messenger account.
1) Go to AOL’s AIM site.
2) Remember that once upon a time I think I had an AIM account.
3) Click on ‘forgot your password?’
4) Enter what I think my old screen name was.
5) “We’re sorry, but this screen name does not exist.”
6) Create a new screen name.
7) Watch as AOL chokes on the form. It sits there for a few minutes saying, ‘loading document…’
8) I press stop. I don’t know if I now have a screen name or not.
9) Go back to ‘forgot your password?’ to enter my new screen name in case AOL got it, but it didn’t get back to my browser.
10) Enter new screen name. Be greeted with the something like the following text: “We’re such dumbshits we won’t allow you to ask for your password within 24 hours of the last time, even if the screen name didn’t exist then, and doesn’t exist now.”
I understand the security problem (get AOL to send someone’s password in an email, monitor their data and watch as the password floats by in plaintext, or abuse AOL by telling them to send a zillion password reminder emails), but there has to be about a dozen more elegant solutions than preventing me from using the service.
By the way, folks. Your email is all in plaintext, and stored in about a zillion places on the internet for a while, because that’s how it works. And most of your email passwords are sent in plaintext to the server. Same problem exists for ftp.
Just so you know.
Comments (4)
I stopped using AIM because of their bugs. (Not that Messenger is much better.)
hummm, that’s a little scary…Melissa
Oh splendid. I guess that makes it okay that I use the same password for every-damn-thing anyway.
AOL…it’s a paradox in an oxymoron in an enigma. It’s a galactic anomaly…it sucks and blows at the same time. It’s like watching a thousand spinning razor blades made from polished stainless steel…pretty, but dangerous to touch.
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