What's The Password?

"So, first day, huh?"

"Yeah." Jake loosened his tie nervously and straightened his suit. Standing in a room full of geeky-looking guys in T-shirts and hoodies, he felt like a time traveller from centuries past.

"Don't worry, a few days and you'll get a grip of how we do things around here." Steve, Jake's superior and tour guide, couldn't suppress a sly smile at the expense of the new guy. "Anyway, that's our office, here's your desk." He pointed to one of the open plan seats, quickly swiping an empty Coke can off of it. "And remind me, you're the back-end guy, aren't you?"

"Well, my strong suit is database work, but I know Ruby and PHP too," Jake said. "Also some basic HTML and CSS, if there's a need."

"Nah, don't worry, we have lots of people doing this. Speaking of people, let's go around and say hi to everybody, then we can grab a coffee and breakfast - there's a nice vegan cafeteria downstairs - and by 11:00 all your accounts should be set up and we can get you some real work to do."

"Sounds good to me," Jake replied as they walked toward the other end of the office. "So, can you tell me what you guys are doing here?"

Two hours later, after making all his acquaintances, discussing the upcoming project, and eating what appeared to be a piece of cardboard coated in sea salt, Jake finally ended up in front of his shiny, triple-monitor workstation.

"Okay, our SVN is at https://svn.initrode.com." Steve took a free seat nearby. "The account should be there already. You know how to connect to it, right?"

"Sure, but I'll need my credentials, right?" Jake asked.

"Oh, that's simple," Steve replied. "See, since we were tired of people going around asking for passwords, we developed this little tool called PassMan. It's sort of a keyring, keeps all your passwords together. Just open the command prompt and type 'passman'."

Hearing that, something in Jake's brain instantly threw a red flag, but he kept his mouth shut. After all, the first day at a new job was not the best time to question the company's processes. For now, he decided to oblige.

C:\Users\jakesmith>passmanUSAGE: passman <first name> <last name> <system name>Available systems: db financial ftp intranet jira joshua lync mail prodsrv svn testsrv tfs webadminC:\Users\jakesmith>

Huh. I guess I'll get the password via e-mail or something when I request it, Jake thought. Here we go"

C:\Users\jakesmith>passman Jake Smith svnYour login is: jsmithYour password is: 1qazxsw2C:\Users\jakesmith>

Jake's jaw dropped.

"See?" Steve seemed much more impressed by the solution. "Simple, efficient, and you no longer need to go through all the paperwork just to get a password! Now get your project, have a look at it, and ping me when you're ready." He got up and walked away, leaving Jake stumped and speechless.

After setting the repository to download, Jake decided to play around with the PassMan...

C:\Users\jakesmith>passman Jake Smith webadminYour login is: adminYour password is: hunter2C:\Users\jakesmith>passman Jake Smith dbYour login is: dbadminYour password is: dbadminC:\Users\jakesmith>passman Jake Smith joshuaSHALL WE PLAY A GAME?^C^C^X^C^CC:\Users\jakesmith>

A thought struck him like a bolt of lightning. Oh God. They do verify the user names, right? With throbbing heart, he typed in Steve's name:

C:\Users\jakesmith>passman Steve Williams svnYour login is: swilliamsYour password is: i<3tswift

Jake had to pinch himself before closing the command prompt to make sure he wasn't having a bad dream. Keyring? More like a master key up for grabs! Who thought this was a good idea?

Jake leaned his head against the office window to his side. Looking down from his seat, he could see all 14 stories of his building - a building that hosted of one of the largest ISPs in the country...

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