What's With This Username Stuff, Anyhow?
by dcole
"Dude, I need a handle, man! I mean, I don't have an identity until I have a handle," Joey Pardella says to Phantom Phreak in the cult-classic movie Hackers.
The anxiety of picking the perfect handle was too much for Joey and he was asking for help. While the perfect handle should obscure your identity online to the authorities, it should also be an extension of your personality within the hacker community. At least, that is what I have come to know over time.
A handle, username, hacker name, alias, whatever you call it, everyone has one online. For some people, this name is an extension of their personality. Everything they do is tagged with this name as a graffiti artist may tag their art. Growing up in the rural prairies of Canada, I never experienced this naming convention. I did not learn of the movie Hackers and the whole hacking culture around computers until well into my twenties. As a kid, computers were a solitary hobby for me.
The first computer system I had a user account on was at my high school. The computer administrator set up all the new students' usernames much like any other computer administrator would, the first letter of your first name and the rest was your last name. At this time (the mid-1990s), the eight-character limitation was in place for usernames. Luckily, my whole last name was four letters long, so it fit nicely within this limitation. As I continued my high school career and moved on to post-secondary education, this stock username followed me around as it does with most people. This is how I came to be known (not really) as dcole.
In those early days, I was unaware of hacker culture or people choosing handles online that had no direct relation to their offline identity - purposeful anonymity. Being a small-town kid who knew everyone around, it never dawned on me that you could be anonymous. So, as I moved to the online world unaware of the hacker culture, I used the username I had already been provided throughout my school career. This led to a funny misunderstanding one day online.
At the time I was on the SDF Public Access UNIX System in the chat section. A fellow member online mentioned that they found my username humorous. Rising to the bait, I asked why that was. The member proceeded to write this out: dcole = dekhole = dick hole
I was flabbergasted! I'd never had anybody try to make that connection before, but this member clearly had. After picking myself up off the floor from a good laugh, I proceeded to tell this particular member that my username was not nearly so clever as that.
Now let's suppose you, the reader, are a young up and coming hacker looking for a cool handle. How might you choose one? An article posted to HackerNoon1 suggests opening a dictionary at random and choosing the first noun you come across. Next, close the dictionary, open it at random again, and choose the first adjective you come across. These two words could then become your handle. Not having a dictionary at hand, I asked Google to provide me with a random noun and adjective, this is what I received: Walking Null. Not the best alias, but not the worst as well.
The above-mentioned method utilizes randomness to provide a username that is not representative of one's self. This might be a good thing if you are looking to remain anonymous. What if you would like to have a more personalized alias? HackerNoon suggests picking a few different things you like and mashing them all together into one username: pok3manLover69. Who wouldn't want a username such as this? Either way, one has to be creative nowadays with their username as there are so many people online compared to 25 years ago. You don't want to be known as joey61854, do you?
If you aren't a total n00b and want to be an 31337 H4X0R, another method you could use is 13372 or leetspeak. Leetspeak consists of replacing certain characters in your username with other characters that look similar. For example, the letter e can be replaced with the number 3 or the letter o can be replaced with the number 0. Using this method, you could easily change a username like Walking Null into Wa7king Nu77. This instantly makes you a more proficient hacker with the coolest alias on the block (or network). You'll be pwning servers in no time!
As I am not a hacker in the sense of cracking into computer networks, I never felt the need to be anonymous online. This may come across as a naive view, but it is the one I hold. My username is a direct link to who I am in the real world. I will not do or say anything on the Internet that I would not do in real life.
I have always tried my best to apply the morals I have learned in the offline world to my online interactions. None of this is meant to look down on those who choose cool online handles like CRASH OVERRIDE or ACID BURN.
In the end, I just wanted to add my two cents to the conversation.
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