My First Geocities Account
While cleaning out some old email archives, I stumbled across something that made me both nostalgic and horrified: my original Geocities account signup email from 1997. It’s a fascinating time capsule that perfectly captures the naive optimism and security disasters of the early web.
The Wild West of 1997
1997 was a different time. The web was still new and wonderous. Everyone was figuring things out as they went along, and “security best practices” was barely a concept. Geocities was one of the hottest destinations on the internet - offering free web hosting to anyone who wanted to build their own corner of cyberspace.
Looking at this email now, a few things stand out:
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Apparently I had a Hotmail address in 1997 - This was within a year of Hotmail’s launch, making me an early adopter of what would become one of the biggest email services in the world.
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Passwords were emailed in plain text - The email contains my actual password, sent completely unencrypted. No hashing, no encryption, just raw text sitting in an email that could be read by anyone with access to email servers.
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The casual attitude toward security - Perhaps most chilling is this line from the email:
We have access to the [password] database and can get it any time.
Imagine a modern service saying that! The casual admission that they store passwords in a way that allows easy retrieval would cause outrage today. But in 1997, this was just how things worked.
How Times Have Changed
It’s remarkable how far we’ve come in web security. What seemed normal in 1997 would be considered catastrophically insecure today:
- Password hashing is now standard practice
- HTTPS everywhere has become the norm
- Two-factor authentication protects against compromised passwords
- Security audits and penetration testing are routine
- GDPR and privacy laws regulate how companies handle personal data
This little email serves as a reminder of how quickly technology evolves, and how the “move fast and break things” mentality of early internet companies led to some genuinely terrifying security practices.
Sometimes it’s worth looking back to appreciate how far we’ve come - even if it makes you cringe a little at what we once considered acceptable.
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From civics@www5.geocities.com Mon Jun 9 04:59:18 1997
Received: (webmastr@localhost) by www5.geocities.com (SMI-8.6/mail.byaddr)
id EAA22247; Mon, 9 Jun 1997 04:59:14 -0700
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 1997 04:59:14 -0700
From: civics@www5.geocities.com [Save Address]
Message-Id: <199706091159.EAA22247@www5.geocities.com>
Subject: Welcome To GeoCities
Apparently-To: ldebyl@hotmail.com
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Welcome, Lee, to GeoCities Personal Home Page Program!
Please write down or save the following information for future use.
Your Member Name is: emphysia.
Your Neighborhood is: SunsetStrip/Stage.
Your Address is: 2041.
Your Current Password is: bacfye.
NOTE: We will NEVER ask you for your password. We have access to the database
and can get it at any time. Please be sure not to give it out to anyone else.
The URL for your Personal Home Page is:
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Stage/2041
Your GeoCities email address is: emphysia@geocities.com.
You can sign up for free email subscriptions from exciting content
providers by visiting Netscape In-Box Direct at:
http://form.netscape.com/cgi-bin/forms/misc/ibd_form/html/ibd_services_frameset.html
For help in using your new GeoCities email account, see:
http://www.geocities.com/help/guide_email_netscape.html
We encourage you to change your password soon with our profile editor at
http://www.geocities.com/homestead/homeprof.html
At this location you can also make all other changes to your account
profile, including changing your member name and directory listing.
To begin building your personal home page, you may use one of our
three Home Page Editors, or you can submit your files to us via our
EZ File Upload Utility, or FTP. You can read about all of these
features at:
http://www.geocities.com/homestead/
The one thing that you MUST have on all of your HTML pages is a link back
to GeoCities. The preferred source code for your pages is:
<hr>
<center>
<b>
This page hosted by
<a href="/"><img src="/pictures/gc_icon.gif" border=0
align=middle></a>
Get your own <a href="/">Free Home Page</a></b></center>
You can place it anywhere on your page and can vary the text size and color
to integrate it into your page the way you think it looks best.
The purpose of the free Personal Home Page Program is to give people
the ability to create a home on the World Wide Web that reflects their
interests, hobbies and background. We encourage you to take a look at
some of the other pages in GeoCities to get some ideas on creating your
own page.
Here are some important things to know about your GeoCities home page:
* We do not allow sponsorship banners or any \link exchange\ type of
banners in GeoCities, with the two sole exceptions of the GeoCities
GeoRewards program and the Internet Link Exchange. You can read
about the Geocities GeoRewards program at
http://www.geocities.com/georewards/
* Your page must be personal in nature, and not commercial. For
information about our Commercial Page Program, please go to
http://www.geocities.com/BHI/comm_info.html.
* We strictly prohibit nudity and all pornographic material in GeoCities.
This includes graphics, text, and pages that are devoted to providing
links to other pornographic sites.
Please be sure to read all of our policies and page content guidelines at
http://www.geocities.com/homestead/homeguide.html
We also ask that you please move into your new home within two weeks, or your
registration for your home page and email account will be deleted to make room
for another homesteader.
GeoCities is an amazing place that allows everyone the opportunity to
share their thoughts and passions with the world. Within GeoCities
you'll find everything from the latest news stories, to great recipes
for chicken, to tips on the hottest stocks on Wall Street. Feel free
to use your imagination on what to include in your page. We are always
looking for new and exciting ideas, and welcome your creativity and
expression of original content.
After you've set up your home page, be sure to read about our Featured Page
Program at http://www.geocities.com/homestead/contribute.html. If we love
your page as much as you do, we'll feature it on the main neighborhood page,
and show everyone else how great it is.
Here are some important URLs to help you find things in GeoCities. Please
write them down or save them for later use.
* Main Information Page -- http://www.geocities.com/homestead/
* Member Utilities Page -- http://www.geocities.com/Utilities/
* Page Content Guidelines -- http://www.geocities.com/homestead/homeguide.html
* Help Information -- http://www.geocities.com/help/
After you've had a chance to hang out in GeoCities a while, be sure to stop
by the GeoStore and take a look at the official GeoCities merchandise. You'll
also find lots of great software, web site design books, and other neat tools
for helping you design a really cool home page. The GeoStore is located at
http://store.geocities.com/.
Again, welcome to the neighborhood!