Elon University
The prediction, in brief:

Users should beware that there is no general guarantee that a URL which at one time points to a given object continues to do so, and does not even at some later time point to a different object due to the movement of objects on servers. The use of URLs containing passwords is clearly unwise.

Predictor: Berners-Lee, Tim

Prediction, in context:

The following is an excerpt from an Internet Draft (from the working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force) written by Tim Berners-Lee, contained in a memo written on January 1, 1994. This excerpt discusses security considerations of naming schemes and uniform resource locator addresses (URL). ”The URL scheme does not in itself pose a security threat. Users should beware that there is no general guarantee that a URL which at one time points to a given object continues to do so, and does not even at some later time point to a different object due to the movement of objects on servers. The use of URLs containing passwords is clearly unwise.”

Biography:

Tim Berners-Lee of CERN first released his revolutionary World-Wide Web for initial use in 1991 and with it shared his invention HTML (hypertext mark-up language). He later served as director of W3 Consortium, an open forum of companies and organizations whose goal was to find ways to help the Web reach its full potential. (Pioneer/Originator.)

Date of prediction: January 1, 1994

Topic of prediction: Communication

Subtopic: Security/Encryption

Name of publication: www.w3.org

Title, headline, chapter name: A Unifying Syntax for the Expression of Names and Addresses of Objects on the Network

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.w3.org/History/1995/WWW/Paper/JUNK.TXT

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Bruno, Marian Theresa