Portal:AOL-Files/Articles/Creating One and Two Character Names

(Originally by AOL-Files staff member The Knight)

Introduction

This document which focuses on creating one/two character Screen names with Visual Publisher Designer is intended for people with a little backround on using Visual Publisher Designer.

History

America Online allowed the minimum screenname length to be two characters in 1989. From my knowledge the only three remaining Screen names created from that time are: B1, X1, A k.

Then in the July of 1998, the AOL Instant Messenger service wasn't popular and there were some bugs in it. One bug was letting the user put spaces and tabs infront of there screennames, then they would transfer them to America Online. Most of these Screen names have been terminated because CRIS cannot handle them. Then there was another one, when the AIM registration web site checked the length of the screenname you were trying to create. it didnt remove the spaces first. So you could put for example "D E", then sign on the AIM, and change the casing and transfer it to America Online. This exploit lasted only about 48 hours before it was fixed.

How to Create One/Two Character Screennames

This can be done on either New User or Keyword: Names on an existing America Onlinea account. First of all, you have to expand the length of the Screenname box longer than ten characters. Then if you wanted the Screenname 'X', you would put something like 'X 11'. The last two character '11' doesn't matter, because it cuts that off, and cuts off the spaces, then it will goto the Set Password window, with the Screen name 'X' in the Host's Screen name buffer. This was found out by a PC AOL Hacker called jay.