diff --git a/conf/access.properties b/conf/access.properties
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..4e66732f88
--- /dev/null
+++ b/conf/access.properties
@@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
+# Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+# or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+# distributed with this work for additional information
+# regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+# to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+# "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+# with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+# limitations under the License.
+#
+# This is a sample access file for SimpleAuthenticator. The format of
+# this file is keyspace=users, where users is a comma delimited list of 
+# authenticatable users from passwd.properties. This file contains 
+# potentially sensitive information, keep this in mind when setting its
+# mode and ownership.
+Keyspace1=jsmith,Elvis Presley,dilbert
diff --git a/conf/authorization.properties b/conf/authorization.properties
deleted file mode 100644
index 5cb4210f01..0000000000
--- a/conf/authorization.properties
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,2 +0,0 @@
-# separate the users authorized to use a keyspace with commas
-Keyspace1=user1,user 2,user!3
diff --git a/conf/passwd.properties b/conf/passwd.properties
index be66429406..96a8ec93ae 100644
--- a/conf/passwd.properties
+++ b/conf/passwd.properties
@@ -1,4 +1,23 @@
-# specify the password for each user here
-user1=hello
-user\ 2=there
-user!3=???
+# Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+# or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+# distributed with this work for additional information
+# regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+# to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+# "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+# with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+# limitations under the License.
+#
+# This is a sample password file for SimpleAuthenticator. The format of
+# this file is username=password. If -Dpasswd.mode=MD5 then the password
+# is represented as an md5 digest, otherwise it is cleartext (keep this
+# in mind when setting file mode and ownership).
+jsmith=havebadpass
+Elvis\ Presley=graceland4evar
+dilbert=nomoovertime
diff --git a/conf/storage-conf.xml b/conf/storage-conf.xml
index 290016f30f..b30029f2df 100644
--- a/conf/storage-conf.xml
+++ b/conf/storage-conf.xml
@@ -119,8 +119,8 @@
    ~ as it is on the classpath.  Out of the box, Cassandra provides
    ~ org.apache.cassandra.auth.AllowAllAuthenticator and,
    ~ org.apache.cassandra.auth.SimpleAuthenticator 
-   ~ (SimpleAuthenticator uses authorization.properties and
-   ~ passwd.properties by default).
+   ~ (SimpleAuthenticator uses access.properties and passwd.properties by
+   ~ default).
    ~
    ~ If you don't specify an authenticator, AllowAllAuthenticator is used.
   -->