HACKER'S GLOSSARY
back door In the security of a system, a hole deliberately left in
place by designers or maintainers. May be intended for use by service
technicians. Syn. trap door. bit bucket The universal data
sink. Discarded, lost or destroyed data is said to have gone to the bit bucket.
Sometimes amplified as The Great Bit Bucket in the Sky. cracker
One who breaks security on a system. Coined by hackers in defense against
journalistic misuse of the term "hacker." The term "cracker" reflects a strong
revulsion at the theft and vandalism perpetrated by cracking rings. There is far
less overlap between hackerdom and crackerdom than most would suspect.
|
|
News
Legendary computer hacker released from prison
Hacker discloses new Internet attack software
Nvidia settles Dutch hacking case
Hackers launch attacks to 'teach' RP a lesson
|
deep magic An awesomely arcane technique central to a program or
system, esp. one that could only have been composed by a true wizard. Many
techniques in cryptography, signal processing, graphics and artificial
intelligence are deep magic. foo 1. interj. Term of disgust. 2. Used
very generally as a sample name for absolutely anything, esp. programs and
files. ... etymology is obscure. hacker n. 1. A person who enjoys
exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their
capabilities. 2. One who programs enthusiastically. 3. A person who is good at
programming quickly. 4. An expert at a particular program, as in 'a Unix
hacker'. 5. [deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive
information by poking around. The correct term for this sense is "cracker."
KISS Principle n. "Keep It Simple, Stupid." Often invoked when
discussing design to fend off creeping featurism and control development
complexity. Possibly related to the marketroid maxim, "Keep It Short and
Simple." kluge n. 1. A Rube Goldberg (or Heath Robinson) device,
whether in hardware or software. 2. A clever programming trick intended to solve
a particularly nasty case in an expedient, if not clear, manner. 3. Something
that works for the wrong reason. lots of MIPS but no I/O adj. A
person who is technically brilliant but who can't seem to communicate with human
beings effectively. Technically it describes a machine that has lots of
processing power but is bottlenecked on input-output. munge vt. 1.
[derogatory] To imperfectly transform information. 2. A comprehensive rewrite of
a routine, data structure or whole program. 3. To modify data in some way that
the speaker doesn't need to go into right now. netiquette n. The
conventions of politeness recognized on Usenet, such as avoidance of
cross-pointing to inappropriate groups and refraining from commercial pluggery
outside the biz groups. phreaking 1. The art and science of cracking
the phone network (so as, for example, to make free long-distance calls). 2. By
extension, security-cracking in any other context (especially, but not
exclusively, on communications networks). raster burn n. Eyestrain
brought on by too many hours of looking at low-res, poorly tuned or glare-ridden
monitors, esp. graphics monitors. RTFM imp. [Acronym for 'Read The
F------ Manual.'] 1. Used by gurus to brush off questions they consider trivial
or annoying. 2. Used when reporting a problem to indicate that you aren't just
asking out of randomness: "Yes, I RTFM first." security through obscurity
(alt. security by obscurity) A hacker term for vendors' favorite way of
coping with security holes -- namely, ignoring them; documenting neither any
known holes nor the underlying security algorithms; or trusting that nobody will
find out about them, and that people who did find about them won't exploit them.
This "strategy" never works for long. sneaker n. An individual hired
to break into places in order to test their security; analogous to "tiger team."
|