Chapter 36

1. Data that is written to be interpreted and takes over program flow when triggered by some un-obvious operation, such as viewing it. One use of such hacks is to break security. For example, some smart terminals have commands that allow one to download strings to program keys; this can be used to write live data that, when listed to the terminal, infects it with a security-breaking virus that is triggered the next time a hapless user strikes that key. For another, there are some well-known bugs in vi that allow certain texts to send arbitrary commands back to the machine when they are simply viewed. 2. In C code, data that includes pointers to function hooks (executable code). 3. An object, such as a trampoline, that is constructed on the fly by a program and intended to be executed as code.

Node:Live Free Or Die!, Next:livelock, Previous:live data, Up:= L =

Live Free Or Die! imp.

1. The state motto of New Hampshire, which appears on that state's automobile license plates. 2. A slogan associated with Unix in the romantic days when Unix aficionados saw themselves as a tiny, beleaguered underground tilting against the windmills of industry. The "free" referred specifically to freedom from the fascist design philosophies and crufty misfeatures common on competing operating systems. Armando Stettner, one of the early Unix developers, used to give out fake license plates bearing this motto under a large Unix, all in New Hampshire colors of green and white. These are now valued collector's items. In 1994 DEC put an inferior imitation of these in circulation with a red corporate logo added. Compaq (half of which was once DEC) has continued the practice.

Node:livelock, Next:liveware, Previous:Live Free Or Die!, Up:= L =

livelock /li:v'lok/ n.

A situation in which some critical stage of a task is unable to finish because its clients perpetually create more work for it to do after they have been serviced but before it can clear its queue. Differs from deadlock in that the process is not blocked or waiting for anything, but has a virtually infinite amount of work to do and can never catch up.

Node:liveware, Next:lobotomy, Previous:livelock, Up:= L =

liveware /li:v'weir/ n.

1. Synonym for wetware. Less common. 2. [Cambridge] Vermin. "Waiter, there's some liveware in my salad..."

Node:lobotomy, Next:locals the, Previous:liveware, Up:= L =

lobotomy n.

1. What a hacker subjected to formal management training is said to have undergone. At IBM and elsewhere this term is used by both hackers and low-level management; the latter doubtless intend it as a joke. 2. The act of removing the processor from a microcomputer in order to replace or upgrade it. Some very cheap clone systems are sold in `lobotomized' form -- everything but the brain.

Node:locals the, Next:locked and loaded, Previous:lobotomy, Up:= L =

locals, the pl.n.

The users on one's local network (as opposed, say, to people one reaches via public Internet or UUCP connects). The marked thing about this usage is how little it has to do with real-space distance. "I have to do some tweaking on this mail utility before releasing it to the locals."

Node:locked and loaded, Next:locked up, Previous:locals the, Up:= L =

locked and loaded adj.,obs.

[from military slang for an M-16 rifle with magazine inserted and prepared for firing] Said of a removable disk volume properly prepared for use -- that is, locked into the drive and with the heads loaded. Ironically, because their heads are `loaded' whenever the power is up, this description is never used of Winchester drives (which are named after a rifle).

Node:locked up, Next:logic bomb, Previous:locked and loaded, Up:= L =

locked up adj.

Syn. for hung, wedged.

Node:logic bomb, Next:logical, Previous:locked up, Up:= L =

logic bomb n.

Code surreptitiously inserted into an application or OS that causes it to perform some destructive or security-compromising activity whenever specified conditions are met. Compare back door.

Node:logical, Next:loop through, Previous:logic bomb, Up:= L =

logical adj.

[from the technical term `logical device', wherein a physical device is referred to by an arbitrary `logical' name] Having the role of. If a person (say, Les Earnest at SAIL) who had long held a certain post left and were replaced, the replacement would for a while be known as the `logical' Les Earnest. (This does not imply any judgment on the replacement.) Compare virtual.

At Stanford, `logical' compass directions denote a coordinate system in which `logical north' is toward San Francisco, `logical west' is toward the ocean, etc., even though logical north varies between physical (true) north near San Francisco and physical west near San Jose. (The best rule of thumb here is that, by definition, El Camino Real always runs logical north-and-south.) In giving directions, one might say: "To get to Rincon Tarasco restaurant, get onto El Camino Bignum going logical north." Using the word `logical' helps to prevent the recipient from worrying about that the fact that the sun is setting almost directly in front of him. The concept is reinforced by North American highways which are almost, but not quite, consistently labeled with logical rather than physical directions. A similar situation exists at MIT: Route 128 (famous for the electronics industry that has grown up along it) is a 3-quarters circle surrounding Boston at a radius of 10 miles, terminating near the coastline at each end. It would be most precise to describe the two directions along this highway as `clockwise' and `counterclockwise', but the road signs all say "north" and "south", respectively. A hacker might describe these directions as `logical north' and `logical south', to indicate that they are conventional directions not corresponding to the usual denotation for those words. (If you went logical south along the entire length of route 128, you would start out going northwest, curve around to the south, and finish headed due east, passing along one infamous stretch of pavement that is simultaneously route 128 south and Interstate 93 north, and is signed as such!)

Node:loop through, Next:loose bytes, Previous:logical, Up:= L =

loop through vt.

To process each element of a list of things. "Hold on, I've got to loop through my paper mail." Derives from the computer-language notion of an iterative loop; compare `cdr down' (under cdr), which is less common among C and Unix programmers. ITS hackers used to say `IRP over' after an obscure pseudo-op in the MIDAS PDP-10 assembler (the same IRP op can nowadays be found in Microsoft's assembler).

Node:loose bytes, Next:lord high fixer, Previous:loop through, Up:= L =

loose bytes n.

Commonwealth hackish term for the padding bytes or shims many compilers insert between members of a record or structure to cope with alignment requirements imposed by the machine architecture.

Node:lord high fixer, Next:lose, Previous:loose bytes, Up:= L =

lord high fixer n.

[primarily British, from Gilbert & Sullivan's `lord high executioner'] The person in an organization who knows the most about some aspect of a system. See wizard.

Node:lose, Next:lose lose, Previous:lord high fixer, Up:= L =

lose vi.

1. [very common] To fail. A program loses when it encounters an exceptional condition or fails to work in the expected manner. 2. To be exceptionally unesthetic or crocky. 3. Of people, to be obnoxious or unusually stupid (as opposed to ignorant). See also deserves to lose. 4. n. Refers to something that is losing, especially in the phrases "That's a lose!" and "What a lose!"

Node:lose lose, Next:loser, Previous:lose, Up:= L =

lose lose interj.

A reply to or comment on an undesirable situation. "I accidentally deleted all my files!" "Lose, lose."

Node:loser, Next:losing, Previous:lose lose, Up:= L =

loser n.

An unexpectedly bad situation, program, programmer, or person. Someone who habitually loses. (Even winners can lose occasionally.) Someone who knows not and knows not that he knows not. Emphatic forms are `real loser', `total loser', and `complete loser' (but not **`moby loser', which would be a contradiction in terms). See luser.

Node:losing, Next:loss, Previous:loser, Up:= L =

losing adj.

Said of anything that is or causes a lose or lossage. "The compiler is losing badly when I try to use templates."

Node:loss, Next:lossage, Previous:losing, Up:= L =

loss n.

Something (not a person) that loses; a situation in which something is losing. Emphatic forms include `moby loss', and `total loss', `complete loss'. Common interjections are "What a loss!" and "What a moby loss!" Note that `moby loss' is OK even though **`moby loser' is not used; applied to an abstract noun, moby is simply a magnifier, whereas when applied to a person it implies substance and has positive connotations. Compare lossage.

Node:lossage, Next:lost in the noise, Previous:loss, Up:= L =

lossage /los'*j/ n.

[very common] The result of a bug or malfunction. This is a mass or collective noun. "What a loss!" and "What lossage!" are nearly synonymous. The former is slightly more particular to the speaker's present circumstances; the latter implies a continuing lose of which the speaker is currently a victim. Thus (for example) a temporary hardware failure is a loss, but bugs in an important tool (like a compiler) are serious lossage.

Node:lost in the noise, Next:lost in the underflow, Previous:lossage, Up:= L =

lost in the noise adj.

Syn. lost in the underflow. This term is from signal processing, where signals of very small amplitude cannot be separated from low-intensity noise in the system. Though popular among hackers, it is not confined to hackerdom; physicists, engineers, astronomers, and statisticians all use it.

Node:lost in the underflow, Next:lots of MIPS but no I/O, Previous:lost in the noise, Up:= L =

lost in the underflow adj.

Too small to be worth considering; more specifically, small beyond the limits of accuracy or measurement. This is a reference to `floating underflow', a condition that can occur when a floating-point arithmetic processor tries to handle quantities smaller than its limit of magnitude. It is also a pun on `undertow' (a kind of fast, cold current that sometimes runs just offshore and can be dangerous to swimmers). "Well, sure, photon pressure from the stadium lights alters the path of a thrown baseball, but that effect gets lost in the underflow." Compare epsilon, epsilon squared; see also overflow bit.

Node:lots of MIPS but no I/O, Next:low-bandwidth, Previous:lost in the underflow, Up:= L =

lots of MIPS but no I/O adj.

Used to describe a person who is technically brilliant but 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 (in 1991, the IBM Rios, a.k.a. RS/6000, was a notorious example).

Node:low-bandwidth, Next:LPT, Previous:lots of MIPS but no I/O, Up:= L =

low-bandwidth adj.

[from communication theory] Used to indicate a talk that, although not content-free, was not terribly informative. "That was a low-bandwidth talk, but what can you expect for an audience of suits!" Compare zero-content, bandwidth, math-out.

Node:LPT, Next:Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology, Previous:low-bandwidth, Up:= L =

LPT /L-P-T/ or /lip'it/ or /lip-it'/ n.

1. Line printer (originally Line Printing Terminal). Rare under Unix, more common among hackers who grew up with ITS, MS-DOS, CP/M and other operating systems that were strongly influenced by early DEC conventions. 2. Local PorT. Used among MS-DOS programmers (and so expanded in the MS-DOS 5 manual). It seems likely this is a backronym.

Node:Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology, Next:Lumber Cartel, Previous:LPT, Up:= L =

Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology prov.

"There is always one more bug."

Node:Lumber Cartel, Next:lunatic fringe, Previous:Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology, Up:= L =

Lumber Cartel n.

A mythical conspiracy accused by spam-spewers of funding anti-spam activism in order to force the direct-mail promotions industry back onto paper. Hackers, predictably, responded by forming a "Lumber Cartel" spoofing this paranoid theory; the web page is http://come.to/the.lumber.cartel. Members often include the tag TINLC ("There Is No Lumber Cartel") in their postings; see TINC, backbone cabal and NANA for explanation.

Node:lunatic fringe, Next:lurker, Previous:Lumber Cartel, Up:= L =

lunatic fringe n.

[IBM] Customers who can be relied upon to accept release 1 versions of software. Compare heatseeker.

Node:lurker, Next:luser, Previous:lunatic fringe, Up:= L =

lurker n.

One of the `silent majority' in a electronic forum; one who posts occasionally or not at all but is known to read the group's postings regularly. This term is not pejorative and indeed is casually used reflexively: "Oh, I'm just lurking." Often used in `the lurkers', the hypothetical audience for the group's flamage-emitting regulars. When a lurker speaks up for the first time, this is called `delurking'.

The creator of the popular science-fiction TV series "Babylon 5" has ties to SF fandom and the hacker culture. In that series, the use of the term `lurker' for a homeless or displaced person is a conscious reference to the jargon term.

Node:luser, Next:M, Previous:lurker, Up:= L =

luser /loo'zr/ n.

[common] A user; esp. one who is also a loser. (luser and loser are pronounced identically.) This word was coined around 1975 at MIT. Under ITS, when you first walked up to a terminal at MIT and typed Control-Z to get the computer's attention, it printed out some status information, including how many people were already using the computer; it might print "14 users", for example. Someone thought it would be a great joke to patch the system to print "14 losers" instead. There ensued a great controversy, as some of the users didn't particularly want to be called losers to their faces every time they used the computer. For a while several hackers struggled covertly, each changing the message behind the back of the others; any time you logged into the computer it was even money whether it would say "users" or "losers". Finally, someone tried the compromise "lusers", and it stuck. Later one of the ITS machines supported luser as a request-for-help command. ITS died the death in mid-1990, except as a museum piece; the usage lives on, however, and the term `luser' is often seen in program comments and on Usenet. Compare mundane, muggle.

Node:= M =, Next:= N =, Previous:= L =, Up:The Jargon Lexicon

= M =

M:

M$:

macdink:

machinable:

machoflops:

Macintoy:

Macintrash:

macro:

macro-:

macrology:

macrotape:

maggotbox:

magic:

magic cookie:

magic number:

magic smoke:

mail storm:

mailbomb:

mailing list:

main loop:

mainframe:

management:

mandelbug:

manged:

mangle:

mangled name:

mangler:

manularity:

marbles:

marginal:

Marginal Hacks:

marginally:

marketroid:

Mars:

martian:

massage:

math-out:

Matrix:

maximum Maytag mode:

meatspace:

meatware:

meeces:

meg:

mega-:

megapenny:

MEGO:

meltdown network:

meme:

meme plague:

memetics:

memory farts:

memory leak:

memory smash:

menuitis:

mess-dos:

meta:

meta bit:

metasyntactic variable:

MFTL:

mickey:

mickey mouse program:

micro-:

MicroDroid:

microfloppies:

microfortnight:

microLenat:

microReid:

microserf:

Microsloth Windows:

Microsoft:

micros~1:

middle-endian:

middle-out implementation:

milliLampson:

minifloppies:

MIPS:

misbug:

misfeature:

Missed'em-five:

missile address:

miswart:

MMF:

mobo:

moby:

mockingbird:

mod:

mode:

mode bit:

modulo:

molly-guard:

Mongolian Hordes technique:

monkey up:

monkey scratch:

monstrosity:

monty:

Moof:

Moore's Law:

moose call:

moria:

MOTAS:

MOTOS:

MOTSS:

mouse ahead:

mouse around:

mouse belt:

mouse droppings:

mouse elbow:

mouso:

MS-DOS:

mu:

MUD:

muddie:

mudhead:

muggle:

multician:

Multics:

multitask:

mumblage:

mumble:

munch:

munching:

munching squares:

munchkin:

mundane:

mung:

munge:

Murphy's Law:

music:

mutter:

Node:M, Next:M$, Previous:luser, Up:= M =

M pref. (on units) suff. (on numbers)

[SI] See quantifiers.

Node:M$, Next:macdink, Previous:M, Up:= M =

M$

Common net abbreviation for Microsoft, everybody's least favorite monopoly.

Node:macdink, Next:machinable, Previous:M$, Up:= M =

macdink /mak'dink/ vt.

[from the Apple Macintosh, which is said to encourage such behavior] To make many incremental and unnecessary cosmetic changes to a program or file. Often the subject of the macdinking would be better off without them. "When I left at 11 P.M. last night, he was still macdinking the slides for his presentation." See also fritterware, window shopping.

Node:machinable, Next:machoflops, Previous:macdink, Up:= M =

machinable adj.

Machine-readable. Having the softcopy nature.

Node:machoflops, Next:Macintoy, Previous:machinable, Up:= M =

machoflops /mach'oh-flops/ n.

[pun on `megaflops', a coinage for `millions of FLoating-point Operations Per Second'] Refers to artificially inflated performance figures often quoted by computer manufacturers. Real applications are lucky to get half the quoted speed. See Your mileage may vary, benchmark.

Node:Macintoy, Next:Macintrash, Previous:machoflops, Up:= M =

Macintoy /mak'in-toy/ n.

The Apple Macintosh, considered as a toy. Less pejorative than Macintrash.

Node:Macintrash, Next:macro, Previous:Macintoy, Up:= M =

Macintrash /mak'in-trash`/ n.

The Apple Macintosh, as described by a hacker who doesn't appreciate being kept away from the real computer by the interface. The term maggotbox has been reported in regular use in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina. Compare Macintoy. See also beige toaster, WIMP environment, point-and-drool interface, drool-proof paper, user-friendly.

Node:macro, Next:macro-, Previous:Macintrash, Up:= M =

macro /mak'roh/ n.

[techspeak] A name (possibly followed by a formal arg list) that is equated to a text or symbolic expression to which it is to be expanded (possibly with the substitution of actual arguments) by a macro expander. This definition can be found in any technical dictionary; what those won't tell you is how the hackish connotations of the term have changed over time.

The term `macro' originated in early assemblers, which encouraged the use of macros as a structuring and information-hiding device. During the early 1970s, macro assemblers became ubiquitous, and sometimes quite as powerful and expensive as HLLs, only to fall from favor as improving compiler technology marginalized assembler programming (see languages of choice). Nowadays the term is most often used in connection with the C preprocessor, LISP, or one of several special-purpose languages built around a macro-expansion facility (such as TeX or Unix's [nt]roff suite).

Indeed, the meaning has drifted enough that the collective `macros' is now sometimes used for code in any special-purpose application control language (whether or not the language is actually translated by text expansion), and for macro-like entities such as the `keyboard macros' supported in some text editors (and PC TSR or Macintosh INIT/CDEV keyboard enhancers).

Node:macro-, Next:macrology, Previous:macro, Up:= M =

macro- pref.

Large. Opposite of micro-. In the mainstream and among other technical cultures (for example, medical people) this competes with the prefix mega-, but hackers tend to restrict the latter to quantification.

Node:macrology, Next:macrotape, Previous:macro-, Up:= M =

macrology /mak-rol'*-jee/ n.

1. Set of usually complex or crufty macros, e.g., as part of a large system written in LISP, TECO, or (less commonly) assembler. 2. The art and science involved in comprehending a macrology in sense 1. Sometimes studying the macrology of a system is not unlike archeology, ecology, or theology, hence the sound-alike construction. See also boxology.

Node:macrotape, Next:maggotbox, Previous:macrology, Up:= M =

macrotape /mak'roh-tayp/ n.

An industry-standard reel of tape. Originally, as opposed to a DEC microtape; nowadays, as opposed to modern QIC and DDS tapes. Syn. round tape.

Node:maggotbox, Next:magic, Previous:macrotape, Up:= M =

maggotbox /mag'*t-boks/ n.

See Macintrash. This is even more derogatory.

Node:magic, Next:magic cookie, Previous:maggotbox, Up:= M =

magic

1. adj. As yet unexplained, or too complicated to explain; compare automagically and (Arthur C.) Clarke's Third Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." "TTY echoing is controlled by a large number of magic bits." "This routine magically computes the parity of an 8-bit byte in three instructions." 2. adj. Characteristic of something that works although no one really understands why (this is especially called black magic). 3. n. [Stanford] A feature not generally publicized that allows something otherwise impossible, or a feature formerly in that category but now unveiled. 4. n. The ultimate goal of all engineering & development, elegance in the extreme; from the first corollary to Clarke's Third Law: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced".

Parodies playing on these senses of the term abound; some have made their way into serious documentation, as when a MAGIC directive was described in the Control Card Reference for GCOS c.1978. For more about hackish `magic', see Appendix A. Compare black magic, wizardly, deep magic, heavy wizardry.

Node:magic cookie, Next:magic number, Previous:magic, Up:= M =

magic cookie n.

[Unix; common] 1. Something passed between routines or programs that enables the receiver to perform some operation; a capability ticket or opaque identifier. Especially used of small data objects that contain data encoded in a strange or intrinsically machine-dependent way. E.g., on non-Unix OSes with a non-byte-stream model of files, the result of ftell(3) may be a magic cookie rather than a byte offset; it can be passed to fseek(3), but not operated on in any meaningful way. The phrase `it hands you a magic cookie' means it returns a result whose contents are not defined but which can be passed back to the same or some other program later. 2. An in-band code for changing graphic rendition (e.g., inverse video or underlining) or performing other control functions (see also cookie). Some older terminals would leave a blank on the screen corresponding to mode-change magic cookies; this was also called a glitch (or occasionally a `turd'; compare mouse droppings). See also cookie.

Node:magic number, Next:magic smoke, Previous:magic cookie, Up:= M =

magic number n.