Chapter 19

A Dictionary of Terminally Hip Jargon and Useful Expressions XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX < >: A word made from the initials of a name or phrase. Such as TLA. Three-Letter Acronym. Right.

< >: As far as I know. An < >, in < >.

< >: Artificial Intelligence. The next best thing to real.

< >: Also known as. An acronym coined by the FBI in its popular Most Wanted lists.

< >: Among < >, a former AT&T trademark which refers to teleconferencing systems.

< >: Somebody who feels that governments are an unreasonable restraint on free humans' being.

< >: An anarchist who hopes to bring down the established order by persuading everybody to < > their email.

< >: There's no handle like NO handle. Being completely unknown means you can't be traced. Maybe. You can be anonymous online by bouncing your email or postings through < >. Who are you? Only penet.fi knows for sure.

< >: This is the most intense hairspray on the planet, for that BIG < > hair. Since you're being so attentive, here's a bonus goth haiku:

Sun! Hide white skin, run-- Burning, cloaked, I run... day sky!... Must... find... Aquanet

< >: An < > for... well, nobody remembers what it's an acronym for, but it means just plain keyboard characters, like your <<dot.sig>> is made of. This is a portrait of R.U. Sirius rendered in ascii art:

################ # ____ # # __/=$==\_) # # //-OO-\\ # # >>( _ ) >>\ /<<<L #
################

So he comes out looking something like the cartoon character Cathy-- yeah, but that's the nature of the medium. St.Jude would look exactly the same, only no hat. Being subtle or elegant in ascii is a real challenge.

< >: Strutting. Sneering. Being BAD. Attitude is what all primates do to make their enemies feel inadequate. Keep it in mind.

< >: Expresses the whole range of haqr negative emotions, from dysgruntlement up through horrible contempt, as in response to < >.

< >: A haqr evil laugh. Other common evil laughs are BYaa-hahah and pchtkwaaahahahaha.

< >: Old haqr term for exclamation point. Sometimes bangs are a series of characters to add emphasis: w00t@%$%$@!

< >: A computerized bulletin-board system. Imagine a bulletin board in the sky. It's subdivided with topic labels. The cards displayed under each topic are email postings. You read them to follow the conversations. You can add your own comments or rebuttals. Some boards have a chat area where you can talk real-time, sort of like ham radio. The underground BBS chat areas are hangout places where bored hacker/phreaker types exchange quips and insults. Good H/P boards have libraries of up-to-date info on tools of the trade.

< >: Not ready for prime time. This comes from the beta phase of program testing, when bugs are collected from patient users up for major < >. "In beta" can describe anything unpleasing or forked up. If it's really < >, it can be called ALPHA-release, which is software still being tested in-house, by programmers and unlucky affiliates.

< >: Used to refer to the place you went OUT to, with one big bright light up there or else many small ones, you know? Now means the place you go INTO, the new Big Room-- Cyberspace.

< >: Untrue. Unreal. A spoof. Also, bogosity, which is the state of being bogus, and bogon, a unit of bogosity. Then there's the bogometer...

< >: Bohemian. Means like, counter-cultural. Underground. Alternative, with people in black clothes.

< >: Using a gadget to get free phone calls. The Red Box plays the tones of coins registering in a pay phone. The Rainbow Box incorporates many previous boxes in one diabolical widget, thanks to our Dutch buddies.

< >: A < > into the phone company itself, allowing multiple < > to cross-talk, like a high-tech, illegal party line. Appropriating the phone company's own < > systems is considered good < >.

< >: By the way, in < >.

< >: Making purchases on a phony or stolen credit account. The card as a physical chunk of plastic has become more or less irrelevant.

< >: Non-hacking hacker. Sometimes this is a haqr who has been < >.

<<clueless, a>>: (by analogy from "a homeless"??) One who doesn't get it and is doomed.

< >: Phone numbers and authorization codes that allow you to make phree fonecalls.

< >: A person whose purpose in life is finding ways to make phree fone calls. This is a terrible thing to call someone. Much worse than < >.

< >: Shortlist for oblivion. By analogy to hotlist.

< >: Convention, or maybe it was Conference-- nobody cares any more. A Con is a gathering of haqrz. There are several every year. The most famous is Hacking at the End of the Universe, held by the former Hac-tic in Amsterdam. Next is Hacking On Planet Earth, HOPE, and two infamous Cons are in Austin TX-- SummerCon, in the summer, and HoHoCon, figure it out.

< >: Haqr wannabes who don't figure out how to do things for th emselves. They copy down procedures for hacking computers or fones and follow the instructions, like using a cookbook. Everybody has to start out this way. Get over it.

< >: A pirate whose raw material is the society itself. A < > specialist, who takes the < > of the culture on wild detours.

<<cracker, kraqr>>: Somebody who breaks the copy protection on computer games or intrudes into other people's computers. Or invades cyberspace in strange ways. Or pirates any of the media. See < > and < > and < >.

< >: Freezing your body (or just your head, in the budget plan) so that you can be revived (or provided with a whole-body transplant) at some time in the future when 1. they can do that sort of thing, and 2. they really WANT to do that sort of thing for frozen heads like you. See < >.

<<cryptography, cryptology>>: Cryptology is the study of < >. Cryptography is doing it. See < > for a full rundown.

< >: 1. A citizen of cyberspace. 2. A citizen of cyberspace who wears mirrorshades indoors, at night.

< >: The planetary Net linked by phonelines and satellites, whose nodes are computers and human beings. An online metaverse that's now realler than what's outside your window.

< >: A tourist on the info highway. A < >, a Web Browser. If artists and nerds are sort of squatting or homesteading their homepages, cyber-yups create theirs as investment property.

< >: A guerrilla in the war for privacy and lots more encryption>>.

< >: A < > of people interested in cryptology and cryptography.

< >: Antisocial. Evil. Weird. Someone who dares things you wouldn't, or couldn't.

< >: This is supposed to be plural. These data. If you don't wanna deal with that, see < >.

< >: What cyberpunks in NEUROMANCER typed on and jacked in through... like a keyboard with phonejacks that plug into YOU.

< >: For the specs for deep geek, see Chapter Three.

< >: < > to the < >.

< >: Cultural hijacking. Taking something that has a usual meaning and making it play your way. A detournement is a cultural < >.

< >: Wrangling over standards and protocols, as in the < >. Dharma is Buddhist for the principles of operation for the universe. Lots of < > are Buddhists, Buddhist-wannabes, or jack-Buddhists.

< >: The Philosopher's Stone of the nineties. Or maybe the Brooklyn Bridge. And good luck with it.

< >: Do it yourself. A part of haqr mind, see Chapter Eight.

< >: This is part of the eddress that humans use. If you subscribe to an online service, like US Online, your domain eddress is theirs. Your whole eddress is whatever your handle is-- say skulldrool-- plus the server's domain name, like so: [email protected]. Top level domain names are countries, like .au for australia, or categories, like .com, for company, .org for organization, .gov for the government, .mil for the military, etc. Domain names can be bought, and maybe they can be hacked. For example, if I had a military-industrial complex, I might hack an eddress like dark.satanic.mil.

<<dot.plan>>: This is a file in your home directory within UNIX that people can read when they < > you. Your dot.plan file (actually it's just .plan) is where you put your advertisements for yourself. A typical dot.plan might start with a motto or a fave quote, such as, "In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. But in practice, there is." Followed by as intriguing and flattering a profile of yourself as you can whomp together.

<<dot.sig>>: This is your online signature, your digigraph, which you can tack onto the end of all your online appearances. A dot.sig is usually made up of thought-provoking quotes and ascii graphics. While somebody has to < > you to get your <<dot.plan>>, everybody is forced to see your dot.sig every time they read your postings or get email from you. Think of your dot.sig as a billboard advertising yourself.