The New Hacker's Dictionary

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corge /korj/ n.

[originally, the name of a cat] Yet another [3103]metasyntactic variable, invented by Mike Gallaher and propagated by the [3104]GOSMACS documentation. See [3105]grault.

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cosmic rays n.

Notionally, the cause of [3109]bit rot. However, this is a semi-independent usage that may be invoked as a humorous way to [3110]handwave away any minor [3111]randomness that doesn't seem worth the bother of investigating. "Hey, Eric -- I just got a burst of garbage on my [3112]tube, where did that come from?" "Cosmic rays, I guess." Compare [3113]sunspots, [3114]phase of the moon. The British seem to prefer the usage `cosmic showers'; `alpha particles' is also heard, because stray alpha particles passing through a memory chip can cause single-bit errors (this becomes increasingly more likely as memory sizes and densities increase).

Factual note: Alpha particles cause bit rot, cosmic rays do not (except occasionally in spaceborne computers). Intel could not explain random bit drops in their early chips, and one hypothesis was cosmic rays. So they created the World's Largest Lead Safe, using 25 tons of the stuff, and used two identical boards for testing. One was placed in the safe, one outside. The hypothesis was that if cosmic rays were causing the bit drops, they should see a statistically significant difference between the error rates on the two boards. They did not observe such a difference. Further

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investigation demonstrated conclusively that the bit drops were due to alpha particle emissions from thorium (and to a much lesser degree uranium) in the encapsulation material. Since it is impossible to eliminate these radioactives (they are uniformly distributed through the earth's crust, with the statistically insignificant exception of uranium lodes) it became obvious that one has to design memories to withstand these hits.

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cough and die v.

Syn. [3118]barf. Connotes that the program is throwing its hands up by design rather than because of a bug or oversight. "The parser saw a control-A in its input where it was looking for a printable, so it coughed and died." Compare [3119]die, [3120]die horribly, [3121]scream and die.

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courier

[BBS & cracker cultures] A person who distributes newly cracked [3125]warez, as opposed to a [3126]server who makes them available for download or a [3127]leech who merely downloads them. Hackers recognize this term but don't use it themselves, as the act is not part of their culture. See also [3128]warez d00dz, [3129]cracker, [3130]elite.

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cow orker n.

[Usenet] n. fortuitous typo for co-worker, widely used in Usenet, with perhaps a hint that orking cows is illegal. This term was popularized by Scott Adams (the creator of [3134]Dilbert) but already appears in the January 1996 version of the [3135]scary devil monastery FAQ. There are plausible reports that it was in use on talk.bizarre as early as 1992. Compare [3136]hing, [3137]grilf, [3138]filk, [3139]newsfroup.

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cowboy n.

[Sun, from William Gibson's [3143]cyberpunk SF] Synonym for [3144]hacker. It is reported that at Sun this word is often said with reverence.

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CP/M /C-P-M/ n.

[Control Program/Monitor; later [3148]retconned to Control Program for Microcomputers] An early microcomputer [3149]OS written by hacker Gary Kildall for 8080and Z80-based machines, very popular in the late 1970s but virtually wiped out by MS-DOS after the release of the IBM PC in 1981. Legend has it that Kildall's company blew its chance to write the OS for the IBM PC because Kildall decided to spend a day IBM's reps wanted to meet with him enjoying the perfect flying weather in his private plane. Many of CP/M's features and conventions strongly resemble those of early [3150]DEC operating systems such as [3151]TOPS-10, OS/8, RSTS,

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and RSX-11. See [3152]MS-DOS, [3153]operating system.

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CPU Wars /C-P-U worz/ n.

A 1979 large-format comic by Chas Andres chronicling the attempts of the brainwashed androids of IPM (Impossible to Program Machines) to conquer and destroy the peaceful denizens of HEC (Human Engineered Computers). This rather transparent allegory featured many references to [3157]ADVENT and the immortal line "Eat flaming death, minicomputer mongrels!" (uttered, of course, by an IPM stormtrooper). The whole shebang is now [3158]available on the Web.

It is alleged that the author subsequently received a letter of appreciation on IBM company stationery from the head of IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Laboratories (then, as now, one of the few islands of true hackerdom in the IBM archipelago). The lower loop of the B in the IBM logo, it is said, had been carefully whited out. See [3159]eat flaming death.

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Node:crack, Next:[3160]crack root, Previous:[3161]CPU Wars, Up:[3162]= C =

crack

[warez d00dz] 1. v. To break into a system (compare [3163]cracker). 2. v. Action of removing the copy protection from a commercial program. People who write cracks consider themselves challenged by the copy protection measures. They will often do it as much to show that they are smarter than the developper who designed the copy protection scheme than to actually copy the program. 3. n. A program, instructions or patch used to

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remove the copy protection of a program or to uncripple features from a demo/time limited program. 4. An [3164]exploit.

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crack root v.

[very common] To defeat the security system of a Unix machine and gain [3168]root privileges thereby; see [3169]cracking.

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cracker n.

One who breaks security on a system. Coined ca. 1985 by hackers in defense against journalistic misuse of [3173]hacker (q.v., sense 8). An earlier attempt to establish `worm' in this sense around 1981-82 on Usenet was largely a failure.

Use of both these neologisms reflects a strong revulsion against the theft and vandalism perpetrated by cracking rings. While it is expected that any real hacker will have done some playful cracking and knows many of the basic techniques, anyone past [3174]larval stage is expected to have outgrown the desire to do so except for immediate, benign, practical reasons (for example, if it's necessary to get around some security in order to get some work done).

Thus, there is far less overlap between hackerdom and crackerdom than the [3175]mundane reader misled by sensationalistic journalism might expect. Crackers tend to gather in small, tight-knit, very secretive groups that have

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little overlap with the huge, open poly-culture this lexicon describes; though crackers often like to describe themselves as hackers, most true hackers consider them a separate and lower form of life.

Ethical considerations aside, hackers figure that anyone who can't imagine a more interesting way to play with their computers than breaking into someone else's has to be pretty [3176]losing. Some other reasons crackers are looked down on are discussed in the entries on [3177]cracking and [3178]phreaking. See also [3179]samurai, [3180]dark-side hacker, and [3181]hacker ethic. For a portrait of the typical teenage cracker, see [3182]warez d00dz.

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cracking n.

[very common] The act of breaking into a computer system; what a [3186]cracker does. Contrary to widespread myth, this does not usually involve some mysterious leap of hackerly brilliance, but rather persistence and the dogged repetition of a handful of fairly well-known tricks that exploit common weaknesses in the security of target systems. Accordingly, most crackers are only mediocre hackers.

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crank vt.

[from automotive slang] Verb used to describe the performance of a machine, especially sustained performance. "This box cranks (or, cranks at) about 6 megaflops, with a burst mode of twice that on vectorized operations."

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crapplet n.

[portmanteau, crap + applet] A worthless applet, esp. a Java widget attached to a web page that doesn't work or even crashes your browser. Also spelled `craplet'.

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CrApTeX /krap'tekh/ n.

[University of York, England] Term of abuse used to describe TeX and LaTeX when they don't work (when used by TeXhackers), or all the time (by everyone else). The non-TeX-enthusiasts generally dislike it because it is more verbose than other formatters (e.g. [3196]troff) and because (particularly if the standard Computer Modern fonts are used) it generates vast output files. See [3197]religious issues, [3198]TeX.

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crash

1. n. A sudden, usually drastic failure. Most often said of the [3202]system (q.v., sense 1), esp. of magnetic disk drives (the term originally described what happens when the air gap of a hard disk collapses). "Three [3203]lusers lost their files in last night's disk crash." A disk crash that

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involves the read/write heads dropping onto the surface of the disks and scraping off the oxide may also be referred to as a `head crash', whereas the term `system crash' usually, though not always, implies that the operating system or other software was at fault. 2. v. To fail suddenly. "Has the system just crashed?" "Something crashed the OS!" See [3204]down. Also used transitively to indicate the cause of the crash (usually a person or a program, or both). "Those idiots playing [3205]SPACEWAR crashed the system." 3. vi. Sometimes said of people hitting the sack after a long [3206]hacking run; see [3207]gronk out.

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crash and burn vi.,n.

A spectacular crash, in the mode of the conclusion of the car-chase scene in the movie "Bullitt" and many subsequent imitators (compare [3211]die horribly). Sun-3 monitors losing the flyback transformer and lightning strikes on VAX-11/780 backplanes are notable crash and burn generators. The construction `crash-and-burn machine' is reported for a computer used exclusively for alpha or [3212]beta testing, or reproducing bugs (i.e., not for development). The implication is that it wouldn't be such a disaster if that machine crashed, since only the testers would be inconvenienced.

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crawling horror n.

Ancient crufty hardware or software that is kept obstinately alive by forces beyond the control of the hackers at a site. Like [3216]dusty deck or [3217]gonkulator, but connotes that the thing described is not just an

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irritation but an active menace to health and sanity. "Mostly we code new stuff in C, but they pay us to maintain one big FORTRAN II application from nineteen-sixty-X that's a real crawling horror...." Compare [3218]WOMBAT.

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Node:cray, Next:[3219]cray instability, Previous:[3220]crawling horror, Up:[3221]= C =

cray /kray/ n.

1. (properly, capitalized) One of the line of supercomputers designed by Cray Research. 2. Any supercomputer at all. 3. The [3222]canonical [3223]number-crunching machine.

The term is actually the lowercased last name of Seymour Cray, a noted computer architect and co-founder of the company. Numerous vivid legends surround him, some true and some admittedly invented by Cray Research brass to shape their corporate culture and image.

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Node:cray instability, Next:[3224]crayola, Previous:[3225]cray, Up:[3226]= C =

cray instability n.

1. A shortcoming of a program or algorithm that manifests itself only when a large problem is being run on a powerful machine (see [3227]cray). Generally more subtle than bugs that can be detected in smaller problems running on a workstation or mini. 2. More specifically, a shortcoming of algorithms which are well behaved when run on gentle floating point hardware (such as IEEE-standard or PDP-series machines) but which break down badly when exposed to a Cray's unique `rounding' rules.

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crayola /kray-oh'l*/ n.

A super-mini or -micro computer that provides some reasonable percentage of supercomputer performance for an unreasonably low price. Might also be a [3231]killer micro.

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Node:crayola books, Next:[3232]crayon, Previous:[3233]crayola, Up:[3234]= C =

crayola books n.

The [3235]rainbow series of National Computer Security Center (NCSC) computer security standards (see [3236]Orange Book). Usage: humorous and/or disparaging.

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crayon n.

1. Someone who works on Cray supercomputers. More specifically, it implies a programmer, probably of the CDC ilk, probably male, and almost certainly wearing a tie (irrespective of gender). Systems types who have a Unix background tend not to be described as crayons. 2. Formerly, anyone who worked for Cray Research; since the buyout by SGI, anyone they inherited from Cray. 3. A [3240]computron (sense 2) that participates only in [3241]number-crunching. 4. A unit of computational power equal to that