The New Hacker's Dictionary

582

*[7019]ill-behaved:

*[7020]IMHO:

*[7021]Imminent Death Of The Net Predicted!:

*[7022]in the extreme:

*[7023]inc:

*[7024]incantation:

*[7025]include:

*[7026]include war:

*[7027]indent style:

*[7028]index of X:

*[7029]infant mortality:

*[7030]infinite:

*[7031]infinite loop:

*[7032]Infinite-Monkey Theorem:

*[7033]infinity:

*[7034]inflate:

*[7035]Infocom:

*[7036]initgame:

583

*[7037]insanely great:

*[7038]installfest:

*[7039]INTERCAL:

*[7040]interesting:

*[7041]Internet:

*[7042]Internet address:

*[7043]Internet Death Penalty:

*[7044]Internet Exploder:

*[7045]Internet Exploiter:

*[7046]interrupt:

*[7047]interrupt list:

*[7048]interrupts locked out:

*[7049]intro:

*[7050]IRC:

*[7051]iron:

*[7052]Iron Age:

*[7053]iron box:

*[7054]ironmonger:

584

*[7055]ISO standard cup of tea:

*[7056]ISP:

*[7057]ITS:

*[7058]IWBNI:

*[7059]IYFEG:

---

Node:I didn't change anything!, Next:[7060]I see no X here., Previous:[7061]hysterical reasons, Up:[7062]= I =

I didn't change anything! interj.

An aggrieved cry often heard as bugs manifest during a regression test. The [7063]canonical reply to this assertion is "Then it works just the same as it did before, doesn't it?" See also [7064]one-line fix. This is also heard from applications programmers trying to blame an obvious applications problem on an unrelated systems software change, for example a divide-by-0 fault after terminals were added to a network. Usually, their statement is found to be false. Upon close questioning, they will admit some major restructuring of the program that shouldn't have broken anything, in their opinion, but which actually [7065]hosed the code completely.

---

Node:I see no X here., Next:[7066]IANAL, Previous:[7067]I didn't change anything!, Up:[7068]= I =

I see no X here.

Hackers (and the interactive computer games they write) traditionally favor this slightly marked usage over other possible equivalents such as "There's

585

no X here!" or "X is missing." or "Where's the X?". This goes back to the original PDP-10 [7069]ADVENT, which would respond in this wise if you asked it to do something involving an object not present at your location in the game.

---

Node:IANAL, Next:[7070]IBM, Previous:[7071]I see no X here., Up:[7072]= I =

IANAL //

[Usenet] Abbreviation, "I Am Not A Lawyer". Usually precedes legal advice.

---

Node:IBM, Next:[7073]IBM discount, Previous:[7074]IANAL, Up:[7075]= I =

IBM /I-B-M/

Inferior But Marketable; It's Better Manually; Insidious Black Magic; It's Been Malfunctioning; Incontinent Bowel Movement; and a near-[7076]infinite number of even less complimentary expansions, including `International Business Machines'. See [7077]TLA. These abbreviations illustrate the considerable antipathy most hackers long felt toward the `industry leader' (see [7078]fear and loathing).

What galled hackers about most IBM machines above the PC level wasn't so much that they were underpowered and overpriced (though that does count against them), but that the designs are incredibly archaic, [7079]crufty, and [7080]elephantine ... and you can't fix them -- source code is locked up tight, and programming tools are expensive, hard to find, and bletcherous to use once you've found them. For many years, before Microsoft, IBM was the company hackers loved to hate.

586

But everything changes. In the 1980s IBM had its own troubles with Microsoft. In the late 1990s IBM re-invented itself as a services company, began to release open-source software through its AlphaWorks group, and began shipping [7081]Linux systems and building ties to the Linux community. To the astonishment of all parties, IBM emerged as a friend of the hacker community

This lexicon includes a number of entries attributed to `IBM'; these derive from some rampantly unofficial jargon lists circulated within IBM's own beleaguered hacker underground.

---

Node:IBM discount, Next:[7082]ICBM address, Previous:[7083]IBM, Up:[7084]= I =

IBM discount n.

A price increase. Outside IBM, this derives from the common perception that IBM products are generally overpriced (see [7085]clone); inside, it is said to spring from a belief that large numbers of IBM employees living in an area cause prices to rise.

---

Node:ICBM address, Next:[7086]ice, Previous:[7087]IBM discount, Up:[7088]= I =

ICBM address n.

(Also `missile address') The form used to register a site with the Usenet mapping project, back before the day of pervasive Internet, included a blank for longitude and latitude, preferably to seconds-of-arc accuracy. This was actually used for generating geographically-correct maps of Usenet links on a plotter; however, it became traditional to refer to this as one's `ICBM address' or `missile address', and some people include it in

587

their [7089]sig block with that name. (A real missile address would include target elevation.)

---

Node:ice, Next:[7090]ID10T error, Previous:[7091]ICBM address, Up:[7092]= I =

ice n.

[coined by Usenetter Tom Maddox, popularized by William Gibson's cyberpunk SF novels: a contrived acronym for `Intrusion Countermeasure Electronics'] Security software (in Gibson's novels, software that responds to intrusion by attempting to immobilize or even literally kill the intruder). Hence, `icebreaker': a program designed for cracking security on a system.

Neither term is in serious use yet as of early 1999, but many hackers find the metaphor attractive, and each may develop a denotation in the future. In the meantime, the speculative usage could be confused with `ICE', an acronym for "in-circuit emulator".

In ironic reference to the speculative usage, however, some hackers and computer scientists formed ICE (International Cryptographic Experiment) in 1994. ICE is a consortium to promote uniform international access to strong cryptography.

---

Node:ID10T error, Next:[7093]idempotent, Previous:[7094]ice, Up:[7095]= I =

ID10T error /I-D-ten-T er'*r/

Synonym for [7096]PEBKAC, e.g. "The user is being an idiot". Tech-support people passing a problem report to someone higher up the food chain (and presumably better equipped to deal with idiots) may ask

588

the user to convey that there seems to be an I-D-ten-T error. Users never twig.

---

Node:idempotent, Next:[7097]IDP, Previous:[7098]ID10T error, Up:[7099]= I =

idempotent adj.

[from mathematical techspeak] Acting as if used only once, even if used multiple times. This term is often used with respect to [7100]C header files, which contain common definitions and declarations to be included by several source files. If a header file is ever included twice during the same compilation (perhaps due to nested #include files), compilation errors can result unless the header file has protected itself against multiple inclusion; a header file so protected is said to be idempotent. The term can also be used to describe an initialization subroutine that is arranged to perform some critical action exactly once, even if the routine is called several times.

---

Node:IDP, Next:[7101]If you want X you know where to find it., Previous:[7102]idempotent, Up:[7103]= I =

IDP /I-D-P/ v.,n.

[Usenet] Abbreviation for [7104]Internet Death Penalty. Common (probably now more so than the full form), and frequently verbed. Compare [7105]UDP.

---

Node:If you want X you know where to find it., Next:[7106]ifdef out, Previous:[7107]IDP, Up:[7108]= I =

590

1. [numerical analysis] Said of an algorithm or computational method that tends to blow up because of accumulated roundoff error or poor convergence properties. 2. Software that bypasses the defined [7124]OS interfaces to do things (like screen, keyboard, and disk I/O) itself, often in a way that depends on the hardware of the machine it is running on or which is nonportable or incompatible with other pieces of software. In the IBM PC/MS-DOS world, there is a folk theorem (nearly true) to the effect that (owing to gross inadequacies and performance penalties in the OS interface) all interesting applications are ill-behaved. See also [7125]bare metal. Oppose [7126]well-behaved, compare [7127]PC-ism. See [7128]mess-dos.

---

Node:IMHO, Next:[7129]Imminent Death Of The Net Predicted!, Previous:[7130]ill-behaved, Up:[7131]= I =

IMHO // abbrev.

[from SF fandom via Usenet; abbreviation for `In My Humble Opinion'] "IMHO, mixed-case C names should be avoided, as mistyping something in the wrong case can cause hard-to-detect errors -- and they look too Pascalish anyhow." Also seen in variant forms such as IMNSHO (In My Not-So-Humble Opinion) and IMAO (In My Arrogant Opinion).

---

Node:Imminent Death Of The Net Predicted!, Next:[7132]in the extreme, Previous:[7133]IMHO, Up:[7134]= I =

Imminent Death Of The Net Predicted! prov.

[Usenet] Since [7135]Usenet first got off the ground in 1980-81, it has grown exponentially, approximately doubling in size every year. On the other hand, most people feel the [7136]signal-to-noise ratio of Usenet has dropped steadily. These trends led, as far back as mid-1983, to predictions