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Updated October 25, 2017 / Posted October 21, 2016
By Vangie Beal
Weird, Spooky and Odd Halloween Technology Words
By Vangie Beal
- 1 of
Halloween Tech: Weird, Spooky and Odd Technology Words
In our never-ending quest to gather terms and information for Webopedia's growing database of technology definitions, we've stumbled across a number of acronyms and tech terms that strike us as being odd, weird or just plain spooky! Seriously, we didn't make these up...
Beware the BLOB (binary large object)
In the tech world BLOB is not used to describe a green oozing spatter of who-knows-what. It's actually the abbreviation for binary large object, a collection of binary data stored as a single entity in a database management system.
Encrypt the Blowfish
If you've ever seen a picture of a blowfish then I'm sure you are also wondering why in 1993 Bruce Schneier decided to call his symmetric encryption algorithm Blowfish. We still don't have the answer to that one, even after reading his blog.
Use Choke Packet for Control
One can't help but to picture an irate system administrator trying to choke their router. While we think this should be used in reference anger management seminars for network administrators, unfortunately the term Choke Packet is already taken>it's an IT phrase used to describe a specialized packet that is used for flow control along a network.
The Cuckoo Egg
Not only is the term itself odd but so is the definition in the case of a Cuckoo Egg. If you randomly download copy protected songs, one day you may come across Cuckoo Egg yourself. As you sit back to enjoy the tune, within the first 30 seconds you'll hear something other than the initial song; usually cuckoo clock sound effects or a series of random sounds and noises that are free of any copyright ownership. Cuckoo on you for not buying the song in the first place!
Let's Play GoogleWhack
We all know what Google is, but why would you want to whack it around? Let's face it, even techie folk need a break every now and then and the GoogleWhack game is a fun way to take a few minutes out of your wired day to play. The goal of a Googlewhack is to perform search queries that will produce only one single search result in the Google search engine.
The Halloween Jitters
We all know that drinking copious amounts of coffee and staying up into the wee hours of the morning fixing a computer problem or playing shoot 'em up games can cause one to have the jitters. While that's a workable term definition, jitter buffers (and jitter filters) in tech terminology refer to a hardware device or software process that eliminates jitter caused by transmission delays in an Internet telephony (VoIP) network. We also have jitter busters, which is a device that aims to suppress jitters. It brings the age old saying of "having the jitters" whole new meaning.
Avoid Typosquatters
While visions of people scouring social posts in the hopes of finding a typo to comment on, the definition of Typosquatting is somewhat expected. It alludes to a domain name that is a variation on a popular, well-known brand. Typosquatters expects to get traffic off of the original site because of a user's misspelling of the name. Be careful: These typo sites can be malicious! According to Sophos, there is a significant typosquatting ecosystem around high-profile domain names. Microsoft typosquats are number one at 61 percent, followed by Twitter (74 percent), Facebook (81 percent), Google (83 percent) and Apple (86 percent).
Evil Malvertising Ahead
Now this is just plain scary! Short for malicious online advertising, malvertising is when bad people mask malicious computer code with seemingly harmless online advertisements. The advertisements may lead to harmful or deceptive content or may directly infect a victim's computer with malicious software (malware) that can damage data, steal personal information or even bring the user's computer under the control of a remote operator.
The Smurf Attack is Not Cute
A child will tell you they are cute, blue and only three apples high, but a system administrator will cower at the mere mention of the word. In tech jargon, a smurf is a very terrible thing indeed! It is a type of denial of service attack where a network connected to the Internet is swamped with replies to ICMP echo (PING) requests. Scary stuff indeed!
Yes, Technology has Zombies
While some think the term zombie is in reference to one of the many Netflix series or video games out there, in tech words a zombie is a bit more serious than that. In the world of UNIX, a zombie refers to a "child" program that was started by a "parent" program but then abandoned by the parent. Zombie is also used to describe a computer that has been implanted with a daemon that puts it under the control of a malicious hacker without the knowledge of the computer owner. No matter what definition you choose for the word zombie, it's always a thrilling scare.
To celebrate Halloween tech-style, we're bringing you a fun — but totally legit — list of some of the spookiest acronyms and tech term oddities we've come across while compiling the Webopedia database. Who knows, maybe one of the following tech terms will spawn a costume idea that will bring first place at this year's office (IT) Halloween party.
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