Computer Jargon Almanac

Internet Jargon Glossary

Before the FAQ's there has to be the Glossary to cover all those pieces of computer jargon that people without a clue can actually appreciate.

If you spy anything thats not added to the glossary, then please post it into this thread (including links), and I shall keep the first post updated.

I shall also try to mod this thread by removing posts that have been processed or are just an acknolodgement that the thread exists. (Thats where you posts went

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Hope everyone is fine with this.

Plagurism: I've tried my best to keep this to the minimum, If I do plagurise (which is all the time when you consider every word we utter has come from somewhere) I appologise since I've tried to place any links used in conjunction with dealing with any unsure entries.

"Plagiarism is the Sincerest form of Flattery", Too many Plagiarists to mention

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A

Agent = (See also Robot & Spider), an Agent is used to obtain Data from a persons machine and called an Agent because of particular "Agencies" methods of gaining data. Agents are usually used for "Spyware" to collect data from spying.

A.I = Artificial Intelligence. A.I. is something that has captured attention for many years, ever since the first release of thew film "Metropolis" (circa 1927) that contained a plot of a mechanised world creating robotic labour. A.I. has been something that people have aspired to build and many authors have added to the construction of potential rules of governing. (i.e. Isaac Asimov)

Such Mathematicians as Alan Turing during and after a time of war where the use of computers was being tested for it's code crunching ability, He questioned as to if one day, machines will think for themselves.

This spawned the rules of the Turing test, and later generated the Loebner prize.

There are multiple types of A.I. in creation to list them here would be absurd, how ever the most notible at present is www.mit.edu, however due to the nature of the tests/prizes the number of groups, universities and companies increases towards a common goal.


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B

Backdoor = Backdoors use to be common place when people were creating programs so they could get round security if necessary, But with the first emergence of hackers in the late 70's - early 80's, backdoors were pretty much obsleted.

Over the past 10 years though, it's known that government bodies around the world have asked for backdoors to be incorporated into programs to aid legal parties in obtaining data. (Notibly with keys to encryption)

This means although the backdoors are encoded, they still exist within the programs.

Base = Base is usually stated to explain how many different characters area available depending on what system of storage or method of interpretation is used.
Base 2: Binary (1 or 0)

Base 6: Hex (A to F)

Base 8: Octal (0 to 7)

Base 10: Decimal although is should really be refered to as Denary since it deals with whole numbers. (0 to 9)

Base 16: Hexidecimal (0 to 9 and A to F)
These are a few types, there are others see sites of interest at the bottom of this post.

Binary = see Base 2 Entry

Boot = A boot doesn't mean "kick the computer", (although some might find that's an alternative.) Boot actually means a reset/reload of the operating system, program or computer itself. There are different time of boot's.

Soft-Boot: Is usually a combination of keypresses or telling the OS to exit.

Hard-Boot: Is when a person actually turns the power off from the computer and on again.

Re-Boot: usually means a Hard-Boot, and is usually a command that is asked to be done after something has installed.

Bot = short for Robot (See also Agent & Spider), Bot's are usually used for obtaining data through Datamining. They comprise of code that does a repetative automated task like searching for data. Such Robot's can be used by search engines to track for updates to websites, or by spammers to gain e-mail addresses from websites.

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C

Canonical = This is the word that describes how a Domain name is when it's in a human form, as aposed to it's computerised I.P. form.

[If you were to imagine the internet like multiple streets, a Canonical name would be like an assigned house name that might appear on your post.]

CGI = see Common Gateway Interface entry when refering to Websites <STRIKE>and the CGI Entry for Animation/Graphics</STRIKE>.

Common Gateway Interface = A method allowed by the server to Execute scripts for use with websites. The scripts are Executed/run and Interpreted by the server before the page is sent to a browser.
Sometimes the scripts are contained within a "cgi-bin" folder (bin = Binary meaning executable) but in recent years it's more common for them to appear anywhere in a folders structure.
Typical CGI files include .cgi (Webserver decides what runs for this extension), .pl for Perl, .php for PHP, .ASP for Active Server Pages (Usually VBScript, ActiveX and XML)

Code = Code refers to the different types of languages that are scripted for the computer to read. Code can range from scripts written in languages that a human can read right through to Binary that the machine knows how to read.

Compile/Compiler/Compiled/Compiling = The use of the word "Compile" tends to arise with programs that have been fully tested as Scripts run through an Interpreter and it's time to create them into a standalone program. Compiling the code changes the script into code the computer can read and is generally illegible to humans. The type of code is usually Binary or Hexidecimal.

Cracker: There is often a dispute within the cyber-subculture, as to how Crackers and Hackers are termed. Although it's known that if a person is apart of the subculture they will try to make sure they don't sound as bad as others make out.

In one term, a Cracker is a person that deals with "codes" but this can mean running password cracking programs to actually generating the mathematics to solve crypto-cyphers.

Crackers are known to work out how program encode passwords or Disable Trialware timeouts. (e.g. Cracks)

Cracks = are usually a small piece of code that is either added to a program or altered in a program to allow some form of change. The change can be anything from creating a cheat in a game to removing the copyright protection.

Crackers & Hackers create cracks.


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D

Datamine/Datamining= (see Bot) Datamining is called so because it refers to Data being like an open mine, and to get to the "ore" or in this case important data, Robots have to mine everything into chunks that can be handles.

Datamining is used by Search engine firms to collect pages together to be cataloged, but other creations on the internet also use datamining like certain A.I. projects, Spammers and Hackers.

Daemon's = (pronounced "Demon") Daemons can be quite evil, but they aren't exactly hell spawn. In fact a Daemon is something that loads up on a system during Boot, usually a Server.

There are some safe Daemon's but they are usually ones that the computer operator has told to load up.

Any Evil Daemon's are usually loaded up by Trojans namely some form of server a person didn't realise was set up (e.g. Sub7). [see Trojan, Zombie]


Decimal = Other than Decimal meaning numbers like 1.1 , see Base 10 Entry

Denary = Other than Denary meaning 1 to 10, see Base 10 Entry

Dynamic Allocation= a term used to explain how a reconnection of a dialup causes the I.S.P. to change the assigned I.P. address. This is done by I.S.P.'s to try and increase the anonymity of it's clients to held conceal their identity against would be espionage seekers like hackers.
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E
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F

Function = see Proceedure Entry.
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G
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H

Hackers= Where a Cracker can crack a tool, a Hacker can know how to use them and even write their own Hacks.

Hackers are people that look for systems exploits in systems & networks, usually for a pursuit of looking for information. (some hackers have very moral reasons of wanting certain information to be freed)

There are different types of hacker some of which can help Systems Operators and Administrators and others that try to make their jobs hell.[See White-Hat, Grey-Hat, Black-Hat]

Hats= Everybody knows that a hat is something you put on your head (unless it's apart of a snare-drum kit.

A hat in the past could be used to distinguish a persons gentry/background, Within Cyber-culture this has continued in tradition with Three notible types of Hat which define what type of Hacker a person can be.

Black-Hats: these are hackers that are doing destructive things to servers and computer systems, just for the kicks or they can be corporate espionage agents and possibly within recent years terrorists.

Grey-Hats: These type of hackers might use some Black-Hat tactic's to get some things done, but they occasionally bring up certain moral concerns which places on the border between Black and White.

White-Hats: thes are usually either ex-black-hats turned corporate security, or people that aspire to be a moral type of hacker in defending the internet infrastructure.

White-Hats are usually employed (but not all the time) to look for exploits in peoples networks to try and stop Black-Hats from getting in. White-Hats can also be found trying to trace certain criminal elements like Child-Pornographers, E-mail spammers and some types of Fraud.


Hex = see Base 6 Entry

Hexidecimal = see Base 16 Entry
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I

I.P.= Internet Protocol. The humble computer speaks many different languages and dialecs, one of which is the Internet Protocol.

Presently IPv4 (Internet Protocol Version 4) is in main stream use, this is what makes up all the IP addresses on the internet.

[If you were to imagine the internet like multiple streets, an I.P. address would be like a house number that might appear on your post.]

IP's comprise of four numbers seperated by fullstops.
Each number is between 0 and 255, In the most part everybody on the internet has a different number, although there are a few cases where people can have the same number:

[They could be sharing the same machine, their configuration might be wrong, somebody might be abusing the configuration or they might be using a reserved IP range.]

There are IP classes which are ranges of IP's (multiple numbers) that ISP's, Organisations and Governments can control, for an explanation of them please follow:
http://info-x.co.uk/docview.asp?id=61

I.S.P.= Internet Service Provider. The internet comprises of multiple machines that link together to create a giant Web. An Internet Service Provider is allocated a certain number of resources that is used as a Gateway, As with the real world, Some things you can't join unless you "Enter".

So you can't just hookup/connect to the internet without having someone supply you your entrance.

There are many different ISP's available and many different connection types with different speeds.

Interpreter = A Interpreter program converts readable(by humans) script into machine code (Binary or Hexidecimal) before it is run. Interpreters therefore take up room in a computers Memory, however Intepreters are usually apart of programming development software although some servers (meaning computer) run Interpreters as apart of Internet communication, either for use in websites for CGI or to help automate tasks across networks.
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J
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K

Key Generators: These are programs that crackers can create when they have worked out the method that is used in password/registration code creation. They then create a small program that allows a password or registeration key to be generated.
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L
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M
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N
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O

Octal = see Base 8 Entry

OS = Means Operating System. There are many types of operating system available, most commonly is the GUI Windows from Microsoft, but others are up and coming like the Linux Distributions (Redhat, Debian, Openbsd/Freebsd, Suse, Caldera, Mandrake, Slackware), theres the original Unix systems and we must not forget the MAC(iMAC) Systems.
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P

Proceedure = A Proceedure is a block of code that defines parameters on execution. (e.g. It tells the program to write to a file or Print to the screen) Proceedures should not be muddled with Functions since Functions parse data. (e.g. telling a function to take two numbers and add them together gives you a result that the Function can then pass back to a Proceedure.)

Program = A number of Proceedures and Functions that run together to create the overall end result a program. Programs are written in many different languages and can be Compiled to run as a Binary or Scripted to be Intepreted at Run-Time.

Programming/Programmer = Programmers create Programs through Programming which should be pretty obvious. Programmers usually program in Programming Languages they are use to.

Programming Languages = There are many types of programming languages for different platforms and architectures. There are also different "Generation" languages, the higher the "Generation" number, the less knowledge of coding is needed as the programs are created by typing in near enough English.
i.e. Pascal, VBScipt, BASIC, C, C+, C++, PERL, Python, FORTRAN, COBOL
(Checkout www.fag.org if you have any questions about these languages)
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Q
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R

Robot= See Bot entry.

Run-Time = The point in time that a program is running or Executed.
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S

Script = A Script is usually run through an Interpreter which takes longer to process than a Compiled Binary Executable and takes up more resources to process. see Interpreter Entry.

Server= A popular usage of the word usually means a computer that "serves" things, but this is slightly incorrect. A Server is actually the program that runs the commands to serve things (e.g. Apache serves Web pages, Sendmail deals with E-mails). Apache and Sendmail would both be classed as Servers.

Usual systems that run servers are Unix and Linux, although NT4, Windows 2000 and editions of XP can run servers (and Daemons)

Note: To secure any computer system, your best making sure that you only have servers and daemons running that you want running.
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T

Trojan: A trojan is a relative of a virus, but it has the distinct difference in the sense that it's based on the legend of the wooden horse of Troy(From "The Illiad" by Homer) that was supposedly a peace offering to the Trojans(People of Troy) after an armies "Tactical withdrawl". They brought the tribute into their town square and rejoiced about the end of their war.

Little did they realise that hidden within side was a handpicked number of men, who when night befell and the occupants of Troy tired of their rejoicing, They climbed from the wooden horse and opened the gates of Troy so an army could march in and take the Citidel.

This means a Trojan can be placed into a portion of a legitimate program that you might download or have sent to you, once in your system it can open up a door in your security so someone can get in to try and take your "citidel".
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U
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V

Virus= A virus in the computer terms is a piece of destructive code (Unless it's a White Virus which is based on the same colorcoding as Hats)

The code itself is self-replicating and mirrors the nature of natural biological viruses, in the sense that it uses up resources through self-replicating which would usually take that resource up.

E.g. taking up RAM that a program would use, so it can continue replicating.

There are many times of virus on the internet, some only popup a window on a given day of the year, while others will attempt to do more damaging things to your programs, data and operating system.
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W

Warez= comes from Soft(wares). Warezhouse are usually servers filled with software, the main problem is that warez are a legal grey area (And often black point), in the sense that the programs have copyrights, and their copyright security like registeration codes and passwords are "Cracked".

A majority of the internet follows a net ettiquette of disallowing Warez sites, but presently there is no unified control over them and to tell you the truth most people use such sites to downloaded illegal pirate copies of software and music.
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X
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Y
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Z

Zombie= Other than the Zombie Flesh eaters that are apart of the Horror film genre. There's what is known to be Zombie servers, servers that lie in wait to be used by hackers and spammers alike. They can sit there for months not doing anything and can be triggered by any time of event (an e-mail, text message etc)

Some Zombie servers are only set up for Proxying, this allows an anonymous method of surfing since the server can be told to delete the records at that point, making it impossible to trace past that point.

In recent years Trojans have been used to install Zombie Daemons on peoples computers without their knowledge, this means a person could be quite unaware that while they are doing what ever it is they do on the internet, there computer will be relaying data somewhere for someone else, or attacking people under someone elses orders.
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Other Glossary's:
http://www.cnet.com/Resources/Info/Glossary/
http://WhatIs.com [+ Captain_Crunch]
http://catb.org/esr/jargon/html/go01.html [+ LSatyl]
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/

Sites of interest:
Aibo (Just wait till we start programming websites for Aibo to view)
http://www.sony.net/Products/aibo/aiboflash.html
Computer Deals [+ WellCookedFetus]
http://www.newegg.com
Forum for Computer Hardware related Problems [+ WellCookedFetus]
http://www.community.tomshardware.com/forum/
Information on Base numbers
http://www.psinvention.com/zoetic/basenumb.htm

 

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One for the "F"s is ******* useless when refering to another site that cannot be accessed due to power failures, too small an outlet, or gone off into hyperspace!!!

 

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Just to let you know this has been updated a little, I will add more later since I have to have a few defined pieces for a HND I'm now doing.

 

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You have the hacker entry in twice.
Nice so far though.

what about firewall, firewire, some of the programing languages, pop3, upload, download, (you would be surprised how many people actually don't know the difference.) ftp, RISC, firmware...

Ok that is all i can comeup with off the top of my head wit out looking at the list again.

 

This is called a animated gif:

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A animated picture is worth 1000, per frame.
You can make one for free just search for “.gif Animator” on the web there are multiple program with freeware versions.

 

If you can write a definition then by all means do (Of course I'll add your name next to it like I've done with the extras at the bottom of the post).

 

w00t: l33t speak for 'yippie'. Can be used in victory or moments of excitement.

An explanation of l33t speak.

 

Animated Image
A .gif or flash image that is animated

hows thats

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Also change Wellcookedfetus to Neuromancer as I have changed my name.

 

OverClocking
- also to "overclock" or is "overclocked"
to have computer hardware runing at faster speeds (clockspeeds) then they were design or set at.

This can be done on just about any computer hardware as most electronic use clock cycles, but using speeds that are out of specifications can make a computer unstable, also voltage may need to be increased and cooling can become a serious problem.

example: "I have a Athlon 2500+ that should run at 1.8Ghz but I overclock it to 2.07Ghz, by overclocking the FSB from 166mhz to 190Mhz"

 

Just some idea of simple words to be add:

Bit - Smallest unit of computing, can assume only the values of 0 and 1, see also Binary;

Byte - A group of eight bits, see also Bit;

also could be explained what means the variations from byte to kilo, mega, giga, tera, peta, etc...

Browser - A client capable of retrieving information from a web site and allowing the user to navigate through the links. See also client.

Qubit - Smallest unit in quantum computing, can assume values of 0, 1 and Entagled between 0 and 1; See also Quantum computing.

Other words:

Bitmap, Socket, Port, Client, Worm

My Boss is coming, i finish it some other day

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Or alternatively:

bit - the knowledge most women have about the pc they use at work

byte - what most women do when they cannot figure out why the monitor isn't on

browser - what women do with their nails whilst waiting for the Engr to come and switch the monitor on

Qubit - What a women plays with watching the engineer switching her monitor on; trying to make all the sides the same colour

Bitmap, Socket, Port, Client, Worm - what women think are actually types of drinks in an Internet Cafe

 

There is no entry for Cryptography? i am surprised.

Anyway,i topped in this subject so if you want i could write a little or you could save me from the drudgery

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bye!

 

You can develop the entry if you like Zion, Although I'll probably have to generated one for Stegnography as well.

 

Was a bit bored so I thought I'd add some jargon to the almanac

Bomb= A 'bomb' or 'time bomb' is type of Virus that
holds a malicious yet de-fuseable payload; it is subspecies
of logic bomb that is triggered by reaching some preset time,
either once or periodically. There are numerous legends about
time bombs set up by programmers in their employers' machines
as a kind pre-emptive vengeance, to go off if
the programmer is fired or laid off and is not present to
perform the appropriate suppressing action periodically.
See Logic Bomb

GUI= Pronounced gooey, GUI stands for graphic user interface,
which is the current means of interacting with software instead of text.
Using a pointing device; like a mouse as well as a keyboard, menus and icons
can be manipulated to perform functions.
See WIMP

Logic Bomb= Code surreptitiously inserted into an
application or operating system that causes it to perform
some destructive or security-compromising activity whenever
specified conditions are met.

Steganography= Hiding a secret message within a larger one in such
a way that others can not discern the presence or contents of
the hidden message. For example, a message might be hidden
within an image by changing the least significant bits to
be the message bits.

WIMP= WIMP stands for Windows, Icons, Mouse, Pointer.
This acronym basically describes the way a GUI is used.

Bit basic in parts, but im sure someone will correct me

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I'd like to reference 'A Computer Hackers Handbook by Dr.K' as an excellent
source of valuable computing knowledge

 

Take a Peep at PC-GUIDE...
Stryder,you"ll Blush...I can assure you...Amazing Site...Still reading CPUs...

bye!

 

CPU on PCGUIDE IS BIGGEST CHAPTER I HAVE READ AS YET ON THE INTERNET!.Still goes on...

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bye!

 

For those who really want to understand TCP/IP,their details,everything you ever had confusion about,please go to this site:
www.tcpipguide.com

bye!

 

My favorites:

Panic Button -- A Hot-key for you to click to switch from a game or website to something else when your boss approaches.

Three-finger salute -- CTRL-ALT-DEL

asdf -- I don't know how to put it, it is too asdf. This is the most asdf word. See also www.asdf.com

 

Hi - Anyone who is over 30 will tell you all about booting. So you need to update the boot definition.

Boot = bootstrap - i.e. get the machine to pick itself up by its bootstraps and do something. 99% this was 'load yourself an OS and don't set yourself on fire'.

This was always entertaining on a RM380z, two of which lived in our computer lab at school. (Best leave the last bit out of the definition)

 

hex also means base 16. usb universal serial bus for hot plug devices. hot plug is where you can connect a device to a computer without shutting it off. win 9x the windows 95,98,winme family. mobo motherboard. jumper a device to change settings on cdrom drives,hdd,mobo's.