WhatIs

/lüp thrü/

vt. To process each element of a list of things.

"Hold on, I've got to loop through my paper mail."

Derives from the computer-language notion of an iterative loop; compare cdr down (under cdr), which is less common among C and UNIX programmers. ITS hackers used to say IRP over after an obscure pseudo-op in the MIDAS PDP-10 assembler.

/lä-ji-kəl/

[from the technical term 'logical device', wherein a physical device is referred to by an arbitrary 'logical' name]

adj. Having the role of. If a person (say, Les Earnest at SAIL) who had long held a certain post left and were replaced, the replacement would for a while be known as the 'logical' Les Earnest. (This does not imply any judgment on the replacement.)

Compare virtual.

/lä-jik bäm/

n. Code surreptitiously inserted in an application or OS that causes it to perform some destructive or security-compromising activity whenever specified conditions are met.

Compare back door.

/läk'd əp/

adj. Syn. for hung, wedged.

/läk'd ən(d) lō-dəd/

[from military slang for an M-16 rifle with magazine inserted and prepared for firing]

adj. Said of a removable disk volume properly prepared for use -- that is, locked into the drive and with the heads loaded. Ironically, because their heads are 'loaded' whenever the power is up, this description is never used of Winchester drives (which are named after a rifle).

/lō-ˈbä-tə-mē/

n. 1. What a hacker subjected to formal management training is said to have undergone. At IBM and elsewhere this term is used by both hackers and low-level management; the latter doubtless intend it as a joke.

2. The act of removing the processor from a microcomputer in order to replace or upgrade it. Some very cheap clone systems are sold in 'lobotomized' form -- everything but the brain.

/li:v'weir/

n. 1. Synonym for wetware. Less common.

2. [Cambridge] Vermin. "Waiter, there's some liveware in my salad..."

/liv-ˌläk/

n. A situation in which some critical stage of a task is unable to finish because its clients perpetually create more work for it to do after they have been serviced but before it can clear its queue. Differs from deadlock in that the process is not blocked or waiting for anything, but has a virtually infinite amount of work to do and can never catch up.

/liv frē ȯr dī/

imp. 1. The state motto of New Hampshire, which appears on that state's automobile license plates.

/liv dā-tə/

n. 1. Data that is written to be interpreted and takes over program flow when triggered by some un-obvious operation, such as viewing it. One use of such hacks is to break security. For example, some smart terminals have commands that allow one to download strings to program keys; this can be used to write live data that, when listed to the terminal, infects it with a security-breaking virus that is triggered the next time a hapless user strikes that key.