smurf /smerf/ n.
1. [from the _soc.motss_ newsgroup on Usenet, after some
obnoxiously gooey cartoon characters] A newsgroup regular with a
habitual style that is irreverent, silly, and _cute_. Like
many other hackish terms for people, this one may be praise or
insult depending on who uses it. In general, being referred to as
a smurf is probably not going to make your day unless you've
previously adopted the label yourself in a spirit of irony.
Compare old fart. 2. [techspeak]
A ping packet with a forged source address sent to some other
network's broadcast address. All the machines on the destination
network will send a ping response to the forged source address
(the victim). This both overloads the victim's network and hides
the location of the attacker.
Node:SNAFU principle, Next:snail, Previous:smurf, Up:= S
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SNAFU principle /sna'foo prin'si-pl/ n.
[from a WWII Army acronym for `Situation Normal, All Fucked
Up'] "True communication is possible only between equals, because
inferiors are more consistently rewarded for telling their
superiors pleasant lies than for telling the truth." -- a central
tenet of Discordianism, often
invoked by hackers to explain why authoritarian hierarchies screw
up so reliably and systematically. The effect of the SNAFU
principle is a progressive disconnection of decision-makers from
reality. This lightly adapted version of a fable dating back to
the early 1960s illustrates the phenomenon perfectly:
In the beginning was the plan,
and then the specification;
And the plan was without form,
and the specification was void.