| Hacker | n. 1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities. 2. One who programs enthusiastically. 3. A person who is good at programming quickly. 4. An expert at a particular program, as in 'a Unix hacker'. 5. [deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive information by poking around. |
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| KISS Principle | n. "Keep It Simple, Stupid." Often invoked when discussing design to fend off creeping featurism and control development complexity. Possibly related to the marketroid maxim, "Keep It Short and Simple." |
| munge | vt. 1. [derogatory] To imperfectly transform information. 2. A comprehensive rewrite of a routine, data structure or whole program. 3. To modify data in some way that the speaker doesn't need to go into right now. |
| Phreaking | vt. 1. [derogatory] To imperfectly transform information. 2. A comprehensive rewrite of a routine, data structure or whole program. 3. To modify data in some way that the speaker doesn't need to go into right now. |
| Back Door | n. In the security of a system, a hole deliberately left in place by designers or maintainers. May be intended for use by service technicians. syn. trap door. |
| Deep Magic | n. An awesomely arcane technique central to a program or system, esp. one that could only have been composed by a true wizard. Many techniques in cryptography, signal processing, graphics and artificial intelligence are deep magic. |
| Foo | interj. 1. Term of disgust. 2. Used very generally as a sample name for absolutely anything, esp. programs and files. Etymology is obscure. |
| Security through Obscurity | n. (alt. security by obscurity) A hacker term for vendors' favorite way of coping with security holes — namely, ignoring them; documenting neither any known holes nor the underlying security algorithms; or trusting that nobody will find out about them, and that people who did find about them won't exploit them. This "strategy" never works for long. |
| Sneaker | n. An individual hired to break into places in order to test their security; analogous to "tiger team." |
| Tiger Team | n. In the security of a system, a hole deliberately left in place by designers or maintainers. May be intended for use by service technicians. syn. trap door. |
| Spaghetti Code | n. Code with a complex and tangled control structure, esp. one using many GOTOs, exceptions or other 'unstructured' branching constructs. Pejorative. The synonym kangaroo code has also been reported, doubtless because such code has so many jumps in it. |
| Voodoo Programming | n. The use by guess or cookbook of an obscure or hairy system, feature or algorithm that one does not truly understand. The implication is that the technique may not work, and if it doesn't, one will never know why. |
| Vulcan Nerve Pinch | n. The keyboard combination that forces a soft-boot or jump to ROM monitor (on machines that support such a feature). On many micros this is Ctrl-Alt-Del; on Suns and some Macintoshes, L1-A. It is also called the "three-finger salute." |
| Zipperhead | n. A closed minded person |
These definitions came from
http://tlc.discovery.com/convergence/hackers/glossary/glossary.html
Now that you know the lingo of hacking here are a few other sites where you can find more information. Other Links