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condom: n. 1. The protective plastic bag that accompanies 3.5-inch microfloppy
diskettes. Rarely, also used of (paper) disk envelopes. Unlike the write
protect tab, the condom (when left on) not only impedes the practice of
SEX but has also been shown to have a high failure
rate as drive mechanisms attempt to access the disk — and can even
fatally frustrate insertion. 2. The protective cladding on a light pipe.
3. keyboard condom: A
flexible, transparent plastic cover for a keyboard, designed to provide
some protection against dust and programming fluid
without impeding typing. 4. elephant condom: the
plastic shipping bags used inside cardboard boxes to protect hardware in
transit. 5. n. obs. A dummy directory
/usr/tmp/sh, created to foil the
Great Worm by exploiting a portability bug in one of its parts. So
named in the title of a comp.risks article by Gene Spafford during
the Worm crisis, and again in the text of The Internet Worm
Program: An Analysis, Purdue Technical Report
CSD-TR-823.
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