Cylex: the new cyber-lexicon -- a bit of New Year cheer

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

From: Mike Godwin <mnemonic () eff org>
To: farber () central cis upenn edu (David Farber)
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1993 09:31:36 -0500 (EST)


This is the best paper produced in the class I taught at the School of
Visual Arts this fall. The student's name is Antoinette LaFarge.
"Cylex" is reprinted with permission. Feel free to use the words.


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DDB2030.12.17.20:20:21GMT
Homebase:  ~U.S. Government Publishing Office.
Download to:  Mike Godwin, Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Status:  digsig not verified--no-interrupt.
Checklist:  autolott yesQupdate yes--images no--dtp format
no--search yes (art, pub, law)--update editor: Antoinette
LaFarge.
Filename:  *Cylex*
File begin:


Note on usage: *boldface* type indicates word being defined;
_italic_ type indicates word defined elsewhere in Cylex or used
as an example.


*Antilex*:  (n)  a variant on _Cylex_ published by a shifting
coalition of _e-pubs_ who feel that Cylex is often both
inaccurate (because slanted toward the government viewpoint)
and out of date.


*autolott*:  (n)  short for *auto*mated *lott*ery, this is the
standard form of lottery now run by most major companies, the
federal government, and all state governments except Utah.
Most digital transfers now automatically cause the
destination/recipient to be encoded and dropped into a lottery
pool, from which prize drawings are then made.  This form of
lottery, in which one does not have to actively play to win, is an
outgrowth of the credit-card pools of the 1990s. Autolotts were
devised in part as a corporate marketing method to get around
the highly successful _doorman_ programs.


*black bank*:  (n) an underground institution for generating and
distributing digital signatures outside the government-approved
three-bank scheme.  Black banks tend to be small and to go in
and out of business quickly as they are usually unable to sustain
the integrity of their security schemes and thus can lose all their
business literally overnight.  Although not technically illegal,
they cater to an amorphous and shifting population of criminals
and _clans_ who for one reason or another don't trust the
integrity of the national digital-signature scheme.  The Russian,
South African, Korean, and Caribbean mafias are all known to
run their own black banks.


*bureaucrat*:  (n) obsolete; see _hulk_.


*bodyguard*:  (n) general term covering localized software that
searches out and destroys viruses, worms, trojan horses,
scavengers, and other net wildlife. The U.S. government has
imposed severe restrictions on bodyguards to ensure that they
don't run loose in the net. (See also: _cannibal, hulk._)


*borden*:  (n) any nondigital object that figures as evidence in
a legal proceeding, especially under criminal law.  Since most
legal proceedings are now carried out entirely in cyberspace,
lawyers have largely lost the ability to sway juries by showing
them physical evidence of crimes. In cases where such evidence
is important, prosecutors (rarely defense lawyers) often pursue
strategies to get the case transferred from cyberspace to real-
space courtrooms.  Hence (v) _to borden_ means to obtain or
try to obtain such a change of venue.  The word derives
indirectly from the b