Word up! Explore the lexicon of tech

O

Owned, pwned - Gamer-speak meaning to totally dominate an opponent; also used by hackers to mean they have gained control of a system or website
e.g. "ZMOG!! THE MITNICK GOTZ OWNED!!"

P

Patch - A piece of code that resolves a software bug

Phantom ring - The false belief that your mobile phone is receiving an incoming call

Pharming - A type of attack in which hackers redirect a website's traffic to a bogus site in order to harvest sensitive data such as usernames, passwords and bank account details

Phishing - The sending of spoof emails in order to dupe web users into divulging sensitive information such as bank account details or passwords

New word order

Want to own your fellow techies? Then get your teeth into our essential guide to IT neologisms by clicking on the links below…

A to E: Adware to Exploit
F to N: Fat pipes to Nipples
O to S: Owned to Supercomputer
T to Z: Tag cloud to Zombie

Phone jockey - A disrespectful description of a person employed in a call centre
e.g. "Vicky was glad to return to university, having worked as a phone jockey all summer"

Phreaking - The hacking of telephone systems to gain free calls or just for kicks

Picnic - Acronym for 'problem in chair not in computer' - as used by helpdesk staff to refer to the fact there wasn't a technical problem after all...

Ping - An echo-test for network connectivity, or the sending of a brief message to a person in the hope of receiving a quick response
e.g. "Ping Steve and ask him to make the tea"

Pirate - A person who makes unauthorised use of someone else's intellectual property, commonly those who make illegal copies of software

Podcast - Audio content hosted on the web intended either for download to an MP3 player for later listening or for listening to online

Podslurping - Use of a portable storage device such as an iPod to illicitly download files from a network or computer

Predictive text - A spelling-prediction system used on mobile phones that works dynamically as a user types to predict the word they are in the process of writing
e.g. "The predictive text on my new phone sucks - it can't even spell kettle"

Q

QoS - Acronym for quality of service, aka the business of prioritising network traffic to guarantee a certain performance level

Quad-play - A telecoms provider that offers mobile, fixed line, broadband and pay TV services

Quantum key - A type of encryption based on the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and theoretically impossible to crack

R

Reboot - Restarting a computer

Recycle bin - The name of the icon used by Microsoft's Windows OS to point to the repository for deleted files

Reflectoporn - A pornographic image reflected in the shiny surface of an everyday object, typically appearing in photos of items for sale in an online auction
e.g. "The eBay auction for a very shiny 1960s stainless steel ashtray was a textbook example of reflectoporn, displaying as it clearly did the naked photographer's 'parts'"

Ringtune - A mobile ringtone that plays an audio clip of a song instead of a mono- or polyphonic melody

Ringxiety - Minor panic induced in a group of people when a mobile phone goes off and each person momentarily thinks it's theirs, and/or when a mobile phone owner falsely believes they can hear their phone ringing (see also: Phantom ring)

Ripping - Copying data from a CD or DVD to a hard drive

S

Sandbox - An isolated testing ground for safely trialling code or unverified computer programs

Script kiddie - Hackers who use programs and files written by others to perpetrate their hacks and cracks

Shuffle - A randomised - as opposed to user-selected - music playback system, as featured on the iPod Shuffle. Also, the name of the device itself
e.g. "Jim watched a Girls Aloud video on his video iPod while Pete had a Shuffle"

Silver surfer - A pensioner or elderly person who surfs the web
e.g. "My dad's turning into a bit of a silver surfer these days - he's going to do his Christmas shopping online this year"

Skimming - The covert swiping of the magnetic strip on a bank card by a fraudster in order to capture the data to perpetrate credit card fraud

Snail mail - Traditional (paper-based) mail sent the scenic route via the postal system, in contrast to the instantaneousness of email

Snaparazzi - People who use cameraphones to take on-the-fly photographs and/or video of newsworthy events (also 'waparazzi', named after WAP phones)

Social networking - The business of connecting individuals via the internet and building communities of like-minded individuals online

Spam - Junk email
e.g. "My inbox is overflowing with Viagra spam"

Spamlord - A particularly prolific sender of spam

Spear phishing - A highly targeted phishing attack which aims to trick individuals by utilising info personally relevant to them

Spider - A piece of software that surfs the web in a methodical way to gather data or undertake routine website maintenance tasks
e.g. "The traffic stats are way up this morning - we're probably being crawled by a load of spiders"

Spim - Spam sent over an instant messaging client

Spit - Spam sent over internet telephony

Spoof email - A bogus email masquerading as a genuine communication from an ecommerce company or the like, written by a fraudster aiming to trick the recipient into falling for a phishing scam

Supercomputer - A particularly powerful computer used to undertake complex calculations such as climate modelling

Next page: T to Z: Tag cloud to Zombie