<
jargon> /si:'ber-kruhd/ 1. (Coined by Ted Nelson) Obfuscatory
tech-talk. Verbiage with a high
MEGO factor. The computer
equivalent of bureaucratese.
2. Incomprehensible stuff embedded in e-mail. First there
were the "Received" headers that show how mail flows through
systems, then MIME (
Multi-purpose Internet Mail Extensions)
headers and part boundaries, and now huge blocks of
hex for
PEM (
Privacy Enhanced Mail) or PGP (
Pretty Good Privacy)
digital signatures and certificates of authenticity. This
stuff all has a purpose and good user interfaces should hide
it, but all too often users are forced to wade through it.
[
Jargon File]
(1995-04-04)