Looking Glass, page 29
OC: (3, 48, etc) Optical Carrier. Designates the capabilities of various types of synchronous optical networking (SONET) lines. Generally speaking, the number designates bandwidth, in multiples of approximately 51 megabits per second.
Onion Router: A loose network of systems which relay IP connections randomly to conceal the originating node of the connection, while forwarding the data through. (See: Anonymizer).
OnoSendai: (OS, OS Deck) Originally a fictional company in William Gibson's Neuromancer. The name OnoSendai has since been appropriated by the OnoSendai Electronics Corporation, Menlo Park, CalTech. OnoSendai is best known as a company that developed the OS Deck, offered stock based on the strength of that product, then switched to an entirely different product family, orphaning the OS Deck, in the face of arguably unfair competition from other companies. While the OS Deck defined the state of the art early on, at ten years old they are seldom used any longer due to lack of performance.
Open Source: Software or hardware built under the terms of an open source license, which allows others the right to access any source code needed to modify, copy, or reproduce the device, providing they, in turn, do not restrict the rights of others to do the same, and that they contribute their changes to the good of the project.
PBX: Polymer Bonded Explosive. An explosive powder bound to a polymer for elastic or plastic shaping capability. Not to be confused with Private Branch Exchanges, a business telephone technology, which is extinct in the LookingGlass World.
Penguini: An open source hardware network bridge — a device which forwards ethernet frames from one interface to the other without filtration.
Phreak: Originally, a hacker and/or cracker of the telephone system. Functionally synonymous with hacker and/or cracker in the LookingGlass World, due to the demise of the phone system as distinct from the Internet. (See: hacker, cracker).
Ping: A network diagnostic tool which sends a specific type of packet (usually ICMP) from one network node to another. Ping packets cause the machine receiving them to respond back to the transmitter, thereby demonstrating that packets can, in fact, get from the one node to the other, and giving the sender some idea of how long (in real time) the round trip takes.
Pirate: (crew) Not to be confused with data pirates, a pirate crew, in the LookingGlass World, is a team of questionable individuals united together in a high stress, high reward environment. EG: the I-Link Pirate crew — their Reno network security team.
Plughead: Slang for a person with a data jack. (See: Data Jack). Not to be confused with wirehead. (See: Wirehead.)
Port: Can be synonymous for a jack (see: Jack), but most often used here to describe network port numbers, which are an assigned number that identifies what type of data is contained in a given packet, and which software on the system to which the data is being sent should attempt to deal with it. Example: when one email server tries to send mail to another, it usually sends the data to port 25. Port numbers do not usually have an alphabetical attachment, though in some cases, routers can shadow each other, and it's helpful to know which router you're speaking of, as in 88a and 88b.
Rangers: Usually the agents of the Texican Federation's Policia Federal Preventiva, which absorbed the famed Texas Ranger Division of the Texas State Police, when Texas became part of the Texican Federation.
RCP44: An encryption algorithm used on TurnTek municipal switches.
Realtime: In computing, realtime designates a level of predictability in terms of external time of a given computing task. This differentiates it from normal computer time, which is a measure of cycles of a processor, irrespective of how long those cycles actually take. Realtime networking, for example, is necessary for voice transmission, or conversations become choppy and hard to carry on.
RFID: Radio Frequency Identification. A integrated circuit which, when triggered by an external radio signal, uses some of that signal's energy to emit a signal of its own, usually with a unique serial number. RFIDs have mostly supplanted barcodes and magnetic strips in the LookingGlass World.
ROM: Read Only Memory. An integrated circuit with a pattern of data and/or software permanently set in its circuits.
Route: An instruction to a router (see: Router), to forward (usually) IP packets from one network to another.
Router: A specialized computer with two or more network interfaces that connects networks together and routs data between them. Routers also frequently do the processing on network data to create and enforce a firewall. (See: Firewall).
RSTP: Realtime Secure Transmission Protocol. A cryptographically secure replacement for TCP (see: TCP) particularly used for virtual reality connections, or anywhere else requiring predictable or near predictable timing.
RTFM: Read the Fine Manual. The adjective is frequently replaced with one more descriptive of the frustration experienced by tech support people dealing with customers who have, in fact, not read the fine manual.
Script Kiddy: A derogatory term for inexperienced hackers, who rely on programs — scripts — written by others. In the LookingGlass World, it also refers to hackers who rely on script-running ice such as Super Scriptor, rather than carving their own ice to do a job.
SCP: Southern Canadian Provinces — that is, any of Canada's new provinces, added after the breakup of the United States of America, mostly former Louisiana purchase states north of Texas and east of California, Oregon, and Washington.
Scramble Jammer: Defensive ice that blocks the action of deck/tank/neurological scrambler ice.
SFPD: San Francisco Police Department.
SIP: Session Initiation Protocol. A signaling protocol used in Voice over IP, or VOIP.
Slot: As a verb: the act of slipping ice into a deck or a tank. As a noun, the slot into which ice fits. (See Ice, Deck, Tank)
Softlines: In a department store, goods made of cloth: clothes, slippers, etc.
Switch: (network) A network device which, in 802.3 networks, creates a separate ethernet network for each interface of the switch, and forwards only those ethernet frames between networks which need to pass between networks. In the LookingGlass World, this term is used interchangeably with hub.
Switch: (railroad) A device where two different tracks merge and are connected to a third. The switch allows a train to be diverted to one or the other of two tracks.
Synthetic Aperture: An interferometry technique which combines the pictures from multiple sources to yield an image equivalent to one captured by a much larger instrument.
T1: A nuclear fission powered locomotive, used to power transcontinental trains. Not to be confused with T1, a data communication standard largely extinct in the LookingGlass World, or with T1, a streamlined, duplex steam locomotive, introduced by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1942, from which the name is taken.
Tank: A sensory deprivation tank, usually filled with heavy saline (See Heavy Saline), and equipped with what amounts to a very powerful deck (see Deck) with which the occupant can connect to a virtual environment without being disturbed by sensory input.
TCP: Transmission Control Protocol. A protocol layered on top of Internet Protocol (see Internet Protocol), which provides assurance that all packets have arrived, that they have arrived in order, and that they have been correctly transmitted and received. TCP, when layered on top of IPv4 is the protocol most associated with the construction of the Internet. When layered on top of IPv6, it is still very commonly used in the LookingGlass World.
Tentacle Sex: A standard in pornographic anime (see: Anime), usually involving tentacled demons and school girls.
Terabit: Roughly a trillion bits, usually used as a measure of bandwidth (see: Bandwidth) per second.
Terabyte: Roughly a trillion bytes, usually used as a measure of a volume of data.
Texican: Of or having to do with +. (See: TexMex).
TexMex: Texas and other southwestern states of the former United States of America, which are now states in the Texican Federation, or the Estados Unidos Mexicanos, as it's properly called, even in the LookingGlass World.
Trace: Used as both a noun and a verb, tracing is the act of following a network connection back to its true point of origin, which, in turn, gives on the opportunity to either attack that person's deck/tank (see Deck, Tank) and by extension their brain, or may give one knowledge of the physical location of the person.
Traceroute: A TCP-IP network (see TCP-IP) tool used for tracing (see Trace) the origin of a connection. In brief, because a given IP connection may be handled by any number of routers (hops) before it gets to its destination, each packet from traceroute has one more hop count to live than the previous. When the hops-to-live counter expires, the router in which this occurs will send back an error message to the traceroute program that sent the packet. Thus, the route which a connection is going through will be listed out. No two IP packets need necessarily take the same route to a given destination, even though they usually do, so traceroute's results may sometimes not be entirely accurate.
UCSA: United Christian States of America. A new nation formed from the eastern seaboard states after the fall of the United States of America. The UCSA is known for its extreme intolerance. Many people of similar religious beliefs migrated there, rather than face internment and deprogramming in various camps during the U.N. occupation.
Virt: Virtual Environment.
Virus: A piece of computer program which, when attached to another computer program, causes itself to be replicated and propagated to other programs and systems. Frequently, the virus also changes the operating characteristics of the infected programs and systems, usually to the detriment of the owners.
Wirehead: A bullet consisting of a core wrapped in nickel-titanium nanowire (see: Nanowire), a memory metal which, when heated, as by impact with water-filled bodies, returns to its original shape, a large tangled mass of coils, imparting all the bullet's momentum to forcing those coils through flesh.
Wireless: Originally any radio signal, the term now exclusively means wireless digital networking, usually using one of the 802.11 family of protocols. Sometimes also called Wi-Fi or WiFi, a tradename of the Wi-Fi alliance, and a play on the term Hi-Fi, slang for high fidelity, a term used to designate highly accurate sound equipment.
Worm: A stand-alone program designed to replicate itself, propagate itself to other computers, and (usually) to cause some harm to the infected systems. Similar to a virus, save that worms are not attached to some other, legitimate program, but run on their own.
About the Author
James R. Strickland has been telling stories since before he could read or write. After a ten-year detour in system/network administration and technical support, he has returned to his English major roots and is pursuing a career as a novelist. He lives in Colorado with his wife, Marcia, and some number of cats. Visit his website at www.jamesrstrickland.com.
James R. Strickland, Looking Glass
