[Unix] A terminal line which spews an infinite number of random characters at the operating system. This can happen if the terminal is either disconnected or connected to a powered-off terminal but still enabled for login misconfiguration, misimplementation, or simple bad luck can start such a terminal screaming. A screaming tty or two can seriously degrade the performance of a vanilla Unix system the arriving "characters" are treated as userid/password pairs and tested as such. The Unix password encryption algorithm is designed to be computationally intensive in order to foil brute-force crack attacks, so although none of the logins succeeds the overhead of rejecting them all can be substantial. [Jargon File]

In addition suitable contents:
[ = ] [ ad ] [ ai ] [ al ] [ algorithm ] [ alt ] [ am ] [ an ] [ app ] [ ar ] [ arc ] [ arg ] [ as ] [ at ] [ b ] [ ba ] [ be ] [ br ] [ bs ] [ ca ] [ cc ] [ ch ] [ char ] [ character ] [ ck ] [ co ] [ com ] [ con ] [ connect ] [ cr ] [ crypt ] [ de ] [ design ] [ disc ] [ disconnect ] [ do ] [ du ] [ ec ] [ ed ] [ ee ] [ eg ] [ encryption ] [ er ] [ era ] [ es ] [ fi ] [ file ] [ finite ] [ fo ] [ for ] [ gh ] [ gi ] [ gn ] [ gr ] [ gu ] [ h ] [ hm ] [ hr ] [ id ] [ il ] [ in ] [ infinite ] [ int ] [ io ] [ ir ] [ is ] [ it ] [ J ] [ Jargon File ] [ la ] [ Lex ] [ li ] [ line ] [ lt ] [ lu ] [ ly ] [ ma ] [ man ] [ mo ] [ mod ] [ module ] [ mp ] [ na ] [ nc ] [ ne ] [ nf ] [ ng ] [ ni ] [ nn ] [ no ] [ ns ] [ nu ] [ om ] [ op ] [ operating system ] [ overhead ] [ pa ] [ password ] [ pe ] [ perf ] [ ph ] [ pl ] [ pt ] [ query ] [ random ] [ rc ] [ re ] [ ru ] [ sc ] [ se ] [ si ] [ sig ] [ sl ] [ so ] [ st ] [ su ] [ sy ] [ system ] [ T ] [ tar ] [ terminal ] [ test ] [ th ] [ to ] [ tr ] [ tt ] [ tty ] [ tw ] [ ug ] [ um ] [ us ] [ user ] [ va ] [ vanilla ] [ ve ] [ vi ] [ word ] [ ws ]