NAME¶
condom - protection against viruses and prevention of child processes
SYNOPSIS¶
condom [
options] [
processid]
DESCRIPTION¶
condom provides protection against System Transmitted Viruses (STVs) that
may invade your system. Although the spread of such viruses across a network
can only be abated by aware and cautious users,
condom is the only
highly effective means of preventing viruses from entering your system (see
celibacy(1)). Any data passed to
condom by the protected process
will be blocked, as specified by the value of the
-s option (see
OPTIONS below).
condom is known to defend against the following
viruses and other malicious afflictions:
- •
- AIDS
- •
- Herpes Simplex (genital varieties)
- •
- Syphilis
- •
- Crabs
- •
- Genital warts
- •
- Gonhorrea
- •
- Chlamydia
- •
- Michelangelo
- •
- Jerusalem
When used alone or in conjunction with
pill(1),
sponge(1),
foam(1), and/or
setiud(3),
condom also prevents the
conception of a child process. If invoked from within a synchronous process,
condom has, by default, an 80% chance of preventing the external
processes from becoming parent processes (see the
-s option below).
When other process contraceptives are used, the chance of preventing a child
process from being forked becomes much greater. See
pill(1),
sponge(1),
foam(1), and
setiud(3) for more information.
If no options are given, the current user's login process (as determined by the
environment variable USER) is protected with a Trojan rough-cut latex condom
without a reservoir tip. The optional ``
processid'' argument is an
integer specifying the process to protect.
NOTE:
condom may only be used with a hard disk.
condom will
terminate abnormally with exit code -1 if used with a floppy disk (see
DIAGNOSTICS below).
OPTIONS¶
The following options may be given to
condom:
- -b brand
- brands are as follows:
- trojan (default)
- ramses
- sheik
- goldcoin
- fourex
- -m material
- The valid materials are:
- latex (default)
- saranwrap
- membrane
- WARNING! The membrane option is not endorsed
by the System Administrator General as an effective barrier against
certain viruses. It is supported only for the sake of tradition.
- -f flavor
- The following flavors are currently supported:
- plain (default)
- apple
- banana
- cherry
- cinnamon
- licorice
- orange
- peppermint
- raspberry
- spearmint
- strawberry
- -r
- Toggle reservoir tip (default is no reservoir tip)
- -s strength
- strength is an integer between 20 and 100 specifying
the resilience of condom against data passed to condom by
the protected process. Using a larger value of strength increases
condom's protective abilities, but also reduces interprocess
communication. A smaller value of strength increases interprocess
communication, but also increases the likelihood of a security breach. An
extremely vigorous process or one passing an enormous amount of data to
condom will increase the chance of condom's failure. The
default strength is 80%.
- -t texture
- Valid textures are:
- rough (default)
- ribbed
- bumps
- lubricated
- (provides smoother interaction between processes)
WARNING: The use of an external application to
condom in order to reduce
friction between processes has been proven in benchmark tests to decrease
condom's strength factor! If execution speed is important to your
process, use the ``
-t lubricated'' option.
DIAGNOSTICS¶
condom terminates with one of the following exit codes:
- -1
- An attempt was made to use condom on a floppy
disk.
- 0
- condom exited successfully (no data was passed to
the synchronous process).
- 1
- condom failed and data was allowed through. The
danger of transmission of an STV or the forking of a child process is
inversely proportional to the number of other protections employed and is
directly proportional to the ages of the processes involved.
BUGS¶
condom is
NOT 100% effective at preventing a child process from
being forked or at deterring the invasion of a virus (although the System
Administrator General has deemed that
condom is the most effective
means of preventing the spread of system transmitted viruses). See
celibacy(1) for information on a 100% effective program for preventing
these problems.
Remember, the use of
sex(1) and other related routines should only occur
between mature, consenting processes. If you must use
sex(1), please
employ
condom to protect your process and your synchronous process. If
we are all responsible, we can stop the spread of STVs.
AUTHORS and HISTORY¶
The original version of
condom was released in Roman times and was only
marginally effective. With the advent of modern technology,
condom now
supports many more options and is much more effective.
The current release of
condom was written by Ken Maupin at the University
of Washington (maupin@cs.washington.edu) and was last updated on 10/7/92.
SEE ALSO¶
celibacy(1),
sex(1),
pill(1),
sponge(1),
foam(1), and
setiud(3)