Screaming tty
[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]
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verb (used without object) 1. to utter or make a harsh, shrill cry or sound: The child screeched hysterically. The brakes screeched. verb (used with object) 2. to utter with a screech: She screeched her warning. noun 3. a harsh, shrill cry or sound: an owl’s screech; the screech of brakes. noun 1. a shrill, […]
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verb (used without object) 1. to utter or make a harsh, shrill cry or sound: The child screeched hysterically. The brakes screeched. verb (used with object) 2. to utter with a screech: She screeched her warning. noun 3. a harsh, shrill cry or sound: an owl’s screech; the screech of brakes. noun 1. a shrill, […]