Luser

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TTY 11
2. Lusers, Fair Share = 2%
*
Classic use of "luser" at the ITS login screen

Before the popularization of the Internet in the 1990s,

computer user.[1]
The word is a
loser. The term is partially interchangeable with the hacker term lamer
.

The term can also signify a

system administration. It is popular with technical support staff who have to deal with lusers as part of their job, often metaphorically employing a LART (Luser Attitude Readjustment Tool, also known as a clue-by-four,[3]
cluestick, or cluebat), meaning turning off the user's access to computer resources and the like.

History

The

hackers who disagreed on the appropriateness of the change struggled covertly, each changing the message behind the backs of the others; any time a user logged into the computer it was equally probable that a user would see, say, "users" or "losers". Finally, someone tried the compromise "lusers", and it stuck. Later, ITS
also had the command "luser", which attempted to summon assistance from a list of designated helpers.

Although ITS ceased to be used in the mid-1990s, use of the term continued to spread, partly because in Unix-style computer operating systems, "user" designates all unprivileged accounts, while the superuser, or root, is the special user account used for system administration. "root" is the conventional name of the user who has all rights or permissions (to all files and programs) in all modes (single- or multi-user). The usage lives on, however, and the term "luser" is often seen in program comments and on Usenet.

On

IRC, /lusers (which abbreviates "list users") is a common command to get the number of users connected to a server or network.[6]

See also

Notes and references

  1. .p. 214
  2. .p. 244
  3. ^ "clue by four". The Free Dictionary.
  4. ^ "luser". Retrieved 6 October 2014.
  5. ^ Roach, Roger A. (1969). "ADMIN - Administrator Privleged Commands". Github. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
  6. ^ "irchelp.org". Retrieved 6 October 2014.

External links

  • The dictionary definition of cluebat at Wiktionary
  • The dictionary definition of luser at Wiktionary

This article is based in part on the Jargon File, which is in the public domain.

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