condom

1. The protective plastic bag that accompanies 3.5-inch microfloppy diskettes. Rarely, also used of (paper) disk envelopes. Unlike the write protect tab, the condom (when left on) not only impedes the practice of {SEX} but has also been shown to have a high failure rate as drive mechanisms attempt to access the disk -- and can even fatally frustrate insertion.
2. The protective cladding on a {light pipe}.
3. keyboard condom: A flexible, transparent plastic cover for a keyboard, designed to provide some protection against dust and {programming fluid} without impeding typing.
4. elephant condom: the plastic shipping bags used inside cardboard boxes to protect hardware in transit.
5. n. obs. A dummy directory /usr/tmp/sh, created to foil the {Great Worm} by exploiting a portability bug in one of its parts. So named in the title of a comp.risks article by Gene Spafford during the Worm crisis, and again in the text of The Internet Worm Program: An Analysis, Purdue Technical Report CSD-TR-823.

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