cookie monster

[from the children's TV program Sesame Street] Any of a family of early (1970s) hacks reported on {TOPS-10}, {ITS}, {Multics}, and elsewhere that would lock up either the victim's terminal (on a timesharing machine) or the {console} (on a batch {mainframe}), repeatedly demanding "I WANT A COOKIE". The required responses ranged in complexity from "COOKIE" through "HAVE A COOKIE" and upward. Folklorist Jan Brunvand (see {FOAF}) has described these programs as urban legends (implying they probably never existed) but they existed, all right, in several different versions. See also {wabbit}. Interestingly, the term cookie monster appears to be a {retcon}; the original term was {cookie bear}.

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