cybercrud

/si:´ber·kruhd/, n.

1. [coined by Ted Nelson] Obfuscatory tech-talk. Verbiage with a high MEGO factor. The computer equivalent of bureaucratese.

2. Incomprehensible stuff embedded in email. First there were the “Received” headers that show how mail flows through systems, then MIME (Multi-purpose Internet Mail Extensions) headers and part boundaries, and now huge blocks of radix-64 for PEM (Privacy Enhanced Mail) or PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) digital signatures and certificates of authenticity. This stuff all serves a purpose and good user interfaces should hide it, but all too often users are forced to wade through it.