Glossary of Terms

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F

Facilities Planning

Facility Management

Facsimile Converter

Facsimile Recorder

Facsimile Transmission

Factor

Fail

Fail-Safe Operation

Failure

Failure Control

Fair Credit Billing Act of 1974 (amended 1986)

False acceptance rate (FAR)

False rejection rate (FRR[AuQ2][AuQ2])

Fan

Fandango On Core

FAQ

FAQL

FAR (false acceptance rate)

Farkled

Farming

Fault

Fault Tolerance

Faulty

FAX

FCA

Fd Leak

FDDI

FDDI-2

FDIU

FDM

Fear And Loathing

Feature

Feature Creature

FEC

Federal

Federal Computer Criminals

Federal Computer System

Federal Data Processing Centers

Federal Information Processing Standards

Federal Managers Financial Integrity Act

Federal Property And Administrative Service Act

Federal Property And Administrative Services Act Of 1949

Federal Records Act

Federal Register

Federal Telecommunications Fund

Federal Trade Commission (FTC)

Federal Wiretap Act

Feep

Feeper

Feeping Creature

Feeping Creaturism

Fence

Fencepost Error

FER

Fetch Protection

Fiber Distributed Data Interface

FidoNet

Field

Fielded Equipment

FIFO

File

File Authentication Code

File integrity checkers

File Management System

File Protection

File Transfer Protocol

File Transfer, Access, And Management

File-infector viruses

Fill

Filter

FIN

Final Evaluation Report

Financial Management Information

Financial Management System

Fine

Finger

Finger-Pointing Syndrome

Fingerprint recognition

Fingerprint Signal

Finn

FIPS

Fire Prevention And Protection

FIREFLY

Firehose Syndrome

Firewall appliances

Firewall architecture

Firewall Machine

Firmware Security

Firmy

First-In First-Out

FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act)

FISINT

FITNR

Fix

Fixed COMSEC Facility

FIXME

Flag

Flaky

Flame

Flamer

Flap

Flat

Flatten

Flavor

Flaw

Flaw Hypothesis

Flaw Hypothesis Methodology

Flippy

Flood

Flooding DoS attacks

Flow Control Procedure

Flush

Flux

Flypage

Flytrap

FOAF

FOCI

FOI

FOIA

Follow-up report

Foonly

For Official Use Only (FOUO) Data

For The Rest Of Us

Fora

Foreign Government Information

Foreign Intelligence Service

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)

Forked

Formal Access Approval

Formal Cryptographic Access (FCA)

Formal Development Methodology (FDM)

Formal Methods For Security Design

Formal Security Policy

Formal Security Policy Model

Formal Top-Level

Formal Top-Level Specification

Formal Verification

Format

Formerly Restricted Data

Fortuitous Conduction

Fortuitous Conductor

Forum

Forward Error Correction

Fossil

FOT&E

FOUO

Four-Color Glossies

Fourth Amendment

FQR

FQT

Fragile

Fragment offset

Frame

Fraud

Fraud, Waste And Abuse

FRD

Frednet

FreeBSD

Freedom Of Information Act

Freeze

Frequency Hopping

Frequency Of Major Failure

Fried

Frink

Friode

Frob

Front-End Processing

Front-End Processor

Front-End Security

Front-End Security Filter

Frotz

Frotzed

Frowney

FRR (false rejection rate)

Fry

FSD

FSRS

FSTS

FTAM

FTC (Federal Trade Commission)

FTLS

F-T-P

FTS

FUBAR

Fuel Up

Full Bit Emanation

Full Financial Disclosure

Full Maintenance

Full Monty, The

Full protocol decoding

Functional Testing

Funds

Funky

Fuzz

Feature

n. A good property or behavior (as of a program). Whether it was intended or not is immaterial.
An intended property or behavior (as of a program). Whether it is good or not is immaterial (but if bad, it is also a misfeature).
A surprising property or behavior; in particular, one that is purposely inconsistent because it works better that way -- such an inconsistency is therefore a feature and not a bug. This kind of feature is sometimes called a miswart; see that entry for a classic example.
A property or behavior that is gratuitous or unnecessary, though perhaps also impressive or cute. For example, one feature of Common LISP's `format' function is the ability to print numbers in two different Roman-numeral formats (see bells, whistles, and gongs).
A property or behavior that was put in to help someone else but that happens to be in your way.
A bug that has been documented. To call something a feature sometimes means the author of the program did not consider the particular case, and that the program responded in a way that was unexpected but not strictly incorrect. A standard joke is that a bug can be turned into a feature simply by documenting it (then theoretically no one can complain about it because it's in the manual), or even by simply declaring it to be good. "That's not a bug, that's a feature!" is a common catchphrase. See also feetch feetch, creeping featurism, wart, green lightning. The relationship among bugs, features, misfeatures, warts, and miswarts might be clarified by the following hypothetical exchange between two hackers on an airliner A "This seat doesn't recline. " B "That's not a bug, that's a feature. There is an emergency exit door built around the window behind you, and the route has to be kept clear. " A "Oh. Then it's a misfeature; they should have increased the spacing between rows here. " B "Yes. But if they'd increased spacing in only one section it would have been a wart -- they would've had to make nonstandard-length ceiling panels to fit over the displaced seats. " A "A miswart, actually. If they increased spacing throughout they'd lose several rows and a chunk out of the profit margin. So unequal spacing would actually be the Right Thing. " B "Indeed. " `Undocumented feature' is a common, allegedly humorous euphemism for a bug.