condom(1) ********* Eunuch Programmer's Manual ********* condom(1)
Name: condom - Protection against viruses and prevention of child
processes
Synopsis: condom [options] [processid]
Description: condom provides protection against System Transmitted
Viruses (STVs) that may invade your system. Although the spread of such
viruses across a network can only be abated by aware and cautious users,
condom is the only highly-effective means of preventing viruses from
entering your system (see celibacy(1)). Any data passed to condom by
the protected process will be blocked, as specified by the value of the -s
option (see OPTIONS below). condom is known to defend against the
following viruses and other malicious afflictions...
- AIDS
- Herpes Simplex (genital varieties)
- Syphilis
- Crabs
- Genital warts
- Gonhorrea
- Chlamydia
- Michelangelo
- Jerusalem
When used alone or in conjunction with pill(1), sponge(1), foam(1), and/or
setiud(3), condom also prevents the conception of a child process. If
invoked from within a synchronous process, condom has, by default, an
80% chance of preventing the external processes from becoming parent processes
(see the -s option below). When other process contraceptives are used, the
chance of preventing a child process from being forked becomes much greater.
See pill(1), sponge(1), foam(1), and setiud(3) for more information.
If no options are given, the current user's login process (as determined
by the environment variable USER) is protected with a Trojan rough-cut latex
condom without a reservoir tip. The optional 'processid' argument is an
integer specifying the process to protect.
Note: condom may only be used with a hard disk. condom will
terminate abnormally with exit code -1 if used with a floppy disk (see
DIAGNOSTICS below).
Options: The following options may be given to condom:
-b BRAND BRANDs are as follows:
- trojan (default)
- ramses
- sheik
- goldcoin
- fourex
-m MATERIAL The valid MATERIALs are:
- latex (default)
- saranwrap
- membrane -- WARNING! The membrane option is not endorsed by the
System Administrator General as an effective barrier against certain viruses.
It is supported only for the sake of tradition.
-f FLAVOR The following FLAVORs are currently supported:
- plain (default)
- apple
- banana
- cherry
- cinnamon
- licorice
- orange
- peppermint
- raspberry
- spearmint
- strawberry
-r Toggle reservoir tip (default is no reservoir tip)
-s STRENGTH STRENGTH is an integer between 20 and 100 specifying the
resilience of condom against data passed to condom by the
protected process. Using a larger value of STRENGTH increases condom's
protective abilities, but also reduces interprocess communication. A smaller
value of STRENGTH increases interprocess communication, but also increases the
likelihood of a security breach. An extremely vigorous process or one passing
an enormous amount of data to condom will increase the chance of
condom's
failure. The default STRENGTH is 80%.
-t TEXTURE Valid TEXTUREs are:
- rough (default)
- ribbed
- bumps
- lubricated (provides smoother interaction between processes)
Warning: The use of an external application to condom in order to
reduce friction between processes has been proven in benchmark tests to
decrease condom's strength factor! If execution speed is important to
your process, use the '-t lubricated' option.
Diagnostics:
condom terminates with one of the following exit codes:
- -1 An attempt was made to use condom on a floppy disk.
- 0 condom exited successfully (no data was passed to the
synchronous process).
- 1 condom failed and data was allowed through. The danger of
transmission of an STV or the forking of a child process is inversely
proportional to the number of other protections employed and is directly
proportional to the ages of the processes involved.
Bugs: condom is NOT 100% effective at preventing a child process from
being forked or at deterring the invasion of a virus (although the System
Administrator General has deemed that condom is the most effective
means of preventing the spread of system transmitted viruses). See
celibacy(1) for information on a 100% effective program for preventing these
problems.
Remember... the use of sex(1) and other related routines should only occur
between mature, consenting processes. If you must use sex(1), please employ
condom to protect your process and your synchronous process. If we are
all responsible, we can stop the spread of STVs.
See Also: celibacy(1), sex(1), pill(1), sponge(1), foam(1), and
setiud(3)