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.

AUTHORS and HISTORY

The original version of condom was released in Roman times and was only marginally effective. With the advent of modern technology, condom now supports many more options and is much more effective.

The current release of condom was written by Ken Maupin at the University of Washington ([email protected]) and was last updated on 10/7/92.