spoofing

[Victor Steinbok]

OED has Spoof v. and Spoof n.
Spoofing n. (along with adj.) is under derivatives:

>   ?spoofing n.
> 1920 Quill Dec. 9   The after-dinner speeches..were brilliant
> impromptu *spoofings directed at the guest of honor.
> 1965    H. Kahn On Escalation v. 86   If the super-ready status is
> accompanied by limited 'spoofing' or 'jamming' or other hostile acts.

The verb has three subentries and is listed as "colloq. or slang".

> colloq. and slang.
> a. trans. To hoax or humbug; +to avoid by means of a ruse. Also absol.
> b. To make (something) appear foolish by means of parody; to 'send
> up'. Also absol.
> c. To render (a radar system, etc.) useless by providing it with false
> information.

Now compare this to the Wiki disambiguation list for all-inclusive "spoof":

> Spoof, spoofs, spoofer, or spoofing may refer to:
>
> 1. Parody by imitation
> 2. Satire, a literary technique of writing or art which principally
> ridicules its subject
> 3. Forgery of goods or documents
> 4. Spoofing attack, falsifying data on a telecommunications network
> 5. Spoofing (anti-piracy measure), a technique to curb unlawful online
> downloading
> 6. Referrer spoofing, a type of spoofing attack
> 7. Protocol spoofing, a technique to increase performance in data
> communications
> 8. Spoof (game), a guessing game
> 9. IP address spoofing
> 10. Caller ID spoofing
> 11. E-mail spoofing
> 12. Website spoofing
> 13. SMS spoofing

I added the numbers instead of bullets to make things simpler.

1-3. are just definitions of "spoof". 8. is just one-off and not
helpful. The remaining nine are variations on "spoof v. c." and most
derive from hacker slang, no doubt. (And 13. is a variation on 10.) But
there are four important factors:

1) they are all "spoofing", not "spoof" (v. or n.)
2) most are no longer either slang or jargon
3) if the narrow meaning of "spoof v. c." is enough to be included, so
should at least some of these
4) most of the time that kind of "spoofing" is determined from context

A bit more on the latter--when talking about phones, for example,
someone may just say "spoofing" instead of "caller ID spoofing". And
most, if not all, of these come with the corresponding verb "spoof".

Of all the dictionaries in OneLook, Wiktionary and Dictionary.com are
the only ones to have an entry for spoofing n.

Wiktionary
> 1. The action of the verb to spoof.
> 2. (computing) A method of attacking a computer program, in which the
> program is modified so as to appear to be working normally when in
> reality it has been modified with the purpose to circumvent security
> mechanisms.
> 3. (computing) Phishing.

Note that these only cover the basic OED derivative and Wiki 4. and 11.
above.

Dictionary.com pulls out definitions from multiple dictionaries, but
only Collins ED--Complete&Unabridged 10 has the respective entry:

> the act or an instance of impersonating another person on the internet
> or via email

There is also a citation from the On-line Computing Dictionary with this
reference: "Network Spoofing" by Jeffrey Fritz, BYTE, December 1994, pp.
221 - 224.

Everyone else is still catching up.

     VS-)

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