cookie monster

n. [from the children's TV program Sesame Street ] Any of a family of early
(1970s) hacks reported on TOPS-10 , ITS , Multics , and elsewhere that would
lock up either the victim's terminal (on a timesharing machine) or the
console (on a batch mainframe ), repeatedly demanding I WANT A COOKIE. The
required responses ranged in complexity from COOKIE through HAVE A COOKIE
and upward. Folklorist Jan Brunvand (see FOAF ) has described these programs
as urban legends (implying they probably never existed) but they existed,
all right, in several different versions. See also wabbit. Interestingly,
the term cookie monster appears to be a retcon ; the original term was
cookie bear.

