Snake oil (cryptography)

Snake oil (from the English snake oil ) is ( mainly in the area of software), the name given to a product that has little or no real function, but as a panacea for solving many problems is marketed.

The term " snake oil " comes from the mythology of the American Old West, where self-proclaimed faith healer sold on Medicine Shows " snake oil " as a cure for ailments of all kinds. In the Anglo- American world, the term " snake oil " is now used mainly as a synonym for quack medicine. The Eindeutschung to " snake oil " was consistently only for the transferred use regarding dubious software products.

Snake oil software is often found in software sectors, the technical background for the layman is difficult to understand or requires a lot of training. Find windy Wheeler slightly customers by promote your product with many important -sounding but meaningless technical terms. Thus, most examples of snake oil software come from the areas of cryptography, network security, or performance enhancement.

Example

The company Syncronys Soft Corp. sold 1995 a product called SoftRAM 95, which should, according to advertising claims double by compressing the usable under Windows memory and additionally speed up the computer system immensely. The magazine c't found by disassembling the program is that it indicated baseless statistics and otherwise fulfill any other functions.