spoof
    n 1: a composition that imitates or misrepresents somebody's
         style, usually in a humorous way [syn: parody, lampoon,
         spoof, sendup, mockery, takeoff, burlesque,
         travesty, charade, pasquinade, put-on]
    v 1: make a parody of; "The students spoofed the teachers" [syn:
         spoof, burlesque, parody]

spoof
 vi.

    To capture, alter, and retransmit a communication stream in a way that
    misleads the recipient. As used by hackers, refers especially to altering
    TCP/IP packet source addresses or other packet-header data in order to
    masquerade as a trusted machine. This term has become very widespread and
    is borderline techspeak. Interestingly, it was already in use in its modern
    sense more than a century ago among Victorian telegraphers; it shows up in
    Kipling.

spoofing
spoof

   A technique used to reduce network overhead, especially in
   wide area networks (WAN).

   Some network protocols send frequent packets for management
   purposes.  These can be routing updates or keep-alive
   messages.  In a WAN this can introduce significant overhead,
   due to the typically smaller bandwidth of WAN connections.

   Spoofing reduces the required bandwidth by having devices,
   such as bridges or routers, answer for the remote devices.
   This fools (spoofs) the LAN device into thinking the remote
   LAN is still connected, even though it's not.  The spoofing
   saves the WAN bandwidth, because no packet is ever sent out on
   the WAN.

   LAN protocols today do not yet accommodate spoofing easily.

   ["Network Spoofing" by Jeffrey Fritz, BYTE, December 1994,
   pages 221 - 224].

   (1995-01-13)