Sneakernet

Noun · Hacker Culture

Definitions

  1. A humorous term for physically transporting data on storage media by walking it from one machine or location to another instead of sending it over a network. It is often used ironically when bandwidth, isolation, or policy makes physical transfer easier or necessary.

    In plain English: Moving files by carrying storage devices around instead of using a network.

    Example: "The dataset was so large and the network so restricted that sneakernet was actually the fastest option."

Related Terms