honey pot

( n.)

   1.  A box designed to attract {cracker}s so that they can be observed
   in  action. It is usually well isolated from the rest of the network,
   but  has  extensive  logging  (usually  network layer, on a different
   machine).  Different  from  an  {iron  box} in that its purpose is to
   attract,  not  merely  observe.  Sometimes,  it  is  also a defensive
   network  security  tactic  -- you set up an easy-to-crack box so that
   your real servers don't get messed with. The concept was presented in
   Cheswick & Bellovin's book Firewalls and Internet Security.

   2.  A mail server that acts as an open relay when a single message is
   attempted to send through it, but discards or diverts for examination
   messages that are detected to be part of a spam run.

[glossary]
[Reference(s) to this entry by made by: {iron box}]