A secret message or screen buried in an application. Typically, easter eggs are used to display the credits for the development team or to display a humorous message. To see an easter egg, you need to know a special procedure or sequence of keystrokes.
For example, follow these instructions to see a list of people who worked on the User Assistance feature of Microsoft Word 2000:
1. Open Microsoft Word2000
2. Press F1 or click the "Office Assistant" button
3. Under the "What would you like to do?", type "Cast" (No quotes)
4. Click SEARCH
5. Click the MICROSOFT OFFICE 2000 USER ASSISTANCE STAFF topic
6. Click the graphic in the Microsoft Word Help screen
Easter eggs in computer games are quite common and may be funny scenes, hidden levels, or other extras gamers might discover while playing.
The Easter Egg Archive Exhaustive collection of information about easter eggs. Includes eggs for PCs, Macs, calculators, and even one for NextStep. Most of the eggs come from people who send them in by e-mail. This site is maintained by David Nagy-Farkas.
Easter eggs and the Trusted Computing Base The summary of a presentation by M.E. Kabay at NATO Headquarters in Brussels in an unclassified security-awareness briefing concerning computer crime implications for national security.
