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"Science fiction and science have always danced around each other. Science fiction is the subconscious of science."
- Greg Bear
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| National Network Surveillance | ||
| A system for providing the government with a way to monitor computer network use. |
The Shockwave Rider provides a very early reference to the idea of Federal surveillance of computer networks. In this excerpt, a person calls the special anonymous service called Hearing Aid to vent his rage at the system.
| From a public veephone at the railcar terminal linking Tarnover to the nearest town
he called Hearing Aid, for the first time in years, and for one dark lonely hour poured
out the secrets of his heart. It was a catharsis, a purgation. But long before he had
regained his room he was shaking, haunted by the fear that Hearing Aid's famous
promise ("Only I heard that!") might not be true. How could it be? It was absurd!
From Canaveral the tendril-ears of federal computers wove through his society like mycelia. No place could possibly be immune. All night he lay awake in fear, expecting his door to be flung open and stern silent men to take him under arrest. By dawn he was half-minded to kill himself. Miraculously, there followed no disaster |
| Technovelgy from The Shockwave Rider,
by John Brunner. Published by Harper and Row in 1975 Additional resources -
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| New Train Station Offers Minority Report-Style Signs |
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'Then they press one of these here thirteen buttons...'
'You're a stable, rock-bottom mining robot, except that you're equipped to handle six subsidiaries in direct coordination...'
'The crawling, exploring object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...'
'It radiates outward in a cone which, by the time it has reached our section of space, is many lightyears across.'
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock.'
'... with a weird simulation of life, the ten forked ends of each arm commenced a rattling pressing of the buttons.'
'Each of the four areas is enclosed by a sonic wall...'
