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"I took the Minnesota multiphasic profile test once, and I tested out as paranoid, cyclothymic, neurotic, and schizophrenic. But I also tested out as an incorrigible liar!"
- Philip K. Dick
 |
| Net Shutdown Worm | ||
| A tapeworm designed to shut down a nationwide network in the event of national emergency. |
In the novel, much use is made of the idea of a computer worm (or tapeworm); Brunner originated the term as well as the idea.
Interestingly, computer tapeworms are not just used for malicious purposes. For example, the government has populated the 'net with a very special tapeworm code developed at a place code-named Electric Skillet.
| This is indeed the father and mother of all tapeworms. It's of a type known as parthenogenetic. If you're acquainted with contemporary data-processing jargon, you'll have noticed how much use it makes of terminology derived from the study of living animals. And with reason. Not for nothing is a tapeworm called a tapeworm. It can be made to breed. Most can only do so if they are fertilized; that's to say, if they're interfered with from outside. For example, the worm that prevents the Fedcomps from monitoring calls to Hearing Aid, and the similar but larger one that was released at Weychopee—Electric Skillet—to shut down the net in the event of enemy occupation: those are designed to lay dormant until tampered with. That's true of all phage-type worms. |
| Technovelgy from The Shockwave Rider,
by John Brunner. Published by Harper and Row in 1975 Additional resources -
|
It's also interesting to note that the earliest use of real-life computer tapeworms was beneficial; it searched a small network looking for computers with idle time.
Read more about John Brunner's computer tapeworm.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Shockwave Rider
More Ideas
and Technology by John Brunner
Tech news articles related to The Shockwave Rider
Tech news articles related to works by John Brunner
Net Shutdown Worm-related
news articles:
- CIA's 'Silent Horizon' Internet War Games
- The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 Could Shut Down Your Internet
- Egypt Drops Dime, Pulls Plug On Internet
- Does China Have An Internet Kill Switch?
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| AI Worms That Spread |
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'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
'Oscar picked up a trowel. 'I'm the tool for the mortar,' the little trowel squeaked cheerfully.'
'... he waited for the robotrix attendant to finish fueling up his ship.'
The Roujin Z system provides care to fully bedridden patients - and then some!
'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.'
It's not really polite to tear the limbs off robots.
'...the imaginary companions discovered by needful children.'
